I've been using Google Flights for over 2 years. Why is it just now getting announced?
Get away with Google Flights
71–80 of 153 posts
Re: Get away with Google Flights
#72Re: Get away with Google Flights
#73I've been using Google Flights since the middle of last year and love it. However, as a frequent traveler for business/conferences, I think there are some things people should be aware of: * Google's data seems to be not as fresh as Kayak or Hipmunk's is. There have been multiple times when I've tried to book a flight via GF only to be told that there were no seats left when I arrive on the airline's page. I suspect…
I'm surprised about your data issues since Google owns most of it (from their acquisition of ITA software).
Re: Get away with Google Flights
#74Incidentally I reserved two tickets yesterday after finding the best prices with Google Flights. It linked me directly to the airline's reservation system a couple of clicks away from confirmation.
BTW, I used their map to find the most suitable flight. I could change dates on the fly and see the prices change instantly. It's a great service.
Now if they could do the same for railways, I'd gladly pay for the convenience.
Re: Get away with Google Flights
#75A lot of the features seem highly inspired by Hipmunk.
Re: Get away with Google Flights
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a good presentation about the complexities in creating and pricing itineraries: http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-com... Most companies don't want to take on this complexity, so they outsource it. The companies that provide this service, like ITA, tend to charge more money for more expensive queries, like multi-day searches, so most online search companies will only let you do the cheap…
I wonder if it would be viable to start an airline whose business model is "simple pricing". Just forget ITA altogether, sell tickets directly, and have the pricing model extremely simple. Like, total price = C/(time to departure) for some constant C, and use machine learning, or just a simple PID feedback loop on revenue to set C in order to be profitable.
As the presentation above suggests, this would have a problem with, well, staying profitable. Tourist air travel is so heavily underpriced that you can barely tank up the jet with what you collected from people. That's one of (or maybe even the) reason for such variety in ticket prices.
Re: Get away with Google Flights
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a good presentation about the complexities in creating and pricing itineraries: http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-com... Most companies don't want to take on this complexity, so they outsource it. The companies that provide this service, like ITA, tend to charge more money for more expensive queries, like multi-day searches, so most online search companies will only let you do the cheap…
I wonder if it would be viable to start an airline whose business model is "simple pricing". Just forget ITA altogether, sell tickets directly, and have the pricing model extremely simple. Like, total price = C/(time to departure) for some constant C, and use machine learning, or just a simple PID feedback loop on revenue to set C in order to be profitable.
I don't think this would work unfortunately. Players in air travel face a) intense competition and b) tiny profit margins. This forces some 'creative' pricing.
Re: Get away with Google Flights
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
So we need an API to search all the languages and countries, pay in the appropriate currency, abstract this "feature" away along with the language barrier, and give me the lowest price. I hope Google will do that. :)
It would likely break all sorts of TOS agreements at various levels, and wouldn't last a month. There are industries where profits are huge and disruption is badly needed. Airlines are not one of them, afaik; ever since low-cost became a thing, they've been under constant economic pressure and usually operate on razor-thin margins, at least in Europe. Mid-size companies have all but disappeared, even giants like Brit…
> If you're all about price, just fly with RyanAir and be sure that nobody can ask you for less money than they do.
And that (from what I heard) if anything goes wrong you're fucked, because RyanAir flights tend to take as little reserve fuel as legally possible.
Re: Get away with Google Flights
#79Don't know where they're getting their data from. Boston-dublin in Oct is over $1300 on google flight with Aerlingus Same flight directly on the airline's website is $940. Good luck with that, Google.
That's probably pre-tax/fees, while Google's result includes extra charges.
Re: Get away with Google Flights
#80I love the flexibility this has and after giving it a serious go I never went back to Kayak. If you know exactly when and where to fly, Kayak is great. But with any uncertainty, Google Flights is better for exploring. Maybe you know when to fly, but not when you want to come back. Or maybe you don't even know where you want to fly, in which case you can get destination suggestions. It's also a lot snappier. Now with…
Google flight search seems to be really good at finding cheap routes, I'm looking at SFO -> Rome, Kayak doesn't even show the Delta flight Google shows: https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=SFO;t=FCO,CIA;d=201... Delta flight on Google is $1293, $1840 on Kayak
Did you actually try to book the flight by following the links on both Google and Kayak? Google is showing the flight at $1809 now and it's possible that their cache was not updated.
Also, it's possible that flight is under KLM/AF instead of Delta on Kayak since Delta/KLM/AF are partners. And I see same flight listed under KLM for $1781.