I was talking with my optometrist about some upcoming travels and he told me that he would love to travel more but flights are so expensive! I asked if he ever tried using Google Flights. I was shocked that he didn’t even know about Google Flights! It is a tool I have grown to love as they continue to introduce new features and the best way to find cheap airfare for where you want to go. For more tips on finding cheap flights check out my blog post, How To Find Cheap Airfare.
Google Flights has many features which may be difficult to find for those who aren’t looking. Here is a breakdown of each feature I love:
Search for flight filters
Google Flights offers all that you would expect from an airfare search engine and more! Yes, they have the basic filters like where to & from, is it a one way, multi-city, or round trip flight, how many passengers, and what dates, but they offer more filters. As of today these are the filters they offer (as seen from left to right):
Bags
Why might this be important? Well, some airlines don’t include any bags (carry-on or checked) in your ticket price. As for me, those are the airlines I avoid because, though they market themselves as cheap or affordable, you often pay the same or just about the same for a not as nice flight. This is also super helpful when it comes to carry-on only traveling because you can find a nicer airline that has a base price with only carry-on luggage at a better rate than the fore-mentioned “cheaper” airline. Especially when traveling longer than 2 hours I want my seat to be comfortable!
Stops
A lot of “cheap” airfare includes multiple stops. I personally think paying a little more for less stops is worth it because you generally have a nicer airplane and flights. When searching for a flight you can specify how many stops you are willing to have. This is super important to have specified when you track your flights so that it pulls the right data (I will share more on tracking flights later).
Airlines**
We live in a world of points and being able to filter by airlines really helps if you have a ton of points or credit with a specific airline. There are three major alliances that airlines fall into: Star Alliance (Air Canada, United, etc), Oneworld (American Airlines, British Airways, etc), and SkyTeam (Air France, Delta, etc). You can choose an alliance or a single airline or all if you want. I personally don’t use this tool often but when I had a specific airline I had to fly through for work it was mega helpful!
Price
After you have an idea of what the flight you want should cost (see How to Find Cheap Airfare for more info), you can slide that slider down to the cost you know is average for your flights. This means you will only see results that are cheaper; again this is helpful when you want to track your flights.
Times
When I travel I like to get the most out of my time at the location and sometimes that means strategically getting in at a time so I can adjust to the time difference. This is where filtering by arrival time is super helpful. In other cases, I don’t want to take a day off to travel so I will want to filter by departure times that align with my work schedule. Either way, I love this tool!
Connecting Airports
When nonstop flights are not an option I try to choose layovers in airports that I either love or have never been to so I have something new to explore. Sometimes a long layover is inevitable and that is where being able to choose the connecting airport is great. I have friends who live in the upper west side so when traveling with a long layover internationally I try to have my connecting airport be JFK so I can see them for a few hours between flights.
More
In this section we have two filters: flight duration & separate tickets. Flight duration goes along nicely with stops but just because you only have one stop doesn’t mean that stop isn’t a 10 hour layover. If you want to avoid that just filter according to what a short layover or nonstop flight timeframe is. Google Flights is great because sometimes the best deals means flying with two different airlines for different parts of your trip. If you aren’t into that, you can hide those separate tickets.
Date grid
Remember how I mentioned you need to be flexible? Well, this is partially why! I think it is so great that Google shows you if there are cheaper flights that may be adjacent to your desired dates. Date grid is also helpful when you are flexible with how long you are traveling because it may be cheaper to stay an extra day.
Price graph
Similar to the date grid, just a little more visual when it comes to selecting your travel start date. This is super helpful when you know you only want to stay a certain amount of days at your location and have flexibility as to when those dates are.
Nearby airports
Helpful when trying to find the best price, especially when you are in an area with more than one airport. I will often use it when traveling to a new location to vet pricing. Sometimes it is worth it to fly a little farther and take public transport/Lyft etc into where you are staying than to fly into the airport right there. It all depends on the situation.
Price insight
One of my favorite tools Google Flights offers is their price insight. I use this as I start to gather research about what a typical flight to a new destination costs. This tool is the basis of what is used to alert you when you track. flight that the price is low or high. I love the visual because it shows you that the flights could in fact be cheaper and much more expensive (as seen by the data Google collects). I believe this is only visible when you don’t have any filters selected, if you see it with filters selected please let me know so I can update this blog!
Track flights
Once you have filtered the flights according to your needs (see how the filters are blue indicating I have set some restrictions?), then it is time to track your flights. This is really only helpful for future travel, compared to spontaneous need to leave in a week travel. Tracking your flights means, if you are signed into your gmail or Google account, you will get emails alerting you of price changes.
When Jordan and I went to England last year this is exactly what I did. I knew about what dates we would be able to go (since Jordan was still in school) and I set up restrictions according to the research I had already done. For us that meant, I knew we could fly nonstop to London (specifically Heathrow) from Salt Lake with carry-on luggage and anything $650 per ticket and under would be a steal. Thanks to tracking, I was alerted to the price drop and I believe we paid $620 for this nonstop flight. I even received the alert a day earlier than the premium airfare deal site I subscribe to! That trip solidified my faith in Google Flights and I have been an advocate ever since!
Other perks
No pop ups
Unlike other flight searching sites, there are zero pop ups when searching through Google Flights. I really hate pop ups.
Best departing flights
I love that they pull a few flights that best meet your filters and are the cheapest to the top. This will show right under the filters and often before the price insights.
date selection
An upgrade to the basic search tooling, I love that Google will show you when you select your dates what dates are cheaper to fly on from the get go. Super helpful when deciding when to return as well, because right away you may see it is cheaper to fly home on Monday compared to Sunday.
** Note: Google Flights may not show flights from certain airlines. I know currently they do not include SouthWest in their results.
I am kind of obsessed with Google Flights, if you haven’t guessed by now. I think they do a great job at really helping people find the best fares. Also, from a design perspective their tools are really intuitive and useful. Hopefully, this guide was helpful to you! Let me know if you end up booking or even searching through Google Flights and what you experience is like!
Related content: How to Find Cheap Airfare, Bucket List Warm Weather Getaways
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