WASHINGTON – Booking flights and ensuring that you don’t waste a dime has always been a challenging task for globetrotters but their worries seem to have been ended by Google which is rolling out a new feature.
The search engine giant has announced a new price guarantee feature that promises to monitor prices daily and pay customers the difference if their fare drops at any point from booking to departure.
“If you see a flight with the price guarantee badge, it means we’re confident that the price you see today won’t get any lower before takeoff,” a statement from Google said.
“We’ll monitor the price every day until departure, and if it does go down, we’ll send you back the difference via Google Pay. Now you can book with the confidence that you’re not missing out on a great deal,” it added.
It is to be highlighted that you do not need to pay with Google Pay to qualify for the reimbursement, and Google will send you instructions for setting up an account to receive your refund if you don’t already have one.
Richard Holden, the company’s Vice President of Travel Products said on Monday that on Google flights, users can already see whether current prices are low, typical, or high compared to historical averages but added that the firm was going a mile more with a new pilot program for price guarantees in the US.
Currently, Alaska, Hawaiian and Spirit Airlines are the main carriers and would offer the price-guarantee feature during the pilot phase, but the search engine hopes to expand the program to more carriers.
The company has announced that to get money back, the price difference must be more than 5 USD and one can receive up to 500 USD back total per calendar year for up to 3 open Price guaranteed bookings at any one time.
‘This happens after the first flight in the booked itinerary has taken off,’ the firm said and added that colorful price badge appears next to flights for which the feature is enabled.
As the program is in pilot phase, to be eligible, users must use a US billing address and US phone number on the Book on Google page and must be over 18 years of age.
Google has also clarified that if the airline updates prices faster than they load on Google Flights, the guarantee would not be provided.
You may find a price guarantee, but if the price updates before you book, the guarantee may not be available when you go to book, it said and highlighted that if users change their trip or cancel any part of it, they won’t get the difference back.
The conditions for getting the difference include downloading the Google Pay app and setting it up within 90 days of the departure of the first flight in your itinerary. The money will be deposited into Google Pay.
