Say what you want about Google/Alphabet as a whole, but Google Flights is incredible. It's absolutely amazing how quickly and largely that Google crushed all its competitors in terms of usability. Kayak, Hipmunk, Orbitz, Skyscanner were all my go-to's at one point but G.Flights is far superior in so many ways. It actually remembers your airline preference between searches. You don't have to beg or change settings to see a few days before or after... every search has a date grid and long-term graph, both which respond almost immediately to additional changes to date ranges. Searching multiple airports or destinations is super easy. Plus the calendar view, with lowest price for every day -- sure other sites have it but only for unfiltered searches. Google's calendar view is updated with every filter change.
There was a time in the 90s when eAAsySabre was publicly available to anyone, and text based searches were simple and fast and so easy. But Google Flights is even better, IMO.
Pretty amazing that sites entirely dependent on travel search seem satisfied with 10-year old UI while Google showed how much better it could be.
I agree that its real-time inventory and pricing availability has been a total game changer in the UX department. Presumably their acquisition of ITA gave them the ability to respond to queries in real-time which enabled all of the (quite excellent) features you pointed out above.
There's just one problem -- because a ton of the data is cached, or precomputed, or however it's done, a substantial and frustrating amount of the data is simply wrong. As in, an unbookable flight. I spend probably an unreasonable amount of time searching for flights, and anecdotally I'd say about 5-10% of the results I get (not even for complex itineraries) either have a completely incorrect price, or are wholly unbookable on any website. Calling the airline doesn't count, because if their website doesn't have it, 99% chance neither will the call center.
(disclaimer: I work at Google, but no relationship with the Flights team other than as an individual user)
Funny story: just last week I was booking a complicated multi-city trip with 5 legs, multiple countries, etc. I tried several times via united.com, and it wasn't showing me any flights available in one of the legs (which I knew they had a codeshare agreement).
I went back to Google Flights, chose all my flights, selected "Book with United", and was able to finish the reservation on united.com (!), with all the flights properly populated, including codeshares.
It's remarkable that the integration between Google Flights and the airlines is better than even the airlines' websites themselves.
This has now become a pattern. Google throws resources on some execs whims, kills off competitors and after a while exec cashes out, thanks to their rewards system. The left over bunch then figures out that the thing is not as profitable so they must either kill off their own product or let it stagnate into oblivion. Customers now are left with dead bodies and long recovery period before investor fears wears off and replacements arrives. This scorched earth approach has left too many areas without good products, growth and investments.
Google Flights is destined to be on chopping block sooner or later. It has not much influence on core business and is not going to be wildly profitable. The problem is that by the time Google kills it, Kayak and other competitors would be forced in to unrecoverable comma or just outright killed off as well.
Have you tried Kiwi.com? I think they are still superior in some aspects of UI/UX than the competition. They allow you for example to select a range of dates for your departure/arrival instead of single date. They also give you ability to choose multiple departure/arrival points. And these points can be cities, regions or countries. I have not seen other websites that give you that kind of flexibility.
It's funny, I've had exactly the opposite experience.
Multiple times flying from random places in Africa to Australia return, and Australia to Canada, GFlights was at least $1k more than the cheapest on kayak or orbitz.
Maybe GFlights just doesn't show overly cheap options..?
The UI is so smooth that I visit almost daily and just punch in cities to see what itineraries come up. I just moved to New York and I'm having a blast seeing all the new nonstop destinations I have.
I actually find Google Flights pretty confusing. Haven't tried it recently though. Kayak works pretty well for me and I usually go to the airline's website to book directly when I find a good deal. If the price is the same I book via the airline website. For domestic flights I also check southwest.com since they don't work with Kayak and other travel sites.
Don't be surprised that many other travel sites cannot compete. After all, most of the sites are owned by either Expedia or Priceline. They are not startups. Also, they focus more on hotels since that's where the money is.
Google Flights is amazing, because... Expedia bought up everything else. (Kayak, Orbitz, TripAdvisor, etc.) I've had Expedia do horrible things to me so I'm dedicated to use an alternative. It is needed to have Google Flights be a great competitor.
One of the good test case for any flight booking website is Bhutan. Kayak seems to do good job while G Flights says nothing available. Also later doesn’t seem to allow flexible dates, a critical feature if you ask me.
I love Google Flights as well, though I wish they had something like Kayak Trips. My understanding is they kind of do have that with automatic flight booking scanning in gmail, but it's impossible to add information manually in there. A lot of stuff is missing for me at least.
I routinely find both better routes and prices using Kayak, and it has far more powerful filtering. Mostly intercontinental flights though. I wouldn't be surprised if Google is better tuned to US domestic flights.
Once their algorithm can predict prices to a certain level of accuracy, they can effectively offer investment hedging to the public for free, and use the publicity to drive commissions on referrals. Unlike other commodities whose value is subject to numerous economic forces, the pricing is set directly (by the airlines), and it is likely that simply by observing their pricing over time a sophisticated Google algorithm has "learned" the airline's less sophisticated ones.
> it is likely that simply by observing their pricing over time a sophisticated Google algorithm has "learned" the airline's less sophisticated ones
Simple systems acting in concert are devilishly complex. (Former algorithmic trader.)
Counterparties' systems fail. They misfire. They get confused by the weather and interns punching in parameters wrong. Internal dynamics, like someone stretching to hit a goal or getting lucky on a hedging contract, are material and unpredictable.
And that's the least of it. The limits on the sorts of adversarial behaviors that manifest when counterparties know you have an algorithm watching are profound. It incentivises betting against the watchman. Google may have the data. But the airlines control the book.
> To see your trips and travel research, turn on these settings: Private results, Web & app activity
This is the main reason why I will never be able to use www.google.com/travel. I used to use the Trips app with no search history, but Google is shutting down Trips in favor of forcing people to loosen privacy settings. It is very disappointing because Trips worked very well.
Ah yes, same as my new Pixel. Apparently to be able to give me temperature in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, Google would like to know every app activity and usage as well as everywhere I have been. This sort of privacy bundling really should not be allowed.
How do you want Google to show you your trips and your travel research (e.g search queries) if you disable search history?
If you don't want to see your search history (since you seem adamant on disabling it), then just use the other features on google.com/travel (destination/hotel/flight search).
> When we predict the price won’t decrease for select itineraries booked between August 13 and September 2, we’ll guarantee the price won’t drop, and we’ll refund you the difference if it does.
My question is, with Google's pretty much non-existent customer service (unless you're on G-suite), how difficult is the process going to be to get to a human if you want to make a claim that they weren't the lowest price?
> Price guarantee is available between August 13th and September 2nd, 2019. You'll see the price guarantee badge on select flights where travel is completed by November 24th, 2019.
Still sounds like a great deal, but this explains why it's not a huge liability.
If the airlines know that most of tickets for a flight have been sold via Google, then what's to stop the airlines from drastically dropping the price of the last ticket just to cost Google a ton of money? There's no way this could work if the airlines were in a legitimately adversarial relationship with Google.
Even better, have the airlines themselves buy up the tickets via Google. Then drop the price to nearly 0 on the last ticket. Then release the tickets for sale back to the public. Instead of just hurting Google, now, the airline has basically gotten to sell a whole plane's worth of tickets twice.
I'd be hesitant on that one, or any prediction software, without the backing of the price guarantee like Google has. Otherwise you're really just gambling.
I used to use whatever flight prediction software Bing bought out when I traveled for work. It was pretty accurate most of the time, and I got used to trusting it, but I definitely got burned really badly a few times by continuing to wait as the price sky rocketed under the algorithms assurance that it would drop again before I needed to pull the trigger.
Some airlines such as Alaska and Southwest already offer this but the pain is monitoring the drops for your fare class etc. If Google is automating that, then more power to them!
Alaska no longer offers the policy I believe you are referring to, effective September 1, 2018 [1]. Their new policy, despite being advertised under the same name, only covers price drops within 24 hours of purchase, during which time you'd be able to cancel and rebook anyway. [2]
This is the kind of change that is not fun to learn the hard way.
I recently searched for flights via Google Flights (for Frontier). The price shown for the exact same itinerary was ~$50 more on Google Flights than when I used my smartphone on a different network (disabled WiFi), going directly on Frontier's website. This could be because Google counted for things like, for example, 1 checked bag when comparing all flights.
I don't have enough knowledge on the matter, but I will absolutely use a different device and book directly on the airline's site to ensure I get the best price with no middleman fees.
That's ridiculous, if they had an AI that could accurately predict prices, they would quickly become one of the largest, most powerful corporations in the world.
"and notify you when we predict the price may go up soon or won’t get any lower"
This feels like a different version of only 3 seats left or only 2 rooms available at this price. Why not notify me when the price goes down or is likely to go down?
Flight prices shown in India by Google are always been higher than other booking sites. Never heard of anyone around booking flights through Google here.
[+] [-] listenallyall|6 years ago|reply
There was a time in the 90s when eAAsySabre was publicly available to anyone, and text based searches were simple and fast and so easy. But Google Flights is even better, IMO.
Pretty amazing that sites entirely dependent on travel search seem satisfied with 10-year old UI while Google showed how much better it could be.
[+] [-] aclimatt|6 years ago|reply
There's just one problem -- because a ton of the data is cached, or precomputed, or however it's done, a substantial and frustrating amount of the data is simply wrong. As in, an unbookable flight. I spend probably an unreasonable amount of time searching for flights, and anecdotally I'd say about 5-10% of the results I get (not even for complex itineraries) either have a completely incorrect price, or are wholly unbookable on any website. Calling the airline doesn't count, because if their website doesn't have it, 99% chance neither will the call center.
For example, one from a few hours ago: https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0#f=0&flt=/m/01lfy./m/02_2...
[+] [-] guiambros|6 years ago|reply
Funny story: just last week I was booking a complicated multi-city trip with 5 legs, multiple countries, etc. I tried several times via united.com, and it wasn't showing me any flights available in one of the legs (which I knew they had a codeshare agreement).
I went back to Google Flights, chose all my flights, selected "Book with United", and was able to finish the reservation on united.com (!), with all the flights properly populated, including codeshares.
It's remarkable that the integration between Google Flights and the airlines is better than even the airlines' websites themselves.
[+] [-] telltruth|6 years ago|reply
Google Flights is destined to be on chopping block sooner or later. It has not much influence on core business and is not going to be wildly profitable. The problem is that by the time Google kills it, Kayak and other competitors would be forced in to unrecoverable comma or just outright killed off as well.
[+] [-] dastx|6 years ago|reply
Really? I've yet to see a flight be cheaper or close to what the likes of Kayak and Skyscanner have provided.
[+] [-] adamsvystun|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|6 years ago|reply
Multiple times flying from random places in Africa to Australia return, and Australia to Canada, GFlights was at least $1k more than the cheapest on kayak or orbitz.
Maybe GFlights just doesn't show overly cheap options..?
[+] [-] jboydyhacker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_reformation|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tinyhouse|6 years ago|reply
Don't be surprised that many other travel sites cannot compete. After all, most of the sites are owned by either Expedia or Priceline. They are not startups. Also, they focus more on hotels since that's where the money is.
[+] [-] HashThis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sytelus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devIO|6 years ago|reply
Earlier this week Google had fewer flights than Expedia.
[+] [-] s_y_n_t_a_x|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrollaway|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gomox|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] primitivesuave|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|6 years ago|reply
Simple systems acting in concert are devilishly complex. (Former algorithmic trader.)
Counterparties' systems fail. They misfire. They get confused by the weather and interns punching in parameters wrong. Internal dynamics, like someone stretching to hit a goal or getting lucky on a hedging contract, are material and unpredictable.
And that's the least of it. The limits on the sorts of adversarial behaviors that manifest when counterparties know you have an algorithm watching are profound. It incentivises betting against the watchman. Google may have the data. But the airlines control the book.
[+] [-] NumberCruncher|6 years ago|reply
https://www.geekwire.com/2014/farewell-farecast-microsoft-ki...
[+] [-] ghostbrainalpha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronarduino|6 years ago|reply
This is the main reason why I will never be able to use www.google.com/travel. I used to use the Trips app with no search history, but Google is shutting down Trips in favor of forcing people to loosen privacy settings. It is very disappointing because Trips worked very well.
[+] [-] mediumdeviation|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] halflings|6 years ago|reply
If you don't want to see your search history (since you seem adamant on disabling it), then just use the other features on google.com/travel (destination/hotel/flight search).
[+] [-] daddypro|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kshacker|6 years ago|reply
Google flights, maps, search: Use this new gmail account My other communication: Use my existing gmail account
I could use two browsers, but it may be easier to just use 2 tabs in a single browser (I use firefox to access gmail).
Wonder if that will make life easier, or worse. Thoughts?
[+] [-] acomjean|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software
But oddly closed google trips, which frankly was decent. Google sometimes seems like incoherent.
[+] [-] johnm1019|6 years ago|reply
> When we predict the price won’t decrease for select itineraries booked between August 13 and September 2, we’ll guarantee the price won’t drop, and we’ll refund you the difference if it does.
[+] [-] SteveNuts|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonknee|6 years ago|reply
> Price guarantee is available between August 13th and September 2nd, 2019. You'll see the price guarantee badge on select flights where travel is completed by November 24th, 2019.
Still sounds like a great deal, but this explains why it's not a huge liability.
[+] [-] Alex3917|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robrenaud|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghobs91|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] verroq|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qroshan|6 years ago|reply
$100 loss per ticket
Total loss for Google: $100,000,000 Google's cash balance is $120,000,000,000 Google's operating income in 2018: $30,000,000,000
Co-ordination and system changes required to pull this trickery for airlines probably: $100,000,000 (and not even sure if it's legal)
Can't believe how naive hacker news is when it comes to business and change-management and legal and pretty much everything else
[+] [-] unityByFreedom|6 years ago|reply
Farecast did this and was bought out by Bing to become Bing travel, who then stopped the price guarantees.
[+] [-] pixelHD|6 years ago|reply
[0]: https://www.hopper.com/
[+] [-] goostavos|6 years ago|reply
I used to use whatever flight prediction software Bing bought out when I traveled for work. It was pretty accurate most of the time, and I got used to trusting it, but I definitely got burned really badly a few times by continuing to wait as the price sky rocketed under the algorithms assurance that it would drop again before I needed to pull the trigger.
[+] [-] anujbatra|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sokoloff|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmbuck|6 years ago|reply
This is the kind of change that is not fun to learn the hard way.
[1] https://onemileatatime.com/alaska-airlines-price-guarantee-e... [2] https://www.alaskaair.com/content/deals/special-offers/price...
[+] [-] collyw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] not_a_cop75|6 years ago|reply
1) wouldn't mind being the middle man of one more thing 2) continue to transmit travel plans and would be plans to whoever wants to pay.
Google is an advertising and information company.
[+] [-] JMTQp8lwXL|6 years ago|reply
I don't have enough knowledge on the matter, but I will absolutely use a different device and book directly on the airline's site to ensure I get the best price with no middleman fees.
[+] [-] ww520|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hammock|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hirundo|6 years ago|reply
Uh, wait ...
[+] [-] hnburnsy|6 years ago|reply
This feels like a different version of only 3 seats left or only 2 rooms available at this price. Why not notify me when the price goes down or is likely to go down?
[+] [-] worldexplorer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] youeseh|6 years ago|reply