Google is unveiled a new "Cheapest" tab on Google Flights to help travelers save money and find the most affordable flights.
Last year, millions of Americans traveled for spring break and Easter between March and April. And the 2025 season may be even busier.
If you are one of the millions of people planning to travel by air this spring, you may be looking for the cheapest available airfare -- and Google Flights has a feature to help.
In October 2024, Google unveiled a new "Cheapest" tab on Google Flights to help travelers save money and find ultracheap flights with ease. Here's how it works and how it got me super cheap tickets on trips I've been aching to book.
Read more: Southwest Airlines Flights Are Now Available on Google Flights
How I found the cheapest flights on Google Flights
To start, I pulled up Google Flights, which you can do either by heading to www.google.com/travel/flights or searching for "google flights."
Now, you'll just need to enter your trip details and tap the "Cheapest" tab to browse the lowest options available.
During my testing, I tried to book a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Boston from Friday, Feb. 28 through Sunday, March 2 to visit a new city. The platform first brought me to a "Best" tab, which shows flights ranked by convenience and price. Then, I toggled over to the "Cheapest" tab, which shows flights strictly based on price. On the "Best" tab, airfare started at $330 for American Airlines and Delta flights. On the "Cheapest" tab, airfare started as low as $153 for a nonstop Frontier flight. The caveat, though, is that the Frontier flight requires an additional fee to bring a carry-on bag.
To get a sense of how cheap domestic flights can be, I experimented with itineraries from Charlotte to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Atlanta to Austin and NYC to Denver, finding that many flights are under $400 -- and some are around or below $200.
I was also curious about how this new feature would impact the cost of international flights. Visiting Vienna is at the very top of my travel bucket list and I've always fantasied about booking a trip in December to hit the Christmas markets. I simulated a trip from Charlotte to Vienna between Wednesday, Dec. 10 and Wednesday, Dec. 17, and close to 150 flight options were available for these dates. The high end of tickets ranged from about $800 to more than $1,000, but the cheapest price was right at $572. As someone who is constantly tracking flights to Vienna, airfare costing less than $600 is a solid deal.
While $600 is definitely affordable for a flight to Europe, the catch is that this flight itinerary includes two stops on the departing flight, with layovers in Newark and Boston.
How does the 'cheapest' feature work?
The "Cheapest" tab aggregates flights strictly based on price.
To aggregate the cheapest options, Google Flights has expanded its flight offerings from third parties, such as online travel agents, and providing flight itineraries that may be less convenient, such as flights with longer layovers or booking different legs of the trip across different airlines or booking providers.
The "Cheapest" tab feature rolled out globally in October and November 2024. We've already covered the cheapest times to book flights based on destination and time of year, and now, Google Flights is offering a new upgrade for when cost is more of priority than convenience to maximize your travel budget.
