Yesterday, I wrote about Google Flights making baggage information more clear.
I noted that, “I’m also still waiting for Google Flights to get smart enough so that when I search for round-trip flights from NYC to Tel Aviv, that even if the outbound flight is from JFK, it should still show return flights to Newark.”
It’s one of the many reasons that I still use the ITA Matrix in addition to Google Flights to search airfare. ITA Matrix hacking was always a fun topic that I spent time discussing in DansDeals Seminars.
But an eagle-eyed commenter noted that Google Flights can do that, thanks to the new “cheapest” flight tab.
In general, I book my flights as one-ways for maximum flexibility in case of needing to make changes. But I always price it out as a round-trip, as those will often be cheaper than a one-way, especially when flying internationally. Having this feature makes searching for round-trip options a lot better.
Under the usual filtering options, the default view is “Best” flight, but you can now choose “Cheapest” flight, which has options that don’t show up under best, even if you sort by price:
And sure enough, while under the “Best” tab, you are only offered return flights from your origin airport:
Under the “Cheapest” tab, you can now view return options from other airports:
You can also throw more complicated requests at it, like searching for El Al flights going from BOS, FLL, MIA, LAX, and NYC to TLV and if you select the “Cheapest” tab it will offer returns to any of those:
Kudos to Google Flights for adding this, though I’m not quite sure why it’s limited to the “Cheapest” tab and not always featured.
Hey Google, appreciate you following DansDeals (including several times in the past) and implementing these improvements that we’ve been asking for! Now let’s talk about that basic economy filter or a filter to display lie-flat seats only…
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14 Comments On "Google Flights Adds The Ability To Return To A Different Airport, If You Know Where To Look"
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I dislike cheapest because they highlight the 3rd party booking price (which is often times mistaken or unreliable) as opposed to the actual airline direct price that is highlighted on the “Best” tab.
I use google flights to search for flights, then I use secretflyer to search for the lowest price priced dates I found on google flights. A lot of the time secretflyer find those fares or other fares on the same dates for lower price then google flights and they recently got rid of all those ota’s that falsely advertise low priced fares that can’t be booked.
Thanks Dan! What do you mean by “In general, I book my flights as one-ways for maximum flexibility… But I always price it out as a round-trip”
Always wanted to understand this.
Thanks again
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this means if you book two one ways, you can cancel/ switch one leg without affecting the other. this would be releant if the pricing on one leg goes down or if you need to change one leg only. this also allows you to swithc the return leg after you have departed, which you often cannot do on RT. Also allows you to fly two different alliances there and back, for example if delta has awed space there and united on the way back
+1
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I have had issues with the Cheapest tab having older data in it including prices that were not longer current. Neat though that this solved the multi city return option.
What about self transfer flight options
You can filter those out if you want to. Click on the filter and go all the way down.
No I’m saying to include them. It includes some. I want a site that includes all of them so I don’t have to search manually.
Dan.
It seems from this post that you book revenue tickets. I will show you always fly only on Miles
https://oldmatrix.itasoftware.com/
is dying and its working now on slower then 2g speed
@dan please ask google to improve the new matrix
How do you put in more than 1 location on outbound dosnt let me thanks