How to Use Google Flights Like a Pro (And Why We Built Something Better)

Google Flights is the gold standard of free flight search. Its Explore map, date flexibility grid, and price tracking are genuinely excellent tools that every traveler should know how to use. But Google Flights was built to serve Google’s advertising business, not to optimize your travel spending—and that creates meaningful blind spots.

This guide covers the Google Flights power features most travelers miss, and explains where Pointify fills the gaps that Google cannot (or will not).

Google Flights Power Features

The Explore Map

The single best feature for flexible travelers. Enter your departure city, leave the destination blank, and Google shows you the cheapest flights to everywhere on a world map. Filter by continent, travel dates, trip length, and budget. This is how experienced travelers find deals they would never think to search for.

The Date Flexibility Grid

Click “Date grid” or “Price graph” on any search to see how fares vary across a two-month window. The cheapest dates are highlighted in green. This is indispensable for flexible travelers—shifting departure by one or two days can save $100–$500 on international flights.

Price Tracking

Toggle “Track prices” on any search and Google will email you when fares drop or rise significantly. The algorithm is decent at predicting whether prices will go up or down, and the alerts are timely. Set tracking on every trip you are considering, even months out.

Nearby Airports

Google automatically checks nearby airports when you search. JFK search includes Newark and LaGuardia. LAX includes Burbank, Long Beach, and Ontario. This catches positioning fares that can save hundreds—flying JFK→London instead of EWR→London can differ by $300+ on the same airline.

Multi-City and Stopover Building

Use the “Multi-city” tab to build open-jaw itineraries (fly into Paris, out of Rome) and manually add stopovers. Google prices each segment independently, letting you construct creative routings that would be invisible in a standard round-trip search.

Where Google Flights Falls Short

No Points or Miles Pricing

Google Flights only shows cash prices. If you have 200,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, you have no way to see whether those points are worth more transferred to United, British Airways, or Hyatt for your specific trip. This is the single biggest gap in Google Flights.

Missing Airlines

Google does not index several major carriers: Southwest Airlines (the largest U.S. domestic carrier by passengers), many low-cost carriers in Asia and Latin America, and charter airlines. If you only search Google Flights, you are missing a significant chunk of the market.

No Award Availability

Even when airlines publish award charts, Google does not show award seat availability. You cannot see which flights have saver-level award space, making it impossible to plan points redemptions from Google Flights alone.

Advertising Bias

Google Flights is a referral engine. Airlines that participate in Google’s advertising programs get preferential placement. The “cheapest” result is not always the cheapest option—it’s sometimes the cheapest option among airlines paying Google for traffic.

How Pointify Complements Google Flights

We built Pointify to fill exactly these gaps:

• Points pricing alongside cash. Every search result shows both the cash fare and the optimal points redemption, with the cents-per-point value calculated automatically.
• Award availability. We query 20+ loyalty programs in real time, showing you which flights have saver-level award space and which transfer partners offer the best rate.
• All airlines. We aggregate data from Duffel NDC (300+ airlines), Google Flights, and our own scrapers for carriers Google misses.
• No advertising bias. We do not sell ad placements to airlines. Results are ranked by value to you—not by who pays us the most.

The ideal workflow: use Google Flights Explore to discover destinations, then search the specific route on Pointify to compare cash fares, points options, and hidden city opportunities in one view.