Lots of folks start thinking about their summer travel plans around this time of year. Today, Google revealed some new travel-based features in Search that could help individuals, families, and groups save some money, find places to stay, and book tickets to certain attractions from their smartphones.
Perhaps the most interesting new feature is for Google Flights. The company"s blog post states that If you live in the US, you can take advantage of a new price guarantee feature. Most airline flights have prices that can fluctuate widely on a daily, and even hourly, basis. Google Flights" new feature should eliminate some headaches when people are trying to save money.
If you find a flight you like, and it has the new price guarantee badge, you can book it from Google Flights knowing that its price won"t get any lower before you get on board the plane. If, for some reason, the price does go down before takeoff, Google will refund you the difference in price.
Another new feature should help find the best hotel to stay in during your travels. When using Google Search or Maps, you can type in something like "best New York hotels" and tap to view more info, you can actually view photos of each hotel listed on the map in an Instagram Stories-like format. The new feature lets users get summaries of each hotel, the ability to save hotel listings for future viewing, and more.
Finally, if you have a specific attraction you know you want to buy tickets to go check out, Google Search and Maps let you view prices for those specific locations. You can even pay for tickets for those locations ahead of time instead of having to wait in line the day you want to visit them.