Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights

Post by mehrdadn » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

halflings wrote: post #71

aaronarduino wrote: post #5

> 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.

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).

Post by dheera » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 8:03 PM UTC

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #58

primitivesuave wrote: post #6

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 algorith…

But can't the airlines then introduce random price spikes into their own algorithm just to abuse Google?

Post by CydeWeys » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 8:08 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #113

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But can't the airlines then introduce random price spikes into their own algorithm just to abuse Google?

They do already. I once got a $260 AI round trip from Newark, NJ, USA to Cologne, Germany. There were only a few seats per flight available at that price and I got it at 3am. It was part of their usual shady promotions where they say "flights from $199" and there are really only a couple of seats available at that price, and they go fast.

Post by NumberCruncher » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 8:09 PM UTC

jayalpha wrote: post #106

Well, this is boring. I would prefer an insurance that locks in the price for some time. dohop.com was offering this for some time.

Post by CydeWeys » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 8:09 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #74

obmelvin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, noise can be removed or heavily in many problems and in this case you would then just upset regular customers.

That's not quite what this is. The 'best price guarantee' guarantees the customer will receive the lowest price for their ticket. Google will refund them if anyone gets a lower price. The airline can release, for 30 seconds only, a much lower price. Then Google has to refund all their customers, and the airline might only sell a handful of tickets at the lower price. Remember airline tickets aren't fungible. They hav…