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Planning an AAdvantage Mileage Run? Try out the updated Google Flight Search

Last year Google completed their purchase of ITA Software, the powerful pricing, searching and inventory technology behind several airline and online travel sites.  In September they introduced Google Flight Search to a few US cities.  Last week they reached another milestone with Google.com/flights  which will be helpful when you’re trying to plan a mileage run (from their Google ITA Software blog):

…we’ll begin showing flight information right in your Google search results on certain flight related searches. For example, if you search for [flights from San Francisco to Las Vegas] you’ll see a table that shows available flights, including duration and prices.

Over the next couple days, you’ll start to see the flight results appear for searches whose origins and destinations are currently supported by our Flight Search feature. In the short term, those results are limited to domestic US flights. The flight schedule feature will continue to provide information about nonstop routes around the world and across 11 languages.

You can filter results by airlines and number of stops, and do some other cool things like search for destinations by time and budget, see how prices change depending upon the days you travel, and view the calendar to see which days that offer the lowest fares.

Here’s a video tour from Google:

Google Flight Search

While we’re on the topic of Google, here’s something I first read about over at the American Way Magazine blog: Google Maps Goes Indoors at Airports.  

Here’s a look: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P42INh3QATs

Google Maps the Indoors

Google Maps for Android now offers indoor maps of several US airports, shopping malls, and big box retailers.  Fewer than 20 airports are mapped so far, and it’s only available on Android devices.   You can read more at the Official Google Blog – A new frontier for Google Maps: mapping the indoors.

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6 Comments

  1. Err, I’ll respectfully disagree at this point in Google Flight Search’s development that it is a good tool to search for mileage runs with one exception. Plugging in your origin and seeing several markets with pricing for a specified date might be helpful, but the trusty Farecompare + classic ITA Matrix Airfare Search remain the two best tools out there.

    Sorry… had to chime in on this one. 😉

    1. Not yet, but the ITA Software Matrix tool already already supports it, so it’s probably just a matter of time till Google creates the interface for it in Flight Search. How else can they complete their plans for world domination without support international flights? 😉

      Thanks for your comment!

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