Google Flights Price Availability

I have had a similar issue with Turkish Air. I solved it by turning my flight into an open jaw flight. Crazy to have to do that but I got the Google listed flights at the Google listed price Only happened the one time. Also, a few times a combo of flights would show up in a round trip flight, but not in a one way scenario. I think Google Flights is the best search engine but still not perfect, but neither are the airline sites, so you have to do a bit of trial and error.

No idea, Larry, but I have had the same situation (since my hub is DFW and I end up flying AA frequently). I figured it was some computer algorithm that paired flights differently. But the Google flight link worked for purchase, so I didn’t argue….. :) And it IS buying directly from AA so I didn’t worry about that either.

This is so interesting ! Thanks for the tip

Yes, thanks Larry. I haven't had an experience like yours, but I had so much trouble with Delta routings last summer that maybe I'll try using Google if it happens again.

Needless to say, we did purchase the trip on AA as referred to AA by Google this AM. 475 each, return is non-stop, we will put up with BA's ancient 777 at that price). And then annotated this to the board after. In the two years prior to Covid I violated our personal rule of not using an online agency for ticket purchased because an etailer, Fareboom (am I allowed to name them?) gave me combo AA-BA trips that neither site would put together, in spite of their being codeshares. At advantageous prices, too. Not only had no problems, but the etailer allowed seats on the AA legs without AAs minimal surcharge (BA, fuggedaboutit).

Aimee--Edited. ""Hearts" = "seats"! I have no idea what I mistyped, but the auto-correct produced "hearts" and it was not highlighted.

Lately, every time I use Google flights, the price is much higher once I roll out of Google to the airline website. Very disappointing.

I haven't had that experience, but I read an explanation of that phenomenon once. I have no idea whether it's true, but it does seem reasonable to me: Google Flights (and I assume other platforms that try to aggregate data from nearly all airlines) don't hit every airline website to get up-to-the-instant fare data when you place your request; that would take too long and delay display of the information you've requested. Some of the fares Google displays are based on results from recent requests made by other users. Since airline algorithms tweak fares very frequently and another customer may just have bought the last available ticket at the lowest price point, when the new user goes to the airline website, the data might be different.

Again, I am not saying for sure that it works this way, just that it may. Perhaps someone else knows for sure?

Even if 100% of the data was fresh at the time it was displayed to you, someone else might still manage to buy the last available ticket you're interested in at the great price before you manage to do so--like what sometimes happens on TicketMaster when you're trying to buy a great ticket for a popular event.

I do know from past experience that in spite of being partners, BA does not play well with American. Not only does the price jump when booking through Google, but it also goes directly to that, not even offering the Google price, when booking through BA. And for whatever reasons that they don't well, at American I can get that price, but not for the convenient combination. But it worked when booked through Google.