In addition to its search engine, Google offers many practical products. And among these there is Google Flight, the site that allows you to find flights or track the prices of airline tickets. In 2019, the firm also enriched this product with a feature guaranteeing the user that he will have the cheapest possible tickets. Thanks to its data, Google is able to predict if the price of a plane ticket, for a specific route, could soon increase or to predict that it will not fall any more.
In essence, the idea is that the user relies on his predictions in order to have the most interesting rates, by booking at the right time. But in addition to providing these predictions, Google has decided to guarantee the lowest prices for certain flights. “[…] we’re going the extra step to give you more confidence when booking a flight. Where we expect the price not to decrease for certain routes booked between August 13 and September 2, we guarantee that the price will not decrease and we will refund you the difference if it does”announced the firm in 2019.
In the meantime, COVID-19 arrived and Google no longer pursued this program. But now, the firm wants to try again. A few days ago, the Thrifty Traveler site spotted the return of the feature on certain flights. And the media was even able to confirm this with Google. “We are currently testing price guarantees for a subset of users in the United States, as part of our larger goal to help travelers be sure they have booked the best price for their trip”said a representative of the firm.
Google trusts its algorithms
“To get a refund, the difference must be more than $5. The total amount refunded can be up to USD 500 per calendar year, for a maximum of three price guarantee reservations open at the same time. The refund takes place after the takeoff of the first flight of the reserved itinerary”can also be read on a Google help page.
And according to the details of Thrifty Traveler, Google does not have travel agency status (unlike Expedia or Skyscanner) and therefore reservations are made directly with the airlines. But these reservations are made from the Google Flights site. As for refunds, these are received by eligible users through Play Store. The only downside is that as mentioned above, this feature is only available to a certain number of users in the United States.
For the moment, we do not know when it could arrive in France. But in any case, since Google’s objective is to make money, but not to lose it, we can assume that the firm will only guarantee the prices if it has a very high certainty that there is no will have more drop. And its goal, with this price guarantee, is simply to make users have more confidence in the predictions.
