I have not been paid by any entity in any way (financially, benefits) to write this post.

I get the same question a lot: How do you manage to travel so much? Doesn’t it get expensive?

My typical answer: you’ve got to look in the right places!

Finding affordable tickets through a complex system can be overwhelming, complicated, and frustrating for those that lack the understanding and patience. But I’m here to share the honest information that I always use to travel, hoping that it will help you now and/or in the future.

Why Use Google Flights for Booking Cheap Flights?

Alright, so you want cheap flights? You could always go to Trivago, Expedia, or some other online travel agency, or OTA for short. I’ll state this upfront: these sites will usually have the cheapest fares available.

HOWEVER, there are plenty of downsides to booking with these OTAs, which can offset the benefits. For example:

• Did you miss your flight, is your ticket not processing, or did your flight get cancelled? The airline will likely refer you to the OTA.
• Are you hoping to earn frequent flyer points or use your perks? Not on an OTA ticket.
• Need to reschedule or cancel your flight? That has to be taken up with the OTA, and can cost an arm and a leg.

Often times, booking with these OTAs can look appealing, but cost way more than just booking direct. That’s why I often opt to use Google Flights.

Step-by-Step Guide to Navigating Google Flights

I love Google Flights, because it always shows me the best prices on every airline that it has access to. If I want to fly from Houston to Chicago, Google Flights will pull up all available flights on all available airlines on all available days from all available airports.

This is the Google Flights main page, and if you allow Google to know your location, it will automatically input the closest airport to you. From here, you can type in your departing airport, your desired destination, and the days you’ll be traveling.

So let’s pretend we want to go from Houston to Chicago.

Google Flights automatically shows you your departure options from Houston Intercontinental or Hobby. You can select one or the other, or just select “Houston, Texas” to see your flight options from all airports available. Here, you can also select if you want a round-trip itinerary, a one-way, or a multi-city journey. You can also select the amount of passengers flying on the reservation, and the class of travel you are looking for.

Next, we input Chicago as our desired destination.

You can see that O’Hare, Midway, and Rockford show up as arrival airports.

Now its time to select the dates!

I want to leave in June or July, so Google Flights shows me the best ticket price for every day in both months, based on a seven day trip. Given that I only want to travel for a four day trip, I’m going to shorten the trip and find the cheapest fare.

 

Here we can see that for a four day trip, the price is still $120 round-trip if we leave on July 8th. So I’m going to select that day as my departure, and see which day is cheapest for my return.

So here, we can see that returning on July 12th will be cheaper, so I go ahead and select that day for my return.

So now lets see what Google Flights shows us >>>

Here, Google Flights presented us the best option based on price and travel time. This shows us that Spirit Airlines from Houston Intercontinental to Chicago O’Hare is the cheapest options for our search. Although these are the “best,” you can find cheaper flights by clicking the “Cheapest” option, but often times this will lead you back to an OTA, which I personally recommend avoiding at all costs (they aren’t worth the headache).

If you click on the “View price history” dropdown, you’ll see some data on the fluctuation of the ticket prices for the route you have selected. Now what if the “best” options aren’t the “best” for you? If you continue to scroll down, you’ll find other flight options between the cities we’ve selected, with different airlines and all available airports.

But what if you’re a member of Delta’s frequent flyer program and want to earn miles on your trip? Or what if you’re a Qantas frequent-flyer, and want to have lounge access and complimentary checked bags on American thanks to your Oneworld status? You can click on the “Airlines” drop-down list and select any of the alliance or airline options that allow their fares to be shown on Google Flights.

But what if you don’t want to fly any of the options shown? What if you have a meeting at 10AM but don’t want to leave later 2PM? Then click on the time drop-down and select the time period that is best for you.

Now beware! Some of the fares on United, American, and Delta are “Basic Economy” fares, which you can read about here: United Basic Economy | American Basic Economy | Delta Basic Economy. These fares are usually cheaper and, depending on the airline, can limit your access to overhead bins and other typical perks.

You can sometimes decipher whether the fare you are seeing is basic economy or not, depending on the amount of bags shown on the page. For example, you can see that the American option has one carry-on and no checked bags, which usually means it is a basic economy ticket.

Sticking with American Airlines, I’m going to pretend that I’m booking them to Chicago. Once I select my flights, I get to the last page in the Google Flights process, and can see the fare options available, which include Basic Economy (the cheapest), Main Cabin, Main Plus, and not shown is Main Select. Google Flights does a good job of showing some of the perks or conditions that come with each fare, and the difference in price. Since I am traveling light, I’m going to select Basic Economy.

Upon selecting the Basic Economy option, Google Flights will automatically open a new tab on American’s official website, with the flights already selected, leaving me with the task of simply inputting traveler information and paying for the fare.

At the end of the day, if you have specific travel dates for a trip in your mind, input them on Google Flights and let it do the hard work for you. I usually use Google Flights to guide me towards the ticket I really want. Heck, I’ve purchased round-trip tickets from my hometown of McAllen to Hong Kong for about $550 dollars! And it was thanks to Google Flights.

You won’t always be successful, and you won’t always get exactly what you want, but if you use Google Flights as one of your tools in traveling, then you will undoubtedly save yourself some time and cash that you can use at your destination! What I personally do is see what days and airlines are cheapest, then go and see all the options available at the airline I choose’s website.

I hope this info helps you get closer to your dream trip. Subscribe via email to our page, and feel free to contact us at any of our social media pages or email if you have any questions! Or drop by the comment section.

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As always, remember to keep living life one trip at a time!

 

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