New Google Flights Feature Can Save You Money and Stress!

I love the different tools that can help make travel planning and purchasing easier. Google Flights has been one of my tools since they came out and I use it quite a bit. A new Google Flights feature has recently come out that has made it even better – and it can save you money and stress in your travel booking!

New Google Flights Feature – Fare Expiration Notification!

Link: Google Flights

Ticket Price Changes

Without a doubt, one of the biggest things that deal hunters struggle with when it comes to airfare is – how long to wait before booking? I am sure most of us at one time or another have purchased a ticket, only to have that ticket plummet in cost the next week. This is where Southwest and there $0 change fee is awesome!

Then there is the other way – we wait for the better price but the ticket cost goes up and sometimes even skyrockets up. Sites like Kayak have tried to help with this by giving an estimation of the chances of the price changing and whether you should buy or wait. But, after tracking flights with it for a while, I realized it certainly was not perfect and it seemed to judge more on seasonal trends than fare trends over time (in my experience, I am not saying it is not based on a deeper trend algorithm).

Kayak’s tool based on historical fare prices

New Google Flights Feature

Enter the new Google Flights feature! This new feature will tell you if a certain fare is about to expire and the price is going to go up. I have been experimenting with it a bit and found it to be very accurate. It would tell me that the fare would expire in 15 hours and the price would go up 11%. Sure enough, the next day, the price went up 11%.

Airfares do have fare rules and details that spell things out like when a particular fare pricing will end so this may be what Google Flights is tracking. In my experience, it is only working on fares that are about to expire and it simply warns you about the fare expiration.

How To Track Fare Expiration

Check down here for the fare expiration – if it is about to expire

To find this new Google Flights feature, search for your flight like normal. When you click on your preferred option, at the bottom of the page, under the Booking options, you will see the price tracker. This will notify you of any changes if you subscribe but if your fare is going to expire soon, it will tell you that and the amount that it is going to change.

Sign-Up to be Notified

Get notified of flight price changes

In the meantime, you can sign-up to be notified of any changes and have Google Now inform you of such changes for your tracked flights. This is a nice way to throw those flights in there that you are thinking about and see if the prices drops enough to make a better use of cash vs miles for your trip.

This is a very valuable feature for those times you are not quite ready to push purchase and you are afraid the price will go up. This tool can help you save money by buying that ticket before the price goes up and it can save you the stress of worrying about it. It has made Google Flights an even more valuable tool for me now – for sure!

Did you know about this new Google Flights feature? How well has it worked for you?