Planes from United and JetBlue stay on the runway at Laguardia Airport in the Queens city of New York City.
Bruce Bennett | Getty Images
Google that will help you save money before the holiday travel season. You can track the price of a flight with Google Flights for a trip you’re interested in and get notified if the cost changes.
The tool can save you hundreds of dollars and prevent you from constantly looking up ticket prices.
Better yet, you can set Google Flights to track flight prices weeks or months before you need to book your travel. I have used it before and it saved me over $500 on a cross country flight.
I’ve found that it’s especially useful if you’re on the fence about traveling and have a hard ceiling on how much you’re willing to spend on a ticket. For example, if you’re considering holiday travel but only want to buy tickets at a certain price, turn on the tracker and you’ll be alerted if the cost of a flight drops to meet your budget .
Remember that flights are usually more expensive closer to your departure date, so you’ll want to book as early as possible.
How to save money with Google Flights
Select the highlighted area at the top of the page to receive alerts for specific dates.
- Go to the Google Flights website and sign in to your Google account.
- Select your departure and destination airport, as well as the dates you wish to travel.
- Press “Search. You will see all available flights.
- From here, you have several different options depending on the route you would like.
- If you want to set a price watch on all flights to and from your destination within the desired travel date range, click the button to the right of “Track prices “.
- Once that dot is blue, you’ll get a pop-up at the bottom of the page that says “You’ll get emails when prices change” for your dates.
- If you have some flexibility in your travel schedule, you can press the dot to the right of “Any Date.” That will alert you when prices are low.
- You can also set a price tracker on a specific flight. If you want to do that, select the departure and return flights for which you want to receive alerts, and turn on the option to track prices.
Google will tell you the price history of flights.
Pro tip: If you’re ready to travel, be sure to check price history. It’s a dropdown that appears below your search. And it will show a green, yellow and red bar that lets you know if your flight is cheaper than usual, at a normal price or more expensive than usual.
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