How to save money on your next trip, with help from Google

Traveling is great — and saving money when you travel is even better. With Google, you can quickly find and compare prices for all your travel options, whether you need to book a flight or find the perfect place to stay. Here are a few of our favorite, tried-and-true ways to save money with Google’s travel tools — right in time for your holiday travels.

Get a great deal with Google Flights

Google Flights has tons of great features to help you find the best deal on your next flight — and the more flexible your plans are, the more ways you can save.

Browse for deals around the world with the Explore map. If you don’t have a specific destination in mind, the Explore map makes it easy to browse deals around the world. Just enter your home airport and leave the destination blank. Tap the Explore icon and you’ll be taken to a map showing flight prices based on your starting airport, plus a number of helpful filters to adjust your results based on factors like budget, trip length, flight duration and more.

Check out the date grid and price graph. If you know where you want to go but your travel dates are flexible, you can use the date grid and price graph to quickly see how prices change depending on when you fly. The date grid shows how prices change if you make slight adjustments to your departure or return dates (for example, departing on Thursday instead of Friday). The price graph shows how airfares change for a trip of whatever duration you're considering over several months.

Include multiple airports in your search. For major cities with multiple airports, we’ll include flight options for nearby airports by default — like LGA, JFK and EWR for New York City. But maybe you live between two cities, like New York and Philadelphia, or you’re open to different arrival cities, like Rome or Milan. You can search across all these options by adding multiple cities to either your origin or destination. Just enter your first airport in the search box, then hit the plus icon to add additional airports as desired. That way you can mix and match airports to get the best deal.

Get price tracking alerts. If you’re set on a particular destination but flexible on when you fly, you can turn on “Any dates” price tracking and we’ll email you when prices are low for flights anytime in the next three to six months. Or, if you want to monitor prices for a specific route on certain days, you can turn on price tracking for just those dates.

If you’re a power user, you can go a step further by selecting your specific flights, enabling price tracking for that exact itinerary and booking a refundable fare. That way, you’ll know if prices drop for the flight you’ve already booked, giving you the option to cancel and rebook to get an even better deal (just be sure to confirm with your airline or booking provider before doing so).

See the cheapest time to book. It’s usually safest to book your flights on the early side. But sometimes, airfares will go down within a predictable window before the departure date. So if your number one priority is getting the lowest price, the “cheapest time to book” insights can help. Just search for your preferred dates and destination and when we have enough historical data, you’ll see when prices are expected to be lowest for your trip.

For example, you might see that airfares from Chicago to Miami in December are usually lowest if you book two months in advance, so it’s better to wait if you want to score a cheaper flight. Or you might see that the cheapest fares were available last month, so you’ll want to book now before prices go up any further.

These insights are especially helpful because they’re tailored to your origin, destination and specific dates of travel. But there are also broader trends to be aware of for saving on airfare, like booking early for international trips, considering a layover, or flying on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday instead of the weekend.

Find the best price for your hotel or vacation rental

If you search for hotels on Google, you can tap on the map and get to the hotel search page to sort through all your options (or head straight to google.com/hotels). Under the filters, select “What you’ll pay” to see average prices by hotel star rating for the dates you’re browsing (and how they compare to historical data). Or, tap on “When to visit” to view average prices for that location, month by month.

Once you’ve chosen your hotel, the Prices tab makes it easy to see all the different sites where you can complete your booking. If you prefer to book directly with the hotel, you’ll see an Official Site badge on verified hotel websites. Or, you can compare prices across online booking sites to find the lowest price.

You can also compare prices for a vacation rental property (also known as short-term rentals). Vacation rentals will appear with the hotel results automatically, or you can tap on “Vacation Rentals” at the top of the page to narrow down your search.

Still looking for more ways to plan and research your travel options? Try using Gemini to brainstorm where to go or to build your packing list. And don’t forget about Google Maps, which makes it easy to explore your destination and find all the best local spots. We hope these resources make planning your next vacation a breeze!