How to Use Google Flights Like a Pro: The Complete Tutorial

Google Flights is the most powerful flight search tool available, and most people only use about 20% of its features. They type in two cities, pick dates, and book whatever comes up first. That approach routinely costs hundreds more than it should.

This tutorial walks through every feature — from obvious to hidden — so you can search with precision, spot the cheapest dates, track price drops, and make booking decisions with confidence. No sign-up required, no ads to wade through, no affiliate bias in the results.

The Basics: Running Your First Search

Navigate to google.com/travel/flights. The interface is clean: origin, destination, dates, number of passengers, and cabin class.

Setting Up Your Search

• Round trip, one-way, or multi-city: Toggle these at the top left. Multi-city lets you build complex itineraries (fly into Paris, out of Rome, for example)
• Passengers: Add the number of adults, children (2-11), and infants. Child pricing varies by airline and route
• Cabin class: Economy, Premium Economy, Business, or First. Google Flights shows all available classes across airlines, which many booking sites don't

Understanding the Results

Results appear sorted by "Best flights" by default, which balances price against duration and number of stops. You can switch to sort by:

• Price: Cheapest first, regardless of routing
• Duration: Shortest total travel time
• Departure time: Earliest to latest
• Arrival time: Earliest to latest

Each result shows the airline, departure and arrival times (in local time zones), total duration, number of stops, and price. Click any result to expand details: layover durations, aircraft type, seat pitch (legroom), in-flight amenities, carbon emissions, and booking links.

The Explore Feature: When You're Flexible on Destination

This is Google Flights' most underused feature and arguably its most powerful.

How to Access It

From the main Google Flights page, enter your departure city but leave the destination blank. Then click "Explore" or just search. You'll see an interactive map showing the cheapest available flights from your city to destinations worldwide.

What You Can Do with Explore

• Filter by travel dates: Select specific dates or choose flexible date ranges
• Filter by interests: Beach, city, outdoors, skiing — the map highlights relevant destinations
• Set a maximum price: Drag the price slider to see only destinations within your budget
• Filter by duration: Nonstop only, or with stops
• Filter by continent or region: Zoom into specific parts of the world

This feature is how experienced travelers find deals they'd never think to search for. You might discover that flights to Lisbon are $380 round trip next month while flights to London are $700. Without Explore, you'd never have considered Lisbon.

The "Cheapest" Tab

When viewing Explore results, switch to the "Cheapest" tab to see a ranked list of the least expensive destinations from your city. This is where spontaneous, budget-driven travel planning begins.

The Date Grid: Finding the Cheapest Days to Fly

The date grid is the tool that saves you the most money on flights you've already decided to take.

How to Use It

1. Enter your origin, destination, and approximate travel dates
2. Click "Date grid" in the toolbar (it appears after your initial search)
3. A calendar view appears showing the cheapest round-trip price for each combination of departure and return dates

Reading the Date Grid

• Green cells indicate the cheapest options
• Yellow cells are mid-range
• Prices update in real-time as you hover over different date combinations
• The grid shows a full month at a glance, so you can instantly spot whether flying on a Tuesday versus a Saturday saves you $150

Date Grid Strategy

• Midweek flights (Tuesday-Thursday) are almost always cheaper than weekend flights for domestic routes
• For international flights, the departure day matters less than the season and how far in advance you book
• Check the surrounding weeks: Sometimes shifting your entire trip by one week dramatically changes the price
• Look for asymmetry: Flying out on a Thursday and returning on a Wednesday might be significantly cheaper than a standard Saturday-to-Saturday booking

The Price Graph: Visualizing Trends

The price graph shows how prices fluctuate across a range of dates for a specific route.

How to Access It

Click "Price graph" in the toolbar after running a search. You'll see a bar chart showing the cheapest available fare for each departure date across a range of several weeks.

What It Tells You

• Price dips that correspond to specific days of the week (Tuesday departures are often cheapest)
• Seasonal trends: You can see exactly when prices spike for holiday periods and when they drop for shoulder seasons
• Baseline pricing: Understanding the typical price range for a route helps you recognize a genuine deal vs. normal pricing

Price Tracking: Let Google Watch for You

If you're not ready to book immediately, or you're waiting for a potential price drop, set up price tracking.

How to Set It Up

1. Run your search with your desired route and dates
2. Toggle the "Track prices" switch (appears below the search bar)
3. Google will email you when prices change significantly

What to Expect

• You'll receive email notifications when prices drop or rise by a meaningful amount
• Google provides a recommendation on whether to buy now or wait, based on historical pricing data for that route
• Tracking works for specific date combinations, not open-ended monitoring

Is "Wait or Buy" Reliable?

Google's price prediction is based on historical trends for that specific route and time period. It's not perfect, but it's one of the best free tools available. Generally:

• If Google says "Prices are low" and the fare matches or beats the price graph's typical range, book with confidence
• If Google says "Prices are typical," you could wait, but don't expect a dramatic drop
• If Google says "Prices are high," consider adjusting your dates or setting a tracker

Filters: Narrowing Results with Precision

Google Flights' filter bar appears above your search results. Most travelers ignore it. Don't.

Stops

Filter by nonstop, one stop, or two or more stops. The price difference between nonstop and one-stop flights can be substantial — sometimes nonstop is cheaper, sometimes the opposite. Always check both.

Airlines

Exclude airlines you don't want to fly or restrict results to airlines where you have loyalty status or specific preferences. This is useful if you're collecting miles with a particular alliance.

Duration

Set a maximum total travel time. This eliminates absurd routings (14-hour journeys for a 3-hour route via a connecting hub in the wrong direction) that appear because they're technically cheap.

Times

Filter by departure and arrival time windows. If you need to arrive before 2pm for a conference, or you refuse to take red-eye flights, set these filters and see only relevant results.

Price

Set a maximum price to eliminate results above your budget.

Bags

Specify whether you're traveling with carry-on only, one checked bag, or two. Google recalculates total prices including baggage fees, which can dramatically reshuffle the rankings. A $250 "basic economy" fare that charges $35 each way for a checked bag is actually $320 — more expensive than the $310 "main cabin" fare that includes a bag.

This is one of the most important filters. Always set your bag count before comparing prices. Airlines have made their base fares artificially low by stripping out bag fees, and Google Flights is one of the only search tools that adjusts for this.

Emissions

Filter or sort by carbon emissions per passenger. If environmental impact is a factor in your booking decisions, this filter highlights more efficient aircraft and routing.

Nearby Airports: Expanding Your Options

Click on the origin or destination field and check the "Nearby airports" option. Google will include airports within roughly 100-200 miles of your specified city.

This is how you discover that:

• Flying out of Providence instead of Boston saves $180
• Flying into Oakland instead of SFO opens up budget carrier options
• Arriving in Girona instead of Barcelona drops the fare by 40% (Girona is 90 minutes from Barcelona by bus)

For international destinations, this is especially powerful. If you're heading to the French Riviera, check flights to Nice, Marseille, and even Milan or Geneva — all within a few hours of the coast.

Multi-City Searches: Open-Jaw and Complex Itineraries

The multi-city feature lets you build itineraries where you fly into one city and out of another, or chain multiple flights together.

When to Use Multi-City

• Open-jaw trips: Fly into Rome, travel overland through Italy, and fly home from Milan. This avoids backtracking and saves time
• Multi-destination trips: Fly from New York to Tokyo, then Tokyo to Bangkok, then Bangkok to New York
• Positioning flights: Fly cheaply to a hub city, then take a separate budget carrier to your final destination

How to Set It Up

1. Switch to "Multi-city" at the top of the search
2. Add each leg (flight segment) with its own origin, destination, and date
3. Google Flights searches all legs simultaneously and shows combined pricing

Pro tip: Sometimes booking an open-jaw trip (into one city, out of another) on one itinerary is cheaper than booking two separate round trips. Other times, individual one-way tickets are cheaper. Check both.

Hidden Features Most People Miss

Google Flights Insights

Below your search results, Google sometimes shows insights like "Prices are currently low for this route" or "This price is X% lower than usual." These are based on historical pricing data and are genuinely useful for decision-making.

Flexible Dates

When you click on the departure or return date, look for the "+/- days" option or the "Flexible dates" toggle. This expands your search to include dates a few days before or after your selected dates, showing you whether shifting by a day or two reveals a significantly cheaper fare.

Tracked Routes Dashboard

Visit google.com/travel/flights/tracked to see all your active price trackers in one place. This is your command center for monitoring multiple potential trips simultaneously.

Carbon Emissions Comparison

Google Flights now shows estimated CO2 emissions per passenger for each flight option. Nonstop flights are nearly always lower-emission than connecting flights (takeoff and landing are the most fuel-intensive phases). Newer aircraft like the A321neo and 787 Dreamliner are significantly more efficient than older models.

Seat and Amenity Details

Click "Expand" on any flight result to see seat pitch (legroom), seat type (standard or lie-flat), WiFi availability, power outlet availability, and whether the seat includes entertainment screens. This information is pulled from airline data and is usually accurate, though aircraft swaps can change the details.

Advanced Strategies

The "Throwaway Leg" Check

Sometimes a connecting flight through your actual destination is cheaper than a direct flight to it. For example, a flight from Chicago to Denver to Los Angeles might be cheaper than Chicago to Denver. You could theoretically book the cheaper connecting flight and just get off in Denver.

Warning: This practice, called "hidden city ticketing" or "skiplagging," violates most airline terms of service. You can only do it with one-way tickets (if you skip a connection on the outward journey, the airline cancels your return), you can't check bags (they'll be sent to the final destination), and airlines can penalize frequent flyers who do this repeatedly. Know the risks.

The ITA Matrix Cross-Reference

Google Flights is built on ITA Matrix technology, but the original ITA Matrix (matrix.itasoftware.com) still exists and sometimes surfaces routing options that Google Flights doesn't display. Power users check both.

Booking Directly vs. Through Google

Google Flights shows booking links from airlines and third-party sites. Always book directly with the airline when prices are the same. Direct bookings give you better customer service, easier modifications, and ensure your frequent flyer miles are credited properly. Third-party booking sites are worth using only when the price difference is substantial (more than $50).

Putting It All Together: A Search Workflow

Here's the process for finding the best fare on any route:

1. Start with Explore if you're flexible on destination. Set your budget, dates, and interests
2. Check the date grid to find the cheapest combination of departure and return dates
3. Review the price graph to understand whether current prices are high, low, or typical
4. Set bag filters to see true all-in prices
5. Check nearby airports for both origin and destination
6. Set up price tracking if you don't need to book immediately and Google indicates prices might drop
7. Book directly with the airline for the best service and flexibility

This workflow takes 10-15 minutes and routinely saves $100-400 compared to a quick search-and-book approach. Once you internalize these tools, you'll never overpay for a flight again.

And once you've locked in your flights at the right price, let TripGenie handle the rest of your itinerary — building your day-by-day plan around your flight times, accommodation, and interests.