Just a few hours away, all of us will bid our goodbyes to 2018. All of the faulty and not so good things that had occurred in the aforementioned year will then become a memory. It is time to move on and do better than the previous year. As for us, the new 2019 year is a time for my me and my husband to explore new provinces in the country and some foreign countries too!
Video credits: BetterCloud via YouTube
The fact that we are traveling together to our first international trip makes me really excited for 2019, it will be worth documenting and of course sharing it with you too as well.
But before that expedition, there´s a really vital piece of traveling that we have to tackle with today. Can you guess what I am referring to? Well, that´s basically the ticket booking. It is essential because one can never reach to their destination without booking a ticket, the gateway for one to be able to move from this place to another, may it be land, water or air voyage.
Image credits: liveandletsfly.boardingarea
Google Flights is yet another means of securing our air ticket booking experience more efficient, faster and even more easier.
Ticket Booking
Image credits: travelandleisure
There are obviously several methods to book a flight, either you advance directly to a travel agency, perhaps proceed to an airline office or go online and book it from there using your computer system. The options are all laid down in whatever means you want it done. As for me, I customarily book tickets online and most of the time during seat sales, yes 90% of my flights from the past and perhaps in the future are booked during that period of the year when airline seats are being sold at a very cheap price, some would even sell at Php 1 base price!
Image credits: philippineairlinespromofare
Let´s look at our Japan ticket for an example, I only paid more or less Php 5k for our roundtrip tickets for two plus this includes check-in baggage of 25kg. Isn´t it amazing? The equal case was with my former other domestic tickets.
Anyway, in terms of online ticket booking, we have unlimited options too! When you do a Google Search, you´ll easily find them on the first page, almost all that is returned when we do on any search engine would retort with some booking, flight comparison or hotel sites. It´s a matter of being the best in terms of SEO. So in case you want to check for reviews or more information of a certain spot, be sure to just navigate to the next few other pages. That's the only time that you'll find such blogs or websites.
Introducing: Google Flights
Image credits: moonlightstorie
But if you use Google´s Search Engine on looking for quite affordable and reasonable ticket prices for your next trip, you´ll better off with Google Flights.
Google Flights is comparable to the following online airline ticket bookings such as Expedia, Orbitz, Kayak.com, and Bing. Using this site will allow users to find the best-priced tickets for the next 12 months depending on the inputted dates, it is fast and easy to navigate with the edge of having the biggest data storage which makes it very efficient in terms of searching airfares.
Image credits: 9to5google
Based on my personal experience with using Google Flights, I find the following advantages and features which can be used as an advantage to those who would like to also do book their tickets online through this webpage.
1. Ad-free
Perhaps the ultimate reason why I usually do not embrace the other online airfare booking sites is that each time I try to do so, pop up ads are all around the place. Just one single click and it will start opening all of these weird and most of the time fraud-looking ads here and there.
Image credits: godsavethepoints
I have since stopped using other search sites because, in my mind, these pop-ups might have viruses and trojans in them that could cause functionality issues on my laptop computer.
But with Google Flights, the site runs free without the hassle of closing any pop-up screens and suspicious websites. In which some of them are also publishing some phishing pages which is dangerous.
Without any pop-ups screens, the experience is becoming hassle-free and probably worry free too!
2. Very fast
Image credits: designpractice
Have you´ve been into a situation where you get frustrated because the connection is okay but the website is just loading quite slow? Well, I do and I hate to find airline booking sites which are sluggish. I have seen, noticed and marked a lot of them and it is one good reason not to come back to their arms, ever again.
Google Flights, however, being a product of Google with a vast data storage and the fast server provides the best performance in terms of searching almost anything. The results are available in just seconds!
It is a perfect way to locate several airports too as you can input multiple airfields at a time. Talk about capableness and performance!
3. Filters
Image credits: upgradedpoints
I know other sites also have the same but because I like this feature, let me share this point as well. These filters make searching faster as you can already set up the boundaries for your preferences such as the dates, the prices, even the number of stops, airlines, and class.
Note however that there are some airlines that might not be promoted on the options as they are not yet affiliated with the online sites. Remember that Google Flights is just an engine to search the flights and the prices but one will still have to go over to booking sites once costs had been compared.
4. Price Visibility
Image credits: scottscheapflights
In the Google Flights search box, after inputting the number of passengers together with the date and stops, there’s a very helpful feature of viewing the ticket prices for the entire month and even for the entire year!
This peculiarity is available in some airlines but not all and most of them return very slow as well as erroneous which I sometimes hate and love. See, if you provide a monthly perspective of the prices, it would be best to have it fully functional rather than just for display purposes.
Although I had only tried booking once for our Manila trip, the provided results are all accurate so far. Also, the prices matter depending on the number of passengers inputted in the search box.
Conclusion
Image credits: blueswandaily
Overall, searching for flights through Google Flights was a pleasant experience, anyone who wants to find flights online can surely have a faster way of securing the ticket to your next travel destination.
There might some sites which had mentioned the disadvantages of using Google Flights. Of course, there's no perfect site developed yet for comparing airfare prices but hey, Google is just on the process of perfecting it. In due time, we'll surely get one that is almost bugless and perfect.
Video credits: Scott’s Cheap Flights via YouTube
Thank you for reading! Happy New Year!
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About the author:
Jean Beltran-Figues is a photography enthusiast.
A traveler who wants to promote her beloved country, the Philippines.
