What Is Google Flights & Is It Better Than Skyscanner?

Google has become a staple part of our lives. From gathering information to getting access to news, or learning about doing it yourself (DIYs), Google seemingly has an answer to almost everything. And now Google claims to provide you with the cheapest airfare for any flight with its Google Flights .

The origins of Google Flights

In 2011, Google launched Google Flights. The service was aimed at allowing people to find the cheapest fares between two destinations. Business Insider even reported that one was more likely to stumble upon cheaper fares on Google Flights than by searching on your own.

How Google Flight works

Google’s software searches and compares across dozens of airlines much faster than one can individually compare fares across airlines. In 2023, Southwest Airlines, after years of hesitancy to display flights on Google Flights, also joined the platform .

Pros of Google Flightfs

• The Fare View Calendar displays the cheapest airfares for the next year.
• It shows the carbon footprint of each flight.
• You can book directly with airlines (getting rid of intermediaries) with Google Flights.

Cons of Google Flights

• No mistake fares are shown, so it is next to impossible to find error fares.
• As it includes only a few online travel agents(OTAs), special deals by these agents offering heavily discounted fares are absent.

But how big is Google Flights?

After Google Flights was launched, travel sites such as Expedia and Booking.com have seen their businesses plunge. Given that Google has a lot of say over what hotels and restaurants are best for booking, and with the addition of Google Flights, it became a major player in the travel industry.

Photo: Google

Half a decade ago, Forbes reported that Google earned roughly $18 billion from online travel agents in 2018. In contrast, Booking.com’s revenue was $14.5 billion. Forbes went on to say that the addition of Google Flights to their Arsenal had made Google the “biggest travel company”:

“These companies are strapped to a conveyor belt, headed toward the Google buzzsaw. And recent earnings haven’t been pretty. TripAdvisor’s sales have plunged for three quarters in a row. Meanwhile Expedia and Booking are growing at their slowest pace in several years. Heck, Expedia’s board of directors just ousted its CEO for poor performance. All three stocks are trading like they’re going out of business.”

The Cheapest Price Guarantee on Google

Google’s price guarantee isn’t available on all flights, though. In order to look for a flight with a price guarantee, you can look out for a badge that has the dollar sign ($) enveloped in Google’s colors. These are the flights for which Google is confident that the price won’t drop.

Google writes that its price guarantee “pays you the difference between the flight price when you book and the lowest ticket price between then and departure.” It further goes on to say that in order to get a payout:

“the price difference must be greater than 5 USD. You can receive up to 500 USD total per Google account across all eligible itineraries in a given calendar year. You can have up to 3 open Price guaranteed bookings at any one time. This means that the first flight in the itinerary hasn’t departed yet. If eligible, you’ll receive a payout after the first flight in the booked itinerary takes off.”

Google’s price guarantee is a free service.

Terms and conditions for a price guarantee

In order to apply for the price guarantee on Google Flights, you must set your country/region to the US. In addition, you must be signed in to your Google account, and the following conditions apply:

• To see guaranteed flights, your currency must be in USD.
• Applicable to one-way and round-trip flights departing from the US.
• “You must use a US billing address and US phone number on the Book on Google page”.

Skyscanner

Skyscanner, much like Google Flights, allows you some great features, such as flexible date searching. The search aggregator was launched in the aughties and it:

• Allows you to search for flights from the entirety of the country, as opposed to from a specific airport or a city.
• Makes finding cheap flights easier.

Photo: Skyscanner

Like Google Flights, you can track flight prices or set an alert that notifies you of price changes during a particular trip. Skyscanner, unlike Google Flights, searches for lots of small OTAs, allowing for the possibility of lower prices than those displayed by airlines.

So, which of the two is better?

The following table compares and contrasts the features that are available on Skyscanner and Google Flights:

Both Skyscanner and Google use the algorithm to determine flight fares. According to inews.co.uk, Skyscanner shows lower fares in the UK:

“…carried out a snapshot comparison of 11 different routes on five popular travel comparison websites, including Google Flights,
Skyscanner found the cheapest fare on more than half the routes
. Skyscanner too is trying to take on airline algorithms. Like Google, it has mountains of data, which it’s used to
predict exactly when travellers should book for the cheapest fare
to popular destinations.”

It would be extremely difficult to come up with an objective metric to determine which of the two is better as this depends upon the subjective experiences of users. Even the location of the users can bring about differences in the fares shown.