Airline Ticket Cost – There are many ways to help bring the cost of your travel down. Knowing how to navigate Google Flights is one way you can save hundreds of dollars on flights. Are you looking to purchase an airline ticket with a rewards travel credit card soon? Maybe you’re hoping to take your family to San Diego or Paris?
Australia or Tokyo? Or maybe you’ve been putting off booking that airline ticket for a friend’s wedding? If the cost of air travel seems almost frightening, relax.
Use Google Flights and its tools to save money on flights. Google
Cost Saving Features of Google Flights
Tech mistake | Google Flights is a quick and user-friendly way to search for flights. Like Expedia or Booking.com, you enter your travel dates, departure and arrival cities, the number of passengers, and a class of service.
One-click later you have a selection of flights that are displayed with the lowest dollar cost. The difference between Expedia or Booking.com and Google Flights is Google Flights doesn’t sell you the ticket.
It directs you to the airline’s website to book. With an easy-to-navigate interface, searching for the lowest price ticket becomes much easier. A few key features of Google Flights can help you during your search. Become familiar with the flexible dates calendar feature, tip bar, and pricing tracker.
Tip:
Remember to buy your airline ticket with a credit card that earns bonus points for airline purchases. For example, you can earn 2x points per $1 on travel purchases (plus $625 in travel) with the Chase Sapphire Preferred which is considered the best personal travel card by many, or you can earn 3x points per $1 with the premium Amex Premier Rewards Gold travel card, but there’s a higher annual fee of $195.
The Flexible dates calendar feature is a way to see the different prices for the number of days and travel dates for your trip. For example, you want to fly from Houston to London Heathrow in September. You don’t have specific dates you need to travel and you want to go for 8 to 10 days. By looking at the Flexible dates feature, you can see traveling from September 4 – September 12 will cost $1,314 vs. traveling from September 1 – September 9 costing $1,832.
Tips to saving on airline tickets with Google flights google
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Another way to see the savings is from the Tip Bar. There is a ‘Date tip’ in our example above that says leaving on September 4 and returning on September 12 will save you $519. That is merely departing 3 days later and returning 3 days later. If you aren’t sure if you are ready to book and want to monitor the price of the tickets on this date, slide over the ‘Track prices’ to on. You can receive price alerts and travel tips in your email.
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Change the Departure and/or Arrival Airport
The flight from Houston to London Heathrow at $1,314 is still a bit pricey. To bring the cost down even further, consider flying to another airport. By selecting ‘London (all airports)’ there is a flight option that costs $997. And an ‘Airport tip’ to fly into Manchester to save another $103. It also tells you Manchester airport is 129 miles from London. And the cost of the ticket is now $894. By looking at the different airports, you can save hundreds of dollars flying into one vs another.
Another way to bring down the cost of a ticket is changing your departure city. If you are searching for a ticket to London from San Diego, CA, try changing your departure city to Los Angeles or Santa Ana to compare ticket prices. While the departure city may not be as convenient for you, the savings may compensate.
A quick search from San Diego, CA to London (all airports) from August 31 to September 8 shows the lowest ticket price of $1,320 with 2 stops or $2,128 non-stop. The ‘Airport tip’ shows that by leaving from Santa Ana, 76 miles from San Diego, you can save $524, however it does not show you that by leaving from Los Angeles, you can fly non-stop for $1,020. Playing with the departure and arrival cities and your travel dates can give you more options when price comparing your next paid ticket. Airline Ticket Cost
Book a One-way Ticket and an Award Ticket
If you’re looking for a ticket and the ticket prices are more than you want to spend, consider booking a one-way ticket and redeeming your airline miles for one-way. More often the cost of round-trip tickets price out less than the cost of one-way, but not always. And if you are short on cash, and have a small stash of award points then mixing a paid ticket and an award ticket may be your answer.
Let’s say you’re looking for a ticket from Los Angeles to Brussels, Belgium next month. By changing your search to one-way, you see a flight for $260 with 1 stop. Is there an award seat on the date you are looking to return from Brussels? It costs 30,000 United Mileage Plus miles to book a one-way ticket from Brussels to Los Angeles. If you have just enough miles to cover the one-way, the out-of-pocket cost of your ticket just came down hundreds of dollars.
Tip:
Remember to buy your airline ticket with a credit card that earns bonus points for airline purchases. For example, you can earn 2x points per $1 on travel purchases (plus $625 in travel) with the Chase Sapphire Preferred which is considered the best personal travel card by many, or you can earn 3x points per $1 with the premium Amex Premier Rewards Gold travel card, but there’s a higher annual fee of $195.
The same can work for business class tickets. Always start by pricing the round-trip cost. The price of a business class ticket departing September 19, returning October 3, from New York to Johannesburg in business class with one-stop is $3,398. The price of a one-way ticket departing September 19, from New York to Johannesburg is $3,797.
That’s $399 more than round-trip. A one-way ticket from Johannesburg to New York is $2,063. If you have enough frequent flyer miles for a business class ticket one-way from New York to Johannesburg your out-of-pocket cost is reduced by over $1,000. Mixing a paid ticket and an award ticket from Asia, the Middle East, or South Africa in business class can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars when you are looking to spend a few as dollars as possible. Airline Ticket Cost
Bottom Line
Understanding how to use Google Flights can help bring your ticket cost down. With the key features of flexible dates calendar, tip bar, and pricing tracker searching for the lowest price airline ticket can’t be any easier. Consider changing your departure and arrival airport to reduce your ticket cost. The inconvenience may be worth the savings.
If you really are trying to spend as few dollars as possible and think you don’t have enough airline miles for an award ticket, consider using your airline miles for a one-way award ticket. It all starts with Google Flights searches.
For the past 20 years, I’ve averaged 150,000 miles and 20 countries. I’ve been featured in many major publications and have appeared on ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC, and PBS.