Google Flights: How to Book a Plane Ticket

This article explains how to purchase plane tickets with Google Flights. There are two ways to use Google Flights: Search for plane tickets directly from the search engine or go to the Google Flights website to find tickets.

How to Search for Google Flights

Google Flights searches flight prices without ever leaving the Google search engine. You can see which airlines you can choose from, pick a specific departure and arrival date, and view prices directly within the search results.

For example, you can open a new Google search and type "flights from MCI to NYC in October" to tell Google to find flights that match that specification. Or, if your browser has access to your current location, just type "flights to New York City" for airfare information regarding the airport closest to where you are now.

The Google Flights Website

If you use the Google Flights website, you'll see not only a list of flights but also a map of them off to the right, along with your current location. From there, you can change the number of passengers that will be flying; pick from first class, economy, etc.; view flights within a flexible time frame; filter the results by lots of different criteria.

How to Filter Google Flights Results

Google Flights uses lots of filtering options so that you can find the exact flight you're interested in buying. For example, maybe you have a specific price in mind when you search for tickets, or maybe you have a flight duration, arrival time, or specific rewards network in mind.

On the Google Flights website, after selecting the departure airport (and return airport if you're wanting a round trip flight), pick a date for when you want to leave and another for the return flight. Once Google Flights knows those details, it can match you with all sorts of flights with these filtering options:

• Bags: Only see flights that have overhead bin access.
• Stops: Keep the default "Any number of stops" option or pick between nonstop only, one-stop or fewer, or two stops or fewer.
• Airlines: This lets you Google tickets for select airlines only, including alliances like Star Alliance and SkyTeam.
• Price: Use this filter to show plane tickets below a certain price. Depending on where you're flying, and from where you're leaving, you might have the option to filter the plane ticket prices to as low as under $100.
• Times: Pick any outbound or return flight times so that the plane tickets you see on Google Flights are restricted to those times only. For example, you might pick 7:00 a.m.–11:00 a.m. for the departure outbound filter so that you can be sure to find a flight that leaves before noon.
• Connecting airports: Remove any airport from this list if you don't want the flight to have a layover there. You can also adjust the layover duration, such as 1–3 hours, to ensure that your flight is speedy.
• More: This area of Google Flights has two more options. Adjust the total flight duration here to keep longer flights out of the list. You can also have Google Flights show or hide separate tickets, which are flights that you can buy individually to, hopefully, get an overall cheaper price for your combined departure and return flight.

More options are available above the filtering options, just above the locations you've entered. You can switch between round trip and one way and refine the flights by a weekend trip or a one- or two-week trip, and pick which months you want to travel.

After the results appear, Google Flights sorts them by best flights, price, departure time, arrival time, and duration.

If you're viewing Google Flights from the Google search results page, the only options you have are to change the originating and destination airports and to pick dates for the flights.

How to Buy a Plane Ticket From Google Flights

Accessing Google Flights and filtering the results to find the best tickets for you, is just part of the process. The next thing you need to do is actually book the flight.

Click a flight to choose it as your departure flight. If this is a round trip, select a returning flight as well.

Review your flight information from the Trip Summary page. This page not only shows the flight times and price, but also whether or not your plane will have Wi-Fi, how much legroom you'll have, and if there's in-seat power to charge your devices on the plane. Click Select.

Complete the purchase on the airline's website.