Visiting Google Flights is your first stop on the way to cruising the skies in a plane! Photo by Evan Berman
Introduction
You want to travel and visit a place you’ve never been to before– say Paris, France or Tulum, Mexico– and you might be asking a few questions: How do I get there? What do I need to get there? What will I do there? I don’t speak French (or Spanish), is that a problem? Maybe you’ve never left the country before or haven’t travelled in a while.
This series of articles will help you answer some questions and give pointers as you go about making your dream a reality! First, let’s talk about booking flights.
Where do you want to go? You might have dreamed of seeing the Eiffel Tower or maybe you just want to get out and explore somewhere new. If you have a specific place in mind, the next step is to start planning that trip. If you just want to see somewhere new, you can choose your location based on price, flight convenience, or a host of other factors such as when a festival or holiday occurs.
Enter your new best friend for flights, Google Flights!
Before you book any flight, always check with your GF (and girlfriend if appropriate 🙂 , she’d rather go on the trip with you than hear about it later)!
Destination:
Type in your home city and select the airport if there is only one nearby you (ATL in Atlanta, GA, for example) or the city if there are multiple options (for New York, you have JFK, LGA, and EWR).
Next, if applicable, do the same for your destination. If you don’t have one, you can leave it blank or type in a broad category, such as “Europe” or “Mexico.”
Dates:
Do you have dates in mind? If so, type them into the boxes. Remember to use nights and weekends to your advantage– if you want a quick weekend trip, look at flying out on Friday night and returning Sunday night so you get two full days! If you don’t have dates set in stone, no problem, just use the ones provided and you can play around with them later.
Tip: Always use 1 person as the number of passengers, even if you are travelling with two or more people. Why? To (possibly) save money! Airlines sell seats in fare classes– first class, business class, and economy (and sometimes others). But they also have fare buckets within those classes. So, one seat in economy might be $50 or $100 cheaper than another… or even more! You and your travel companion (be it significant other, friend, family member, or stranger) can still sit together and you might be able to save some cash!
Stops:
Do you care about flying non-stop? Personally, I think one stop is perfectly fine (and can even allow you to see another city with a long layover. More on that later!) but you might not. If you decide one stop is acceptable, make sure you have enough time to catch your next flight! Don’t book less than a one-hour layover if you can help it (and for international flights, under 1.5 hours is pushing it). You can toggle the Stops filter on Google Flights if you want to limit the number of stops.
FYI, if you’re flying to a remote place such as Madagascar, you might have to accept a two-stop (or more) itinerary.
Example:
Hit search and see the results. Let’s say that you live in NYC and have been dying to go to Paris. You know you can take a week off from work and aren’t sure when you want to go, but you think September would be a great time for a trip. So, you search for a round-trip flight the first week of September. Here’s what that looks like:
That’s not bad, a round-trip itinerary for under $600. You would fly into Stockholm, Sweden and have 3 hours before departing and flying to Paris. But how do you know if this is a good price? Scroll down and enlarge the “Prices are currently typical for your trip” box.
Google shows you the price history. Note that roughly 50-55 days ago prices were over $100 cheaper. In a future article I will show you when the best times to book flights are but for now, use this tool to ensure you are paying a reasonable amount for your flight, unless you HAVE to fly somewhere.
You might go ahead and choose this flight. But remember, you’re flexible on your dates. Why not see if there is a better price later on that month? Click on date range and voilà: you can adjust your departure and return dates and Google will automatically display the lowest price of each combination. Here, if you flew the next week and left on Thursday instead of Friday, you can get down to $502 (and have an extra day in Paris!).
Quick tip: always compare two one-ways and one round-trip flight. Depending on the airline and destination, you might be able to save by booking two one-way flights or there may be a more convenient one-way departure/return than the ones offered as a roundtrip flight!
Flight Details:
Let’s say that you decide Friday-Saturday works better and you want to book it. Click on the flight, then view your return options and select the best fit. In this example, you would stop in Stockholm, Sweden on Saturday at 3:55pm local time and do not leave until 10:25am the next day. Are you going to spend those 19 hours in the airport?
NO! Why not have a mini-second vacation?!? Take that time to explore the beautiful city of Stockholm and then come back to the airport the next day ready to head home. (For this type of long layover, I recommend keeping your TSA-approved toiletries and a change of clothes with you, separate from a checked bag. More on packing in a later article).
Let’s Book that Flight!
Ask yourself if you’ll need to check a bag. Let’s assume that if you are gone for more than 5 days, you will pack a bag. Unfortunately, you will generally have to pay for a checked bag on the cheapest flights to Europe and nearly all flights in the US. This is usually $30-$50 each way.
Be careful about which site you use to pay for the flights. Until you feel confident you know which sites to use, I would highly recommend navigating to the airline’s website, in this case Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). Why is that? If you need to reschedule, cancel, or otherwise modify the reservation, the customer service (or lack thereof) on many of the cheap booking sites make this impossible.
Also, you will likely not earn points on the airline by booking through another site and it may even code as other on your credit card, meaning your purchase was not a worthwhile as you previously thought. More on that in this article!
Once you navigate to the airline website, login or sign up for an account before you do anything else. You’ll want to join a loyalty program so that you can be rewarded for flying with that airline or its partners. It’s totally free and can be very lucrative! I’ve searched for that same itinerary on the SAS site and since we are checking a bag you’ll need to choose Smart as opposed to Light.
Enter Your Information:
After choosing the flights, click continue and head to the next page. You’ll need to enter your first, middle, and last names, gender, date of birth, email, and phone number. It is imperative that you this information match your passport exactly. If your name is James William Smith, even if you go by Will Smith, list your first name as James, middle as William, and last name as Smith.
Choosing Seats:
Next, you’ll be asked to choose your seat. I almost always leave this blank. Why pay $12-$59 on each flight when you can ignore the prompt and be placed in a seat for free? (If you travel with one or more other people, you might want to choose a seat so that you ensure you sit with them). Either select a seat or do not and then hit continue. Ignore the attempts to get you to buy a CO2 offset, lounge access, extra baggage, and premium meals and hit continue. Enter your payment information, agree to the terms and hit purchase.
Congratulations, you’ve just booked your flight and will soon be on your way to making memories in the location of your choice! See you next time for tips on packing.
0