Google Flights = Nonexistent Fares?
 

I keep coming up with fares on google flights that don't seem to exist. More specifically, I'm getting good fares that are most a combination of Lufthansa and Air Canada flights. Most only allow click through to Lufthansa or a third party booking agency. If I click through to Lufthansa, the fares never exist and the flight numbers do not exist. If I click through to the booking agency, I either get an error message or a screen saying that the flight is sold out, which is very unlikely. If I go the Air Canada website, they won't let me book the fare since part is a Lufthansa flight.

Google flights also gives me the option of calling Air Canada. This means staying on hold for 45 minutes to see if it is possible and even then paying the extra fee to book over the phone.

Questions:

1. Is this a common problem?
2. Does calling Air Canada to book fare not on their website work?

Why not try to book it on any of the big OTAs? Orbitz, expedia,... or meta search engines: hipmunk, kayak,...?

Sometimes the engine caches search results. It clears out after 10 minutes or so often. It saves on request spam and other costs involved. However, sometime the fare might exist and you will need to dig around and manually enter the information on other OTAs.

Obviously. That was the first thing I tried. None shows the same fare or even the same itinerary. The itinerary is still there on google flights but still unbookable.

Its also possible g flights is showing wrong availability.
Check expertflyer or ask someone with GDS access to check for availability

Is how Google Flights calls fare data significant?
 

I know that Google Flights has been around for a while now, but its latest iteration is clearly geared towards a wider consumer base.

Anyways, I was playing around with the tool today, and I couldn't help but notice that the site spits tags into the URL as you enter search parameters:

https://www.google.com/flights/#sear...100,t1900-2400

For example, departing airports appear after f, return date after r, etc. Mp is maximum price and so on.

String ordering doesn't seem to matter.

I thought this was pretty interesting because, as far as I know, Google Flights is the only site that calls fare data like this.

The problem is I am not technologically smart enough to see whether this is significant. Are there any potential ways to build on this? For example, could I integrate a link with a feed aggregator to get alerts when a very specific flight goes below a certain price?

I wrote up a short post on this, including a fairly comprehensive syntax glossary. But not surprisingly this concluded with a rather anticlimactic "this is cool but I don't know why anyone would want to use this."

So I thought I'd post here to see if some of the more technologically savvy FT'ers can connect dots I can't even see. :)

Interesting observations. Gonna subscribe to follow this one...

Google Flights is adding all the time. AusBT / Australian Business Traveller has an article with some interesting observations and comments: http://www.ausbt.com.au/google-fligh...ot-more-useful

How Do You Turn off Google Flight Search Sponsored Results?
 

Once upon a time, when you google "flights from abc to xyz" Google will churn you out a good list of all the flight times and schedule as well as connecting points for that specific route. Now when you do that, more often it not it gives you a 'sponsored' search into Google Flight Search which is infinitely inferior for many reasons. Is there a way to disable this, or is it another one of Google's chances to it's flight-related products?

Cheers

I know this thread is 4 months old already but as some might still be looking for a solution I thought it wouldn't hurt to post it:

Just search for "schedule abc xyz" instead of just "abc xyz".

Google Flights - Changes, Updates, Glitches and Help [consolidated thread]
 

Hello everybody,

Do you know if it is possible with Google Flights Explore destination feature when you enter source, max price (and airline/alliance, if needed) - is there a way NOT to have specific days but rather display minimum price available for any time period?

Just go to the Google Flights site, enter departure city, select the beginning and end dates for the period that you are interested in traveling and set the maximum price using the slide (after clicking on the price tab).

I do not have the specific period, that's the problem. What I want is to find out what would be the cheapest price between for example XXX and YYY for no more than $NNN with the trip duration of M or MM days.

kayak.com/explore, but it'll only work for Y flights

Same with skyscanner.com and the fares are usually higher than the ones you'll find on kayak.

Google Flights - Map Search Changes
 

Google Flights seems to be screwing with me... The cheapest price I can find anywhere is Austin-Dallas for $199 one-way. When I click through to a website to book it, it does not reprice to the true cost - as it can be found by searching directly on that website's page.

Is this happening to anyone else? Is Google Flights messing with me for all of my ~hourly searches? :rolleyes:

Example Wednesday-Wednesday explorer map http://i.imgur.com/7jPruxS.png?1

Been happening to me too. Can get a couple through UA, but only about 25% of the time.

Please continue to follow this discussion in its new home, the Travel Tools forum.

-18sas
Moderator, Mileage Run forum

It's mostly due to cached inventory. Various buckets are opened and closed to the distribution system.

The airports being searched might have had a change in frequency of searches. Usually if it changes more often it will not cache, but if does not change prices often or dramatically your city will get old inventory. Thus will not synchronize with the GDS often.

Not a big deal since before Google flights existed, ITA required you to book it off-site anyway.

Big deal for me since a lot of these United multi city searches only pull up through the google.com/flights links.

Also it is very annoying that Google Flights defaults to USD every-time you open it. Frustrating!

And that multi-city bookings almost never work when you use the link to go from Google Flights to the airline to book!

Google Explore Problem?
 

Is anyone else having trouble with Google Explore over the past couple of days?

Every time I try to search for flights I only get one flight date per city.

Anyone else having this problem?

I think you mean Google Flights?

...or Kayak Explore?

Sorry.

Google Flights

https://www.google.com/flights/explore/

The travel tools forum seems like a more suitable venue for this discussion.

--jpdx, MR Moderator

Merged with existing thread.

TWA884
Travel Tools Moderator

Thanks mods... This isn't the same problem. But ok.

To answer tarheel99: yep, I'm having the same problem too. Glad to know that it isn't just Google Flights trying to shut down my daily flight dreaming. I really hope that they fix this soon!

Date Ranges Gone from Google Flights?
 

As of today, I seem unable to do a date range search with +/- days on Google Flights.

Previously, we could search using the calendar for a trip of varying lengths by selecting a days range at the bottom of the calendar, and next to that was a +/- days selector.

So, you could search a 4-day trip +/- up to 3 days (so, in effect Google Flights would search for trips between 1 and 7 days using those parameters).

Anyone else having this issue and/or know what happened? Perhaps Google has dropped this feature?

Ditto here. Seems to be part of a redesign - a rather unwelcome one to me. Seems you can still use the "Flexible Date" tab to search 1-7 days, but only for one date option. No easy way of searching months of options for 1-7-day trips.

Be assured that we are serious about making date-picking / price-overviewing great, so please hold tight :)

Great to hear! I wasn't sure if you guys were scaling-back features to save bandwidth.

Google Flights is my top-visited website (sad, but objectively true). Looking forward to you "Making Google Flights Great Again"! ;)

Very bummed that the X day trip +/- is currently unavailable. Really was the main differentiator that drove me to use this. Eagerly waiting for its comeback

Looking much better today :D Thanks for your work behind the scenes :)

The new features are whizzy, but I liked being able to see +/- over a two-month range in the old UI, and didn't see a way to replicate that offhand. The flexible dates search gives you +/- 3 around specific dates but that isn't quite the same.

Agreed. I enjoyed being able to do +/-3 days across all dates on the calendar. And, I hope that they reinstate this. But, we are probably outliers in wanting this. Most people are traveling for certain dates and would like to see the +/- days around the dates that they planned on traveling.

So far the best I've come up with is:

- set up your parameters: airports, airline, connection criteria etc.

- for let's say a same-day turn on a MR, pick the same date for both legs

so now I'm looking at a two-month calendar of fares for same-day turns

to check 1-day trips click either < on the departure date or > on the return date and now it shows a two-month calendar of fares for one-day trips

Makes total sense! Thanks :)