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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

#191

Post by biztos »

aclimatt wrote: post #152
listenallyall wrote: post #141

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…

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 amoun…

I get the same thing (not sure to what percent level) and LOTS of times the price after I click through is not what Google listed by the link.

My solution so far is to search for broad prices for my approximate dates on Google, and when I see something promising open a new tab and go straight to the airline's site where I search for an actual offer for a specific flight.

I've found Google Flights super useful this way, though I guess they make less money on me than they could.

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

#192

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

ehsankia wrote: post #91
londons_explore wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it as a user, but I really think it's Google applying a "data monopoly" to my life. The fact I use Gmail allows them to make Google maps and Google assistant better products than say bing maps and Cortana, because bing maps and Cortana could never get access to those reservation emails which make the whole thing work. Such monopolies should be illegal - everything should be sharable via an API. Sadly those see…

Could a Gmail add-on not do something similar? Of course you'd need to give it access to your emails. You could also use outlook, which I'm sure does similar things, maybe not as well though.

Unfortunately when you let people develop on your data, you get what happened with FB and Cambridge Analytica. You saw how FB got into trouble for literally no fault of theirs? The data was literally accessed using a legit API.

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

#193

Post by danielscrubs »

guiambros wrote: post #151
listenallyall wrote: post #141

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…

(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,…

I found out that Google Flights just have smaller time margins between flights. Might be something to look out for.

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

#194

Post by asdff »

robrenaud wrote: post #39
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.

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.

Then sell them back to google again, rinse and repeat until whatever regulatory body with a real hammer gets pissed off.

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

#195

Post by asdff »

hirundo wrote: post #63

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. Uh, wait ...

What if airlines suddenly sold tickets for a fixed price like every other ticket on earth?

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

#196

Post by adamsvystun »

listenallyall wrote: post #141

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…

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.

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

#197

Post by heavenlyblue »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #192
ehsankia wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could a Gmail add-on not do something similar? Of course you'd need to give it access to your emails. You could also use outlook, which I'm sure does similar things, maybe not as well though.

Unfortunately when you let people develop on your data, you get what happened with FB and Cambridge Analytica. You saw how FB got into trouble for literally no fault of theirs? The data was literally accessed using a legit API.

Well, Facebook did participate in Obama's campaign, so "no fault of theirs" is quite distant from reality.

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

#198

Post by heavenlyblue »

mav3rick wrote: post #102
londons_explore wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail add-ons pretty much don't exist anymore. The Gmail API has been locked down to people able to pay for a ~$100k security audit. The Facebook API is rather crippled too. API's used to let you share all your data, and act on your behalf, but now typically they do Auth and access already-public data.

I'm happy it's locked down. I don't want crappy apps accessing my emails

That's pure BS. You can still access those e-mails through SMTP.

For example, if I extract OGuth2 app information from Thunderbird, then I could theoretically make another user authenticate against Thunderbird's app and then ex-filtrate all of their Gmail data.

Gmail API is blocked for purely political reasons. E.G. real-time delivery of e-mails which is not accessible through non-Gmail clients.

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

#199

Post by Jabbles »

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?

Is this the same airline that likes appearing in Google Flight because lots of customers book tickets through it?

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

#200

Post by sumedh »

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #85

Sounds like Google is trying to dominate one more market. I'm sure they 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.

Why am I getting a feeling that they will shut it down in 6 months.
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