Find the Best Deals on Airfare with Google Flights

Booking flight tickets at the last minute can be costly, especially during impromptu travel plans. The price usually depends on the airline, destination, and cabin class, and can often be quite expensive. Unless you have miles or discount coupons, you will have to pay a premium. However, flight booking platforms like Skyscanner and Hopper offer estimated prices for advance bookings. With its recent update, Google Flights now provides even better insights, including information on the cheapest rates for flight tickets.

This is how you can book the cheapest plane tickets with Google Flights.

1. Know the cheapest time to book

Google Flights allows users to check whether the listed price of the flight they want is low or high compared to trends. Its new advanced insights now tell the user the best time to book a flight – whether it’s two months before the flight or closer to take-off. Google says: “If you search based on reliable trend data, you can now see when prices have typically been lowest so you can book the dates and destinations of your choice.”

2. Turn on price tracking

If you’ve decided on your destination, you can take advantage of Google Flights’ price tracking feature. You can set tracking alerts for specific dates and select cabin class and destination. Google will automatically do the hard work for you and notify you when ticket prices drop significantly. It also informs you if the price of the flight is going up, so you can take advantage of the current cheaper price.

To do this, go to Google Flights and select the number of stops, cabin class and number of tickets. Then select your departure point and destination. Tap “Track Fares” to enable alerts for this flight route.

3. Grab price guarantees

Google is currently testing a new feature called Price Guarantee. Because it’s only available in the pilot program, it’s only available on select Book on Google routes on Google Flights in the US. When you search for a flight, a price guarantee means you won’t see a cheaper price for that flight in the future. If the price drops after booking the tickets, Google will pay you back the difference via your Google Pay account. Users can get a total of up to $500 back per calendar year for up to three open rate guaranteed bookings at a time.