Google will pay if your flight gets cheaper—but there’s a catch

If you’re scrambling to squeeze in a last-minute vacation, Google is doing its part to help you out.  

This week, the tech giant is adding a tool that will show you the price history of some flights (but not all) and let you know if they think the price of the flight will go up or has likely gotten as low as it’ll get. This is in addition to their existing tool that compares current fares to typical fares for a particular route. 

Image: Screenshot / Google

In addition to that, Google is also adding a price guarantee: if their tool predicts a particular itinerary won’t decrease in price, and it does drop, they’ll refund you the difference.

All of this sounds pretty useful and great, especially for everyone trying to get the hell out of town before the cold winter air sweeps in. But there is, of course, a catch. 

That price guarantee is only for flights booked between Aug. 13 and Sept. 2 and the flight has to be completed by Nov. 24, 2019. 

And Google doesn’t say which airlines and routes the price guarantee is available for; we’ve reached out for more information. I even tried with the same itinerary Google used in their sample screenshot (below) but never got the guarantee on either desktop or mobile. 

Image: Screenshots / Google, Marcus Gilmer

We’ve reached out to Google for more details about this particular tool. 

It’s also worth pointing out that flight price prediction isn’t a new thing. Google “competitor” Bing had a price predictor for years before it was shuttered in 2014. 

Currently, Kayak offers a very vague price prediction tool on its website.

There are other sites and apps out there, like AirHint, though the accuracy of these tools is unknown, so, for now, Google is your best bet.