And in the process we learn that it pays to transit through Casablanca this season. :cool:
Thanks for posting!

The flight tracking seems to remember some filters, but forget others. So if I ask it to track prices of only non-stops between two cities, it remembers that I am only interested in non-stops. But if I ask it to remember flights with 1 stop or fewer, and I filter out some possible in-between airports -- it just immediately forgets that I had filtered those out, and sends me alerts about prices on flights I would never take. Can anyone help?

Has anybody figured out exactly why this happens, or have any work around to stop it from happening?

This is happening to me almost constantly now, regardless of browser even.

I've typed in 4 specific airports as the origin and another 4 for the destination. GF is not throwing any errors like "too many airports", so I don't believe this the issue.

Anyone?

What exactly is the problem you're experiencing, jfacowns? It's not clear to me what the issue is that you're talking about.

Or is there supposed to be a picture or something in your post? If there is, it's not showing up for me.

My apologies, I went through this thread and there only seemed to be mention of one issue. The issue I'm experiencing is when doing a multi-city search.

I have 4 different airport codes for my origin and another 4 for my destination.

GF comes back almost immediately and says "oops, something went wrong" "temporary system error"

Hitting the reload button, which is the only option available, results in flights being displayed for less than a second before this page reappears.

Did Google Flights start obfuscating its search query URL ?

Google Flights query urls used to look like this, with the query parameters clearly visible:
But now they look like this:
Why would they do that ? Block site scrappers or dissimulate tracking information ?

anyone else hate they changed the explore map to not only show airports anymore?

Yes, this sucks + too many labels for tourists attractions popping up and blocking the map.
On the positive side, multiple departure airports are possible again to "explore destinations".

Google may be looking to offer direct booking
 

https://viewfromthewing.com/google-o...ravel-is-sold/


If they want to get some of those direct bookings, they would need to offer some kind of reward system and make sure to code the credit card transaction as travel. Then it would entice FTers to double-dip on points.

But FTers would still be trying to gain status -- even after the pandemic -- so Google Flights would still need to offer direct links to airline sites for the tickets returned by GF searches.

Some reward system might be one thing, but more important to me is who is doing ticket fulfillment and post-booking support. Do we get the usual Expedia or Expedia clone support infrastructure? If so, no thanks.

+1 . I want to deal directly with the airline for changes, refunds, etc.... No middle man, thanks

Legrooms Extension for Google Flights Not Working
 

Has the Legrooms extension for Google Flights also stopped working for anybody else? Over the last month or two it has stopped showing me seat pitch, lie-flat/recliner, or aircraft type on my flight searches? Now I have to click into each flight to see those stats. Has anybody found a fix?

Do we have extensions to display the miles between two airport on Google flights when search on Map or filter by number of miles so display only airports which meets the criteria

Ok I was trying to install this and its erroring so its still not fixed

Legroom Extension is Back!
 

It seems that it's back in certain instances! Here's an example I pulled up today:
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0bca2b3bb2.png
Seems like the extension is now called "Legroom," which makes more sense than "Legrooms" as it previously was called. I pulled up a PHL-LAX search and the extension didn't show anything, though, so it's not working in all instances.

Sorry if it's answered before,
How do I download the extension which shows the aircraft type, etc... in the main search screen?

Looks like it's still called "Legrooms for Google Flights" for me.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...nlbdccpabaaknp

I tried that link and got a warning that the extention is not verified +
"It can: read and change your data on www.google.com"
Any thoughts whether it adds enough value to justify the risks?

Mmm, I don't think I've ever seen that message before. I've had this extension installed in some form for probably 6-7 years now?

Ultimately up to you to decide whether to trust the author. I believe the source code can be found here: https://github.com/dbugger/legroom if you want to audit yourself.

Google Flights not showing connecting flights on separate tickets
 

I’m trying to book a flight from EWR-RTB. It’s showing various connecting options starting at $545 one-way, but there’s a 1-stop connection NOT showing that is only $193 total ($105+$88), if you go EWR-SAP-RTB, with a 100 minute layover in SAP

The only way to see this option on Google flights is to search each segment separately

I thought one of the great things about Google flights is it would find tickets on separate airlines where there’s no interline ticketing (must book separately). Is this no longer the case? :(

Very disappointed in Google Flights

As far as I can remember, GF could never be relied upon to include every possible route from origin to destination. As you feed the search engine more detail, the price would often jump. Some modes of transport may not be known to GF at all.

Is it just me or does GF now show these giant labels with photos for destinations in "explore" mode? For several weeks I was able to get rid of them by reloading (Google probably did AB testing), but now they seem persistent. Obscure the screen and make reading actual fares difficult.

I'm coming up against the 100 flights tracking limit frequently.

Anyone else?

Yep it's showing the giant dumb pictures but for now you can still get back to the old screen if you do the following:
Click on the Flights tab.
Without entering a destination, click on the Search button.
It should take you to the explore page without showing the pictures.

Thanks for this great tip, and welcome to FT!

Never mind, it does work - thanks!

Yep! Thanks I'm glad to be here :)

Yep! And continue to mention any changes you may notice in Google Flights when you come across them. I try to stay on top of what they're up to! ;)

URL format deprecated
 

The google flights url format containing this format is now fully deprecated. #flt=ATL.HBE.2021-11-01*HBE.ATL.2021-11-08;b:1;c:USD;e:1;sd:1;t:f

I'm dreaming up future excursions on Google Flights. I like using Google Flights but it hit me that something's missing. So I live in a suburb just north of Baltimore. If I'm plugging in a destination far away like AKL or TYO, I set my departure airports as BWI/IAD/PHL. But I'm not allowed to say that BWI is preferred. And when it tells me the best flights, it doesn't take into account that, you know, 8 a.m. flight out of Philly, you might need a hotel room or something. Or maybe factor in the drive time into the travel time, that sort of thing.

Anybody else not getting email alerts from GF? I've tried it a few times, but at some point it stopped emailing me when prices drop. I know they drop because when I go back to my tracked flights page I can see the price drop in the history, happening after I set up the alert. But the email is nowhere to be found (and yes, I looked in my spam folder).

I never found those emails to be helpful for ticket buyers. For example, there was a UA route I monitored, and the airline routinely dropped prices for ~4 hrs. The emails of a price drop would arrive long after the fare returned to the original level, to make it seem like the bottom was reached and it's time to buy. If you're interested in a fare, monitored it yourself. The emails are a tool for the airlines.

This is kinda weird:

1. Starting from a fresh search at https://www.google.com/flights
2. Enter cities
3. Change the dates
4. On the search results screen, click the Airlines dropdown -- I am no longer able to filter by individual airlines :mad: it only shows alliances (similar to the map search). However once I click on an alliance, then the checkboxes for the individual airlines appear for selection/exclusion.

So it's still possible, but now has an extra annoying step.

At first I thought it was another creeping removal of useful functionality, but then I noticed a subtle difference -- if I repeat the process but skip over step 3 and just accept the default dates, then the individual airline checkboxes appear from the get-go.

Perhaps the site uses IA and changes programming based on user responses. I recall your step 4 was as you described forever, but without much consistency on when individual airlines become selectable. In some cases excluded airlines were even forced back into search results without my input.

I've noticed this happens (airline filter gets reset) when switching from round trip to multi-city. The filter is still applied when you select the first leg, but the next screen to select your 2nd flight searches all airlines again.

Google Flights: Create Search URL
 

Some time ago Google Flights changed their URL. Before it was possible to search flights directly by entering a specific URL. Unfortunately now there is an encoded URL. As far as I've seen this URL is encoded in base64 (see: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...ts-search-urls).

I'm interested in doing Google Flight search via my own form (made in Google Spreadsheets) and then getting to the Google Flight search result by clicking on a hyperlink that I created on the google spreadsheet. I used to do this before Google encoded the URLs. Does somebody know how to encode via Google Spreadsheet and how to implement this?

I guess this question might be also interesting for the developpers who maintain ITA-Matrix-PowerTools. The Google Flight hyperlink there doesn't work since Google introduced encoded URL.

I've found one website that obviously seems to have managed this task: https://go2.travel-dealz.de/. A search there creates automatically the correct Google Flight hyperlink.

Since my knowledge in this field is very limited, I am only interested in a solution to create such links by using Google Spreadsheet. For a Oneway-flight this would mean: Enter departure, destination and date in cells A1, A2 and A3, and then get the encoded link in A4.

What's up with all of the shady-seeming sites that Google Flights offers as places to purchase your ticket, typically at a price lower than directly through the airline's own site? If I saw this occasionally on a just a few routings from just a couple of online travel agents, then I might think that they're operating on the old bucket shop model ... but I see it on every single routing, and there's always a dozen or so sites to choose from. Are they legit? How are they able to undercut prices directly from the airline?

I think I discovered the solution to #4. If you search a specific route through the flights tab, apply the filters that you want such as specific airline, then change the destination to something broad, like "Europe", the explorer map will come up and all the filters you had just set will remain in place while you explore the map.

Not only does this allow you to set a specific airline, you can also set layover airports (the map won't reflect this but when you click on a city, the results in the left side panel will) and when you start exploring the map, you can change it to flexible date search.

My mother did this recently on an Allegiant flight. Apparently booking through the Allegiant link on Google brought the price up more than she expected with all their "bundles" that Allegiant tacked on without her realizing, so she booked on the cheapest option, eDreams (about $15 less than directly from Allegiant). She didn't get a confirmation from them and their customer support is garbage so we called Allegiant and confirmed that she did indeed have a reservation. Everything went off without a hitch. I'd assume that if there were any changes or irops, that's where these undercutting OTAs would be able to make up for their ow up front costs. It certainly wasn't a scam, but it isn't something I'd want to take the risk on to save a few bucks.

They aren't really, the reason you might see a better price is either because:

1) Currency conversion

2) Gogle offers for example in economy the standard option. Many airlines have 2-3 tiers even in economy these days and some sites will only pick out the airlines economy-light option (no checked baggage, no points earnings etc)