
Google to Offer a Best Price Guarantee on Certain Flights - momentmaker
https://www.blog.google/products/flights-hotels/best-prices-for-your-trips/
======
listenallyall
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 see a few days before or after...
every search has a date grid and long-term graph, both which respond almost
immediately to additional changes to date ranges. Searching multiple airports
or destinations is super easy. Plus the calendar view, with lowest price for
every day -- sure other sites have it but only for unfiltered searches.
Google's calendar view is updated with every filter change.

There was a time in the 90s when eAAsySabre was publicly available to anyone,
and text based searches were simple and fast and so easy. But Google Flights
is even better, IMO.

Pretty amazing that sites entirely dependent on travel search seem satisfied
with 10-year old UI while Google showed how much better it could be.

~~~
aclimatt
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 amount of the
data is simply _wrong_. As in, an unbookable flight. I spend probably an
unreasonable amount of time searching for flights, and anecdotally I'd say
about 5-10% of the results I get (not even for complex itineraries) either
have a completely incorrect price, or are wholly unbookable on any website.
Calling the airline doesn't count, because if their website doesn't have it,
99% chance neither will the call center.

For example, one from a few hours ago:
[https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0#f=0&flt=/m/01lfy./m/02_2...](https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0#f=0&flt=/m/01lfy./m/02_286.2019-08-14.CPHMAN0SK539~MANJFK0VS127;c:USD;e:1;sd:1;t:b;tt:o;sp:2.USD.40325)

~~~
CardenB
This is actually very difficult. The data has to be sourced from somewhere,
which would be the airlines. The airlines have fragile backends that cannot
handle much load. As a result, Google has to be very selective in their query
volume, so they try to cache intelligently.

The result is that sometimes the information they display can be out of sync
with airlines. You should notice this issue more on rarer flight routes.

~~~
purple_ducks
> The data has to be sourced from somewhere, which would be the airlines.

Such nonsense.

Pretty much all airlines don't own/run the source of truth for their flights
and haven't for decades. They outsource that to GDS[1] such as Sabre and
Amadeus. Their backends are not fragile.

You just have to pay for every query thus the caching.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_distribution_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_distribution_system)

------
primitivesuave
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 algorithm has "learned" the airline's less
sophisticated ones.

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

~~~
sauwan
Wouldn't it have to be a price _drop_ for google to be out any money? It's a
low price guarantee, so price spikes would only make them look good. Airlines
aren't going to randomly drop prices to spite google...

~~~
sokoloff
It would cost them almost nothing to drop the price of their remaining economy
seats 33 minutes before departure on a few select flights where Google sold
many tickets.

~~~
igrekel
That would be such a rookie mistake. Airlines don't do that, because 1) it
creates bad habits with passengers 2) that's when the ticket has the highest
value for customer who need to travel NOW 3) if they have remaining economy
seats, a price drop 33 minutes before departure has little effect in
stimulating demand for most destinations.

~~~
sokoloff
How many people are in a position to make a purchase decision, buy a ticket,
_and make the flight_ when the price drops 33 minutes before departure (13
minutes before boarding ends)?

In June, I was literally in CVG airport (inside of security) when my Delta
flight was delayed. I decided not to book a ticket on United that was leaving
in ~35 minutes because I wasn't sure that I could get over to the other
terminal before boarding closed. (It also wasn't 100% clear that the United
flight was going to make the connection in DC because of weather that was also
screwing up Delta.)

~~~
aripickar
Probably people that miss their flight and are either already in the terminal
or past security would like to book it? That’s the only use case I can think
of

------
aaronarduino
> 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.

~~~
halflings
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).

~~~
o10449366
It's ridiculous because they don't need your location history to search for
static content that they already have saved in their databases. The exact same
behavior happens with maps:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809432](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809432)

Google is shameless about gimping their services unless you hand over gross
amounts of irrelevant personal information.

------
acomjean
Google putting the finishing touches om the ITA software acquisition.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITA_Software)

But oddly closed google trips, which frankly was decent. Google sometimes
seems like incoherent.

~~~
minimaxir
During my business/tech econonomics class in college in 2010, one of the main
course assignments was to argue for or against the ITA acquisition from a
judicial perspective (i.e. would it create a monopoly).

No one in the class could really argue against it because as far as monopolies
that Google could possibly create, that's pretty minor. A decade later, almost
everyone seems to have forgotten that Google did it.

~~~
bitL
What is Hipmunk using underneath?

~~~
jmathai
I believe they all use several of the services. I worked at one of the airline
booking sites and know they used Sabre and ITA as well as others.

[https://beta.developer.sabre.com/guides](https://beta.developer.sabre.com/guides)

------
johnm1019
This appears to be a time-limited promotion.

> When we predict the price won’t decrease for select itineraries booked
> between August 13 and September 2, we’ll guarantee the price won’t drop, and
> we’ll refund you the difference if it does.

~~~
Godel_unicode
When I read that I assumed that they want to observe the effect this guarantee
has on pricing by changing people's booking behavior. Doing a time-limited
study seems like a good way to do that.

~~~
giarc
I agree, but that seems like such a short window for an accurate assessment.

~~~
londons_explore
I bet its a "50% of flights" trial, so the data is more comparible.

If they have enough flight bookings per day, even a 1 day trial could be
plenty to see how customers behave.

------
SteveNuts
My question is, with Google's pretty much non-existent customer service
(unless you're on G-suite), how difficult is the process going to be to get to
a human if you want to make a claim that they weren't the lowest price?

~~~
eunoia
Super anecdotal obviously, but very very difficult. Bought some flights on
Scandinavian Air through Google Flights that included multiple checked bags
for my wife and I about a year ago. Upon arrival at the airport in Gothenburg,
they were very insistent we hadn't paid for bags and had to pay the exorbitant
fees for checking bags on the spot.

We essentially could not figure out how to contact anyone at Google Flights to
clear up the situation or achieve any form of redress.

~~~
embwbam
I don't think it's currently possible to book flights to Google Flights
itself. Doesn't it always redirect you to another site to book? You would have
to contact that site for help in this siutation.

~~~
traek
You’re wrong, it’s possible. [0]

[0]
[https://support.google.com/travel/answer/7515668?hl=en](https://support.google.com/travel/answer/7515668?hl=en)

~~~
gergles
Google still isn't the seller of record, though.

> Note: All bookings are made with the relevant airline or online travel
> agency.

------
jonknee
Note that this is a temporary promotion:

> Price guarantee is available between August 13th and September 2nd, 2019.
> You'll see the price guarantee badge on select flights where travel is
> completed by November 24th, 2019.

Still sounds like a great deal, but this explains why it's not a huge
liability.

~~~
H8crilA
It may be a test run. Flight pricing is complicated, Google may be reasonably
worried about the unknown-unknowns.

~~~
londons_explore
Airlines can easily abuse this guarantee if they want to. The airline can
calculate the loss Google would incur through any price change, and they don't
necessarily incur the same losses. They can make price changes specifically to
make sure Google flights doesn't make money.

This isn't the stock market - flights aren't transferable, since tickets are
named.

------
Alex3917
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.

~~~
robrenaud
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.

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

------
unityByFreedom
This is awesome, I hope Google doesn't kill it!

Farecast did this and was bought out by Bing to become Bing travel, who then
stopped the price guarantees.

------
pixelHD
I use hopper [0] for something similar. But considering google's scale and
resources, google might give me more accurate predictions.

[0]: [https://www.hopper.com/](https://www.hopper.com/)

~~~
goostavos
I'd be hesitant on that one, or any prediction software, without the backing
of the price guarantee like Google has. Otherwise you're really just gambling.

I used to use whatever flight prediction software Bing bought out when I
traveled for work. It was pretty accurate most of the time, and I got used to
trusting it, but I definitely got burned really badly a few times by
continuing to wait as the price sky rocketed under the algorithms assurance
that it would drop again before I needed to pull the trigger.

~~~
listenallyall
Pretty sure it was called farecast.com

------
anujbatra
Some airlines such as Alaska and Southwest already offer this but the pain is
monitoring the drops for your fare class etc. If Google is automating that,
then more power to them!

~~~
sokoloff
Google Flights doesn't get pricing for Southwest:
[https://www.google.com/flights?hl=en#flt=/m/01cx_.CMH.2019-0...](https://www.google.com/flights?hl=en#flt=/m/01cx_.CMH.2019-08-25*CMH./m/01cx_.2019-08-29;c:USD;e:1;sd:1;t:f)

~~~
namdnay
Southwest don't distribute indirectly to leisure travellers, so you won't find
them in any booking tool (except corporate travel mgmt solutions)

------
not_a_cop75
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.

~~~
baybal2
I hope it's not a plain fraud. For a part of my work in OEM industry, I do
duties of a professional purchaser, so I know how to get deals.

I had many times such refund and guarantee promises thrown out of the window
with explanation "so use us if you want." All kinds of booking agencies being
the worst offenders.

One time when I still lived in Canada, I went to a small claims court, and and
civil tribunal with "ahem..., commercial contracts are not our jurisdiction"

~~~
mav3rick
Google is not some small company to commit fraud for a few pennies

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JMTQp8lwXL
I recently searched for flights via Google Flights (for Frontier). The price
shown for the exact same itinerary was ~$50 more on Google Flights than when I
used my smartphone on a different network (disabled WiFi), going directly on
Frontier's website. This could be because Google counted for things like, for
example, 1 checked bag when comparing all flights.

I don't have enough knowledge on the matter, but I will absolutely use a
different device and book directly on the airline's site to ensure I get the
best price with no middleman fees.

~~~
mav3rick
Google flights charges no middleman fee. It definitely would have added a
carry on. you can easily remove it

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
I don't know why they wouldn't start charging a middleman fee someday. What
other value would they get from building Google Flights?

~~~
Ayesh
If you get access to someone's travel history, future travel plans, and their
purchase habits (luggage weight, how many people you travel with, etc), this
information is worth a lot more to an advertisement company than a mere
middleman fee.

------
ww520
I would never book flight or hotel through 3rd party portal unless there's a
substantial discount. Booking direct work better 90% of the time.

~~~
robert_foss
I feel like that is a recipe for getting price gouged. Or do you search for
trips with 3rd party tools and then book it directly?

~~~
matwood
Most airlines show the same price on their site that I find on the
aggregators. The exception is multi-itinerary tickets that can save money, but
are risky since you are booking separate, multiple tickets.

~~~
londons_explore
Look around more.

Many aggregators offer big discounts for minor things like logging in or
signing up for a newsletter.

$400 off for logging in - sure!

I think they have contracts in place about pricing for non-logged in users
(ie. Neither of us will undercut the other). But when you're a customer, they
suddenly offer much better deals. Yes I will take the 'loyalty bonus' of free
extra 5 days stay for booking a weekend - thanks!

Some of the aggregators are so desperate to get customers that they will give
you something for $0. I rented a car for a week for $0 through easyrentcars
because I signed up through a refer link for example.

------
hammock
How often do prices actually drop? I fly pretty often and I can't remember the
last time I encountered a price drop on a flight over time.

~~~
hughes
The flight I want has been fluctuating between $400 and $700 every couple of
days for the last two weeks. It's $729 now and I need to gamble on whether it
will go back down and I should wait, or whether it's about to go up even
higher.

I _hate_ flying solely because of the gambling mechanic built-in to the
purchase.

~~~
hammock
It is an international flight that's 6+ months away? And the exact same
flights (not just same days etc) Because that's the only time I can remember
seeing something like that.

~~~
hughes
It's USA to Canada in less than 2 months.

~~~
checktheorder
I was thinking it might be a domestic Canadian flight. The high average price
and high variability fit the standard pattern for our domestic flights as
well.

------
hirundo
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 ...

~~~
everdev
The profit from accurately predicting future prices would dwarf advertising /
computing revenue. The problem with any prediction is as soon as it's acted on
or made public it starts to affect the system requiring an updated prediction.
If enough people buy into the prediction it's a self fulfilling prophecy. So
much of pricing is influenced by human nature though. Good luck predicting
that consistently over time.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Also, the airlines could change their algorithm - randomly. If for no other
reason than to muck with Google.

~~~
koolba
From their detail page:

> How much money can I get back? Price guarantee pays you the difference
> between the flight price when you book and the lowest ticket price. To get
> money back, the price difference must be greater than $5. You can receive up
> to $500 back total for all of the flights you book with Google price
> guarantee.

That’d be pretty hilarious for an airline to explicitly dick them over for
$500 a pop.

~~~
jonknee
Somehow I think Google would manage to outsmart them at their own game.

------
hnburnsy
"and notify you when we predict the price may go up soon or won’t get any
lower"

This feels like a different version of only 3 seats left or only 2 rooms
available at this price. Why not notify me when the price goes down or is
likely to go down?

------
worldexplorer
Flight prices shown in India by Google are always been higher than other
booking sites. Never heard of anyone around booking flights through Google
here.

~~~
Ayesh
I mostly blame the lack of Integration with reservation systems in certain
carriers like Indigo, Nepali Airlines, Air Asia, etc. Then there is a whole
range of smaller carriers (including Nepal's numerous airlines). Some airlines
are downright now searchable through any means other than the airlines own web
site.

------
youeseh
Does that mean that they'll offer a full refund if your travel plans change,
since tickets get more expensive closer to the day of the flight anyway?

~~~
ceejayoz
I very much doubt it. Those would be new tickets, not a changed price on
existing ones.

------
namdnay
I believe there was a startup that offered this as a paid service, using some
sort of price prediction algorithm

------
Fnoord
TANSTAAFL. What is the catch of using Google Flights? What would Google do
with this data?

------
tyingq
Hmm. Interesting move with all the antitrust sentiment floating around. Google
has certainly focused their "everything above the fold is us" approach heavily
on travel. Don't believe me? Do a few travel related queries and see how much
above the fold IS NOT google. They have been VERY aggressive in this area.

------
lowdose
Is this the next industry taking a hit from an asset-light strategy?

------
pastor_elm
Seems like it will apply to such a small subset of flights (that are already
probably higher than you'd want because they're soon).

There is no way Google is going to guarantee if there is a potential sale
window from the airline.

------
jhack
US-only, of course.

------
darkhorn
And please don't show 737s.

------
jayalpha
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.

~~~
NumberCruncher
Forecast was doing that, quite successfully (115 m$ exit).

------
linuxftw
Do more business with Google? Hard pass.

