Avid traveller? Google Flights will tell you when and how to book the cheapest tickets

Impromptu travel plans are great, but booking flight tickets during such times becomes quite expensive. Last-minute bookings usually cost a fortune depending on the airline, destination and cabin class. That means, unless you have miles or some really good discount coupons, you have to shell out a premium. Flight booking platforms such as Skyscanner, and Hopper often provide tentative pricing for flights booked in advance. However, Google Flights, with its latest update has improved the insights even more and provides information on when flight tickets are available at their cheapest rates.

Here’s how you can book the cheapest flight tickets with Google Flights.

1. Know the cheapest time to book

With Google Flights, users can check if the listed price of their preferred flight is low, or high compared to the trends. Its new advanced insights now inform the user of the cheapest time to book a flight - whether it’d be two months in advance or closer to the takeoff time. Google says, “For searches with reliable trend data, you’ll now see when prices have typically been lowest to book your chosen dates and destination.”

2. Turn on price tracking

If you’ve settled on your destination, then you can take advantage of the price tracking feature present in Google Flights. You can set up tracking alerts for specific dates and select your cabin cabin class and destination. Google will automatically do the hard work for you and notify you when there is a significant price drop in ticket prices. It also informs you if the price for a flight is about to increase so that you can take advantage of the current lower price.

To do this, simply head over to Google Flights, and choose the number of stops, cabin class, and number of tickets required. Then select your departure location and destination. Tap on ‘Track Prices’ to turn on alerts for this flight route.

3. Grab price guarantees

Google is currently testing a new feature called Price Guarantees. Since it is only available in the pilot program, it is only available in select Book on Google itineraries within Google Flights in the US. When you search for a flight, the price guarantee tag means that you won’t see a lower price available for that flight in the future. If there is a drop in price after you book the tickets, Google will pay you back the difference in amount in your Google Pay account. Users can receive up to $500 back total per calendar year for up to 3 open-price guaranteed bookings at any one time.