Updated 5/22/24: Southwest Airlines flights are now officially accessible through Google Flights (below). This is a great addition to the platform, as we have suggested Southwest being one of our top US Domestic Airlines…Making this great method of tracking, that much better!
When my friends and family members are looking to find affordable flights, and inevitably ask me “where do I start?” I always respond with the same answer: Google Flights. It is always the first tool I open when starting a search, and often the one I refer to the most, until I book. What makes Google Flights my go-to answer for “Where do I start looking for affordable flights?”. Even more importantly, How can you make sure you are using Google Flights properly to maximize your search? All that, and more, below the sweet, sweet picture.
CONTENTS
1. By The Power of Google
2. What is Google Flights?
3. Standard Search
4. Multi City Departure Search
5. Open Destination Search
6. Broadening Your Search
7. Flexible Travel Time Searches
8. Considerations
9. Final Thoughts
By The Power of Google…
Except for maybe the unlikelihood that you have been living under a rock for the past 20 years, it is probably safe to assume that you are familiar with Google Search Engine. More than that, you probably use it (or one of its associated tools) on a daily basis. This is not surprising, as Google has spent the last two decades or so (and countless dollars), building a friendly looking, entry level user interface over a vast wealth of complicated information and algorithms. Think of it as the world’s largest reverse-mullet (party in the front, business in the back). That juxtaposition of “ease of use” and “complexity” has created one of the most powerful tools in the span of human history and has shaped both, how we view and use computers and what information is readily available to us. This makes sense when you remember that Google has, literally, all the data. We are talking billions of terabytes (see: “a metric sh*t ton”) of data collected over the years and (some of it) is readily available at the fingertips of just about every person on the planet. If that terrifies you even in the slightest, please remember they also showcase whimsical Google Doodles regularly, so…there’s that.
What is Google Flights?
Not to be misconstrued, I want to be clear: I love Google.
For posterity sake, I will repeat: I love Google
(do you think twice will be sufficient to trigger my SEO optimizations?).
Jokes aside, Google Flights (much like its greater “parent” search engine) is truly the most useful tool in the cheap-flight-hunter’s toolbox. Designed with the same “user friendly” to “complex data” ratio in mind, Google Flights is able to offer a very powerful (and very versatile) look at available flights matching (or close-to-matching) your desired criteria. Interestingly, it is that “close-to-matching” functionality that really continues to give Google Flights a leg up on its competition (for lack of a better word), but more on that below. As far as right now, all you need is a date and a place.
Using Google Flights
Standard Search (not recommended)
Though not recommended, as there are much (much) better ways to search flights using Google Flights (that will yield much, much better results), getting started with the tool is as easy as inputting 3 criteria. A departure location (the airport from which you would like to leave), an arrival location (the airport to which you would like to travel) and your travel dates. While this will likely not produce the most affordable flights to get you where you’re going, you can see that the output not only offers what you would expect to see (flights for your dates, sorted by price, length or layovers) but also the ability to track prices or show a date grid or price graph. We’ll get to those features in a bit, but as you can see, the prices for this particular search ($800 from Denver to Barcelona from January 5-January 12th) are ok (not great). I think we can do better.
Tip #1: Adding Multiple Departure Cities
One of the best (and easiest to enable) features of Google Flights is the ability to add multiple departure cities, and search the lot. In our Tourism 101 article, we discuss flexibility as maybe the most important characteristic of most cheap travelers. Flexibility is broad and can be applied to one of many criteria, including departure city, which can be pretty fruitful. This can include either, departure cities within driving distance (like Colorado Springs or Cheyenne, WY from Denver) or even other major hubs nationwide. Consider this, If a flight from New York to Barcelona is $500 cheaper than one from Denver to Barcelona AND you can find flights from Denver to New York for $300, you just saved yourself $200. On top of which, if New York interests you, you can build a stayover in the Big Apple as an added leg of your trip.
NOTE: Using Multi-City for Departure is easy! Just go to the departure field, enter a departure city then press the “+” to add another. This can be done multiple times, so be sure to play around with departure cities that make sense to you.
As you can see above, adding multiple cities to your search criteria (in this case, New York, Dallas and Chicago) can yield significantly better results. In this particular case, it is about $200 cheaper to fly from Newark to Barcelona on those particular dates. You might =be hard pressed to find a flight for under $200 from Denver to Newark (unless you have some flexibility on your travel dates), but it is worth checking out to see what fits best for your situation.
Tip #2: Explore Multiple Destination Cities
OK, we saw some potential savings by checking other departure airports. But, in my experience, a far more useful strategy is to play with the arrival city. This is for a couple of reasons. For starters, if you are traveling from the US, most continents and regions outside of the US will have better transportation options. For instance, as I mentioned above that you would be hard pressed to find a Denver to New York flight for under $200…you would probably be hard pressed to find a France to Barcelona flight for OVER $200 USD. At the time of this writing, in most cases, they will likely be under $100.
The second main reason that I prefer this method to multi-city departure (but, please, feel free to use both), is that you are more likely able to take advantage of an international destination (as opposed to domestic), if it is not your final destination. For instance, if I do the above multi-city departure I can enjoy some time in New York. However New York from Denver is not a really difficult trip to make happen on any given weekend. That being said, and you can see below, using the above travel dates, I can fly from Denver to Dublin Ireland for $520 round trip (RT). It then would cost me $54 RT to fly from Dublin to Barcelona. This has been the cheapest option so far, and I am FAR more likely to include a few extra days in Ireland as I would be New York.
Tip #3: Broaden Your Search Even More
So, you see…we are off to a pretty good search and we haven’t really done anything too complicated. Google Flights intuitive UI has made it easy to knock a few hundred dollars off of our trip AND potentially added an entirely new country (Ireland) to it. But, as Vizzini, the Sicilian villain from The Princess Bride once said “I’m just getting started!”
Let’s say that Barcelona was kind of a whim. You had heard from a friend that it is a wonderful city (it is) but other than, you weren’t really “locked” into it for any particular reason. I mean, most European cities are wonderful, and maybe you have not visited any. You were biased by something you heard, but now that you found flights to Ireland for $520 RT, you are starting to think a bit more broadly (remember, Tourism 101?): “What other European countries can I get to at a low price?” or even “Once I am in Europe, where can I get for an extremely low price?”…NOW you are thinking like a Would Be Wanderer! And, thankfully…we got you.
Google Flights not only allows for multi city searches, but for entire continents input as a criteria. This search will now trigger the map, in which you can search all over Europe to find viable options you may have never even considered. Maybe it makes sense to save Barcelona for a later trip to Portugal (yes, please) and shift gears this go-around to include Ireland and Budapest (for +$50). The point is, the available options become infinitely more abundant.
EXPERT LEVEL TIP: Once you are completely unbound by destination, and searching “what flights are affordable?” as your main criteria, Google Flights map can be zoomed to include anywhere in the World. Want to see what flights look like to Australia AND Africa AND Asia…a;ll you need to do is zoom out!
Tip #4: Explore The “When” vs. The “Where”
Time flexibility is another strategy that will substantially help your search results. A quick sidenote here, I do understand that flexibility, in any form, is a privilege that not everyone is afforded. That being said, I do think it is easier to find little areas where one can be flexible than you would assume at first glance. If you can be fully flexible in your planning (ie, I don’t care when or where, I just want to GTFO)”…great, but if you can only be flexible on WHERE you go versus WHEN, then you should explore that. In this case, we will use Google Flights to explore the cases when you can be flexible on WHEN you travel.
Google Flights has a couple of options to help with this. The first of which is “Flexible Dates”. In the graphic below, you can see it in play, and it essentially uses a broader time criteria (ie “2 weeks in March”) to curate and return the available flights by cost.
This is great, but there are other tools that can be used as well, to fine tune a bit further. For starters, a simple search for dates will automatically pull up the price calendar. This will allow you to scan through months at a time, seeing the cheapest flight for any given date.
In addition to that (and you may remember early in this article I mentioned returning to some key features) Google Flights has two very handy tools for those with flexibility in WHEN they travel: Date Grid and Price Graph. Both of these can be found on the main search page, under the input fields and next to the “track prices” buttons. Date Grid is a fantastic spreadsheet like visual grid that shows you all the cheapest prices for just about any departure/return combination, while Price Graph does the same (or similar) in bar graph form. allowing you to choose the desired length of your trip.
Tip #5: Get Notifications
Finally, Google Flights allows you to set flight tracking up and will notify you when your desired search hits a specific criteria. I always suggest checking Google Flights live, regularly (and especially 3-6 months out from when you want to travel), as I find strict criteria to be a hinderance more than an aid . But, sometimes a situation is not conducive to flexibility and notifications will help to keep you informed in those circumstances without having to open the site up
Considerations
There are a few things to consider when using Google Flights to search for the best deals;
1. Google Flights curates from the airline direct bookings and the largest Online Travel Agencies, or OTAs (think Booking.com or Expedia). You may be able to find slightly lower fares though smaller organizations, however it may not be worth the risk of letting a lesser known company handle your booking.
2. Southwest fares do not show up on this (or any) flight search engine. You would need to go directly to Southwest to see their fares, which could be lower in some cases.
Final Thoughts
Google Flights is a very powerful tool while hunting for cheap flights. It is not the only tool (and I always recommend using multiple resources to find your flights) but I find it to be the most versatile, by far. It is easy enough for a beginner hobbyist to jump right into, and broad enough to still be my flagship resource while I utilize it against others like ExpertFlyer and all Travel Partners for an award transfer. Please make sure you check our site regularly for tips on using those (and other) resources to get the most out of you hunt for cheap flights, and always feel free to ask our Facebook Group or Community Forums for live assistance. from us and other Would Be Wanderers who have built their own best practices.
What do you think? Please leave comments and your recommendations below!
It’s recommended to fly on behalf of Google search
Thanks! Google Flights is for sure my preferred flight search engine to find out what’s out there, but I certainly do not use it in a vacuum by itself.