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Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

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Re: Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

#21

Post by hangonhn »

collyw wrote: post #13
anujbatra wrote: post #7

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!

Why would they monitor it for you? They would need to pay you the difference.

Good will and branding. I tend to trust companies who do that for me because it at least gives the impression that they are kind of trustworthy. I now book a lot of my travel (hotels especially) via Priceline because they took care of me when Marriott overbooked and wouldn't honor my reservation I made via Priceline. Priceline put us up at a 5 star hotel that costs $800 a night while Marriott's suggestion was to send us (and other guests like us) to a Motel 8 instead without refunding us at all.

So never again Marriott and I'm booking my travels via Priceline.

Re: Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

#22

Post by privateSFacct »

acomjean wrote: post #4

Google putting the finishing touches om the ITA software acquisition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software But oddly closed google trips, which frankly was decent. Google sometimes seems like incoherent.

I liked google trips and finance, light weight to the point. Not sure what happened to either of them, maybe just less discoverable these days.

Re: Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

#23

Post by verroq »

Alex3917 wrote: post #16

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.

If most tickets for that airline come from Google then that airline has little incentive to burn Google with its pricing practices.

Re: Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

#24

Post by eunoia »

SteveNuts wrote: post #18

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?

Super anecdotal obviously, but very very difficult. Bought some flights on Scandinavian Air through Google Flights that included multiple checked bags for my wife and I about a year ago. Upon arrival at the airport in Gothenburg, they were very insistent we hadn't paid for bags and had to pay the exorbitant fees for checking bags on the spot.

We essentially could not figure out how to contact anyone at Google Flights to clear up the situation or achieve any form of redress.

Re: Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

#26

Post by embwbam »

eunoia wrote: post #24
SteveNuts wrote: post #18

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?

Super anecdotal obviously, but very very difficult. Bought some flights on Scandinavian Air through Google Flights that included multiple checked bags for my wife and I about a year ago. Upon arrival at the airport in Gothenburg, they were very insistent we hadn't paid for bags and had to pay the exorbitant fees for checking bags on the spot. We essentially could not figure out how to contact anyone at Google Flights…

I don't think it's currently possible to book flights to Google Flights itself. Doesn't it always redirect you to another site to book? You would have to contact that site for help in this siutation.

Re: Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

#27

Post by notyourwork »

embwbam wrote: post #26
eunoia wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super anecdotal obviously, but very very difficult. Bought some flights on Scandinavian Air through Google Flights that included multiple checked bags for my wife and I about a year ago. Upon arrival at the airport in Gothenburg, they were very insistent we hadn't paid for bags and had to pay the exorbitant fees for checking bags on the spot. We essentially could not figure out how to contact anyone at Google Flights…

I don't think it's currently possible to book flights to Google Flights itself. Doesn't it always redirect you to another site to book? You would have to contact that site for help in this siutation.

I recall booking through google flights, as I understood they simply booked on my behalf through the carrier but I was entirely in Google eco-system.

Re: Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

#28

Post by traek »

embwbam wrote: post #26
eunoia wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super anecdotal obviously, but very very difficult. Bought some flights on Scandinavian Air through Google Flights that included multiple checked bags for my wife and I about a year ago. Upon arrival at the airport in Gothenburg, they were very insistent we hadn't paid for bags and had to pay the exorbitant fees for checking bags on the spot. We essentially could not figure out how to contact anyone at Google Flights…

I don't think it's currently possible to book flights to Google Flights itself. Doesn't it always redirect you to another site to book? You would have to contact that site for help in this siutation.

You’re wrong, it’s possible. [0]

[0] https://support.google.com/travel/answer/7515668?hl=en

Re: Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

#29

Post by ghaff »

umeshunni wrote: post #20
ghaff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TripIt is a lifesaver for me. I'm sure I'd mess up a lot more than I do if I didn't have an app like TripIt. My only material beef is that I think it could do a better job of flagging possible oversights in your itinerary. "Umm Dave, I'm afraid you don't seem to have anyplace to stay on Wednesday night." On complicated trips, I actually print out a calendar grid and make notes by hand. It would be nice if TripIt had…

You can export your Tripit itinerary as an .ical and use it with your favorite calendaring app.

Ah thanks. I either didn't know that or I tried it and it didn't really help. I'll take a look at it again on my next long trip.

But basically I'd like TripIt to flag possible problems rather than have me depend on eyeballing it--even though that works OK most of the time.

The printing out of calendar pages is more for trip planning. TripIt doesn't (and isn't really intended to do) anything along those lines.

Re: Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

#30

Post by kortilla »

minimaxir wrote: post #8
acomjean wrote: post #4

Google putting the finishing touches om the ITA software acquisition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software But oddly closed google trips, which frankly was decent. Google sometimes seems like incoherent.

During my business/tech econonomics class in college in 2010, one of the main course assignments was to argue for or against the ITA acquisition from a judicial perspective (i.e. would it create a monopoly). No one in the class could really argue against it because as far as monopolies that Google could possibly create, that's pretty minor. A decade later, almost everyone seems to have forgotten that Google did it.

>No one in the class could really argue against it because as far as monopolies that Google could possibly create, that's pretty minor.

That’s really goofy reasoning. Just because google is huge and could do much more evil doesn’t mean that a small amount of evil (destroying the airline itinerary quote market) is ok. Is that what you meant to say?

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