Hate early morning flights or are desperate to maximise your annual leave by getting the last flight home? Well, thanks to this little known Google Flights hack, you can do just that whilst also finding the cheapest flights out there.
"Isn't that just common sense"
I shared this hack on episode 3 of mine and James’ new travel podcast, Passports Please!
This is one of my favourite hacks and so I wasn’t expecting to be greeted with such a negative response when a clip of me discussing it on the podcast appeared on Instagram…
Yep, this ‘hack’ was greeted with a barrage of comments along the lines of “isn’t that just common sense?” and “This just in….water is wet!”
BURN 🔥🔥🔥
But here’s the thing, these people didn’t listen properly! The hack isn’t to simply use the filters to only show what time you want to fly at.
Because they’re right – most search engines have this and have done so for years!
However this hack uses this knowledge and then takes it up to the next level, helping you find not only the flight times you want, but for the cheapest possible price.
How To Find Cheap Flights at the Best Times
We’ve all been there right? We search for flights for the dates we want to travel, and the ‘from’ price is really cheap. MARVELLOUS.
But, those cheaper prices may well be for flight times that don’t suit us. Perhaps it’s too early? Too late! Or maybe you have young kids and you want to book your travel around nap times?
So let’s pretend that I’m needing to book a trip with some specific needs when it comes to my flight times…
The Scenario
I want to book a weekend trip to Lisbon, but I don’t want to take much time off work.
That means I want to fly from London after 3pm on a Friday.
I also want to maximise my time away, and so I want to fly home from Lisbon after 4pm on a Sunday.
Step 1: Head to Google Flights
I go to Google Flights and put in that I’m flying from London to Lisbon.
To get started, I just choose any dates that could work for me. Let’s go for Fri 21 Feb – Sun 23 Feb and click ‘search’.
Step 2: Add what times I want to fly
So a number of results have come up for the dates I put in.
But instead of browsing through these, I click on ‘Times’ which brings up sliders that allow me to select what time I want to depart and arrive for both my outbound and return flights.
I can also access this filter and more by selecting ‘All filters’.
I choose to only see flights departing after 3pm on my Friday ‘outbound’ flight, and only flights departing after 4pm on my Sunday ‘return’ flight.
Now my results work for the times that I want, but the only problem is… they’re pretty expensive! In fact, the cheapest is £191 return!
The Google Flights Hack
Step 3: Head back to the calendar
So, this is where the Google Flights hack comes in.
With the time filters still selected, you’re going to scroll back up and click on the departure date again. This will bring up a calendar view with a load of prices listed under each date.
In my case, these are showing the prices for 2 day trips – since that’s what I originally searched for – though I could change this at the bottom by clicking the arrows.
Step 4: Search the calendar for the cheapest dates
Now, I simply work my way through the calendar to find the cheapest dates. As I am still keen to fly over a weekend, I’m just checking the prices on Fridays, but if you were more flexible, you could just be scanning for the cheapest possible price.
And in December, I find a 2 day trip leaving on a Friday and returning on a Sunday for £83 return.
And yep, you’ve guessed it, the flights fit my time preferences to a tee:
That’s a saving of £108 compared to the first flights I found, and if I decided I could go on any date of the week, I could have nabbed a 2 day trip for these flight times for as little as £43 return.
Who Is This Google Flights Hack Good For?
This hack is great for those of us who want to:
- Maximise our travel days – by flying out early and returning late
- Maximise our annual leave – by choosing flights that fit around our work hours
- Want to avoid particular timed flights – such as early or late flights!
- Travel on a budget – it’s a great way of simply spotting the cheapest flights for your circumstances!
Have I used this google flight hack?
Yes! I used it all the time and it’s just one of the many Google Flights hacks out there that you kind of have to stumble across to even realise it’s a thing…
I’ll be sure to share more of my other hacks soon!
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