How Google Flight's new feature got me ultra-cheap plane tickets

Thanksgiving is just over a month away and Christmas is just a few weeks after that. That means millions of Americans are preparing to travel in the next two months. In fact, according to US Department of Transportation reports, there were 599,814 domestic flights scheduled in November 2023 and 606,218 domestic flights scheduled in December 2023.

If you're one of the millions of people planning an end-of-year air trip, you may be looking for the cheapest airfare available – and Google Flights is introducing a new feature to help you do just that.

Starting Wednesday, October 16, Google is introducing a new Cheapest tab on Google Flights to help travelers save money and easily find ultra-cheap flights. This is how it will work.

Read more: Southwest Airlines flights are now available on Google Flights

How I found the cheapest flights on Google Flights

To start, I opened Google Flights. You can do this by either going to www.google.com/travel/flights or searching for “Google Flights.”

Now all you have to do is enter your trip details and tap the Cheapest tab to browse the cheapest options available.

During my testing, I tried to book a flight from LA to NYC from Saturday November 9th to Saturday November 16th. The platform first took me to a “Best” tab, which displays flights sorted by comfort and price. Then I switched to the “Cheapest” tab, which shows flights based solely on price. On the Best tab, the airfare for a Spirit flight started at $176. On the Cheapest tab, airfares start at just $128 for a Frontier flight with a stop in Denver.

To get a feel for how cheap domestic flights can be, I experimented with itineraries from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Atlanta to Boston, and NYC to Denver, and found that many flights were under $400. Dollars – and some even cost around $400 or under $200.

I was also curious about how this new feature would affect the cost of international flights. A visit to Vienna is at the top of my travel list and I've always dreamed of booking a trip during the city's ball season, which peaks in January and February. I simulated a trip from Charlotte to Vienna between Monday, January 20th and Monday, January 27th and there were almost 150 flight options available for those dates. Prices for high-end tickets ranged from about $850 to over $1,000, but the cheapest price was $504. As someone who is constantly looking for flights to Vienna, airfare starting at $500 is a solid deal.

The caveat, however, is that the $500 flight includes three stops on the return flight, including an overnight stop. The return flights are also self-transfers, where two or more separate flights are booked on different airlines. This can provide significant cost savings, but requires more planning and research.

How does the new feature work?

To aggregate the cheapest options, Google Flights expands its flight offerings from third-party providers, such as online travel agencies, and offers flight routes that may be less convenient, such as flights with longer layovers or booking different parts of the trip with different airline booking providers.

The Cheapest Tab feature will roll out globally over the next two weeks ahead of the peak holiday travel season. We've already covered the cheapest times to book flights depending on your destination and time of year. Now Google Flights is offering a new upgrade if cost is more important than convenience to maximize your travel budget.