There are few things more frustrating than booking a plane ticket when you think you got the timing just right, only to see the price go down a few days later. Google sympathizes with buyer’s remorse when it comes to air travel, which is why they introduced a new price-guarantee feature today, just in time for the looming summer travel season. With the new tool, Google promises to monitor flight prices from booking to departure to ensure you got the best possible price when booking through them.
Yes, Google will actually pay you back the difference if you secure a flight through them and the price comes down. At the moment, Google is testing the new policy with select U.S. flights on only three airlines — Alaskan, Hawaiian and Spirit. When booking air travel through Google, qualifying flights will have a blue “price-guarantee” badge. If you book a flight with that badge and the price goes down, Google will send you an email notification and automatically deposit the difference into your Google Pay account (you will need to set one up for all this to work). Money from Google Pay can easily be transferred to a linked bank account.
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What to know ahead of your next $50 flight“What we’re wanting to do is to take [our] price insights to the next level,” Jade Kessler, product manager at Google Flights, told Bloomberg. “We have hopes to offer this to as many users as possible and expand it beyond just Book on Google.”
In the long term, Google wants to roll out the new policy to include as many domestic and international airlines as possible, though there is no timeline on when more carriers will be on board. Google is so confident in its flight prediction algorithm that the company will bear the entire brunt of reimbursement to customers — Google doesn’t charge airlines to appear on the platform, nor does it take a percentage from booking revenue.
This is obviously big news and super exciting, especially if Google expands beyond these three airlines sometime soon. Because no matter how big of a price guarantee, it will never be enough to fly Spirit.
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