This New Google Flights Feature Is Perfect for Travelers With Flexibility

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Published on 11/22/21

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The wide, wonderful world of Google is a pretty amazing place. Besides being a search engine for random info, travelers also know and love Google Flights for scoping out the best deals. And recently, there’s been an upgrade that makes budget travel even better.

If you’ve used Google Flights in the past, you may have filtered your search by entering a specific set of dates and using the date grid to get an estimate of what flights cost. Maybe you even toggled on the “track prices” feature so deal alerts for those specific dates were sent directly to your inbox. And if you were not set on flying on any particular day—you just wanted to find the best deal possible—you'd set up multiple alerts to watch airfare rates for a range of dates.

Well, Google's new feature caters to those who want to visit a specific location but have some flexibility in their travel schedule. Now when you're tracking flights, you can click the "any dates" slide-toggle to get notified when prices for your trip begin to drop.

Google Flights Any Date Feature — Google

You might be thinking, "Wait, that’s going to inundate my inbox." With Google's AI, though, you're unlikely to receive notifications for every low-fare flight, only those that are similar to your original search. So if you were on the hunt for a five-day trip to Paris in the springtime, then you should be receiving receive alerts for a three- to five-day trip during the spring months, versus a 10-day trip in the summer or fall.

Also, the “any dates” feature does not work for all destinations. While searching for a trip from Richmond to Madrid, the toggle button wasn’t there, but it was present when we looked up flights from New York to Madrid. However, for most routes we searched, the new feature is available.

This might not be ideal if you have a super-specific time frame, like if you needed to be in L.A. for a wedding during the first week of February. But if you’re looking to use up some PTO or work remotely in another city or country, this is pretty clutch.