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Get away with Google Flights

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Re: Get away with Google Flights

#81

Post by what_ever »

lpgauth wrote: post #73
jxf wrote: post #68

I'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). https://www.itasoftware.com/

AFAIK, ITA is the major provider for this data but not the only provider.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#82

Post by what_ever »

jonknee wrote: post #59
radiorental wrote: post #32

Don'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.

Though I see $550 round trip tickets on Delta, so there's that.

Pretty sure Aerlingus has a non-stop between Boston and Dublin. Besides, you don't know the exact dates.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#83

Post by unrulyOddish »

Hmmmm. I'm searching New York to Europe (March 25th to April 23rd) and it's giving me a $303 round trip to Madrid. Thats absolutely incredible, but when I click through the fair jumps to over $800. Anyone else experiencing things of that ilk?

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#84

Post by solve »

unrulyOddish wrote: post #83

Hmmmm. I'm searching New York to Europe (March 25th to April 23rd) and it's giving me a $303 round trip to Madrid. Thats absolutely incredible, but when I click through the fair jumps to over $800. Anyone else experiencing things of that ilk?

Exactly what I was saying. Google here is claiming that people don't often buy the cheapest listed flight... and the reason is because they can't.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#85

Post by MicroBerto »

joelbrewer01 wrote: post #58

I've used Google Flights before, but I almost always end up flying Southwest, which doesn't disclose their prices to aggregators. Does anyone know if Google has tried to strike a deal with them? If anyone could, I imagine it would be Google.

Came in to search for a comment on this.

Until one of these sites includes all airlines, I'll remain relatively unimpressed with anything new that comes out.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#86

Post by mason240 »

dheera wrote: post #38
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reason I can't just renew a domain at Network Solutions without going through eight different pages trying to upsell me things (and often defaulting to checking on those services). Expedia, Orbitz, etc make money via nag screens and upsells. They have no incentive to make the experience positive or easy. Google seems to.

I switched to Namecheap; they sell stuff but are not annoying about it. Google Domains also looks promising but I'm waiting for them to not be in beta lest they decide to scrap the product. Google would win me over if they offered free SSL certificates. In fact I think they should go ahead and disrupt the SSL industry by doing that too. Nobody should have to pay for a silly cryptographic signature. That would disrupt…

Google's new service is even better.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#87

Post by spinchange »

jxf wrote: post #68

I'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've had nearly the identical experience with it on all counts. By and large, I am a huge and loyal user of it as well.

It seems I've had the most changes in fare price or availability when identifying flights on United specifically, more so than any other airline, in my experience. That being said, it's still pretty infrequent given the volume of airfare we've booked through it for our people over the last 2 years or so.

Another thing I would add is that in connecting flight situations, it will occasionally present an itinerary that's technically possible to make, but not always entirely practical or ideal. (e.g. the window between flights is really narrow, not leaving much margin of error for flight delays, getting to another gate/terminal, etc., if not near the one you arrive at.)

All that being said, it really does work pretty great and we prefer using it to any of the other travel sites.

I would love to know why there are occasional fare discrepancies though... as far as I know google treats the click-through to the carriers' sites like an ad click, so I don't think Google is "marking it up," rather, the carriers are in some cases pricing based on the referer link or something. It can also be a demand pricing issue too, as the flight fills up, I suppose. My understanding is that Google is basically just the informational conduit between the user and the airline so it's weird that there are occasional price discrepancies.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#88

Post by radiorental »

NotHuckabee wrote: post #79
radiorental wrote: post #32

Don'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.

nope, that's all in. And, you don't generally see 33% taxes on top of a ticket.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#89

Post by makmanalp »

dheera wrote: post #48
mobiplayer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my understanding that they contact various providers in real-time, so they give them a time window to come back with their data.

Yeah, this is terrible engineering design IMHO. The providers should just provide some kind of firehose of updates to the booking websites which can then cache the data appropriately. Also they should fix their cache implementations. I've had countless times on the AA website where it says a ticket is available; then when I try to book it it says it's not available; then when I go back to the home page and search aga…

Yeah, well, if you can get providers to agree to do anything at all, let alone have the capability to not be in the engineering dark ages, you'll be rich. Until then, companies will continue to fill the gap with imperfect solutions.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#90

Post by radiorental »

jonknee wrote: post #59
radiorental wrote: post #32

Don'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.

Though I see $550 round trip tickets on Delta, so there's that.

Delta doesn't fly direct. For this particular journey I could elect to spend 26 hours in Istanbul for $700 and change.
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