WorldLux

It has devalued further but certainly not crashed. And since you'll be paying in IDR when being redirected it probably doesn't make a difference.

The GF exchange rate is off by a multiple ~1,000. 100,000,000 IDR suddenly become 61Ł

starwarsgeek8

These links have been around for a little while now. Presumably, now that Google is phasing out the QPX express API in order to prioritize booking through Google Flights, they will transition to a system that will make all results shown have at least one configuration bookable with Google Flights directly, except perhaps for some airlines which have price display or other issues (Southwest comes to mind). This is an unfortunate but predictable trend. One worries if Google might next take action designed to counter the effectiveness of the ITA Matrix script or Bookwithmatrix.com, which would be even more problematic.

Regarding functionality, I did notice one annoying change, which is that if there is a result that can only be booked by calling the airline, it no longer displays the flight numbers that you should quote to the booking agent in order to find the correct configuration and price. This feature is particularly useful when codeshare flights are involved, because often differences in operating or marketing carrier can change the cost of the fare drastically.

LufthansaFlyer

I'm not seeing any weird pricing when recreating your search. fares look normal.

wco81

Anyone notice the GF seems to randomly drop some of the flights you're tracking?

I was at 55, added some and now it's showing only 47.

FlyerTalker70

Hey Everyone,

While partaking in my favourite past time (hunting for low cost fares to do milage runs) I started to notice a pattern - any Delta itinerary I put together I was greeted with the following:



Any idea what's going on here? This seems to happen across the board for Delta and in many cases for SkyTeam partners like KLM and AF and has been happening for the past 2-3 days.

Safe Travels,

James

croberts134

Apologies for the long post and this is my just guess so I could be wrong but...

I don't think it's SkyTeam limiting Google, but rather something fundamental has changed in the way Google Flights displays pricing and it's causing problems.

I have been getting the "Book with a travel agent" messaging across carriers (AA, B6, and DL off the top my head) and across different itineraries.

I believe Google Flights gets its pricing data directly from ATPCO (the industry clearinghouse for fares) and it does not know how to interpret the wide range of things that are possible to code for restrictions. When it runs into something it doesn't know how to handle, it throws up the "Book with a travel agent" message and a price that is probably not legal (from a rules perspective) to sell, but exists and can be sold on other dates or flights or whatnot.

Why does it say "Book with travel agent"? Well, I think it's a bit cheeky. A travel agent could sell this fare by force pricing it in the GDS. However, they will 99.9999% get a debit memo from DL and so it's not worth doing it.

If you are seeing it across DL, AF, and KL and widespread lately, the JV may have changed the way it did some of their fare rules coding, which is causing Google Flights widespread problems (likely something in a General Rule to be technical).

boerne

https://www.pcmag.com/news/358922/wi...ask-googles-ai

says it can use AI to know if you will have a flight delay before the airlines do.

mods please merge if I missed an old thread.
https://blog.google/topics/travel/ge...delays-winter/

TA

I don't know that any really different functionality is available in Google Flights' new UI, but I really don't like it compared to the old look. Lots of cluttering boxes and heavy borders and junk. Anyone else feel the same?

Old look:



New look:

rustykettel

Yes. Current Web UI design is utter garbage these days.

Great_circle

The new UI used to have the option (end of page) to switch to the old UI but that seems to be no longer the case..

TA

Actually, I found such a button to go back to the old version! It's at the lower left of the window, all the way at bottom, and I use it all the time now:

Zorak

^ but only until they take that away. I kept reverting the Calendar UI "upgrade" for as long as I could, but now no longer have the option to go back

I'm still bitter about Google Maps too :mad #getoffmylawn

intuition

Thank you a million!
I saw the icon but could not for my life believe a 'man running for the exit' was chosen as the symbol associated with 'switch to old ui'. But looking at the new ui, it is quite fitting!!!

caGALINDO

I love that upgrade, they cap the alerts at 6 it seems. Best for finding those low fares!

Does anyone know of any tools with alerts that accept more than 6 origin/destinations? (Unfortunately ITA does not do alerts)

fumje

Thank you! Came here looking specifically for how to do this. The new UI precludes several of my favourite shortcuts, like typing the origin in the destination to get them to switch, which is useful when I have a list in one field. It looks fine, maybe better, but it requires too much clicking.