In honor of National Travel & Tourism Week in the U.S., and just in time for summer travel planning, we thought we'd share some tips on finding the best airfares.

Let’s say you want to plan a long weekend somewhere in the U.S. that involves an easy flight (under two hours, nonstop) and costs less than $350. You can easily search for the best option by going to www.google.com/flights, where you can pick dates, set the sliders to your parameters and leave the destination blank. Live prices will appear on the map, so you can quickly see the destinations that fit your criteria.

Another option for flexible travelers is to check prices for different airports in your origin area. We always wanted to visit The Grand Ole Opry, and it could be especially fun during the Fourth of July weekend. Since we live in Chicago, it is easy to drive to several surrounding airports to save money. As shown below, I used the dropdown check list to search fares for flights departing from Rockford, Milwaukee, O’Hare, and Midway to anywhere. Instantly I was able to see that good flight options are still available for our dates to fly from O’Hare to Nashville for $246. (Sometimes, the closest airport does work best for you. But it’s worth trying the others.)

Whether you’re planning a trip on your desktop, tablet or phone, you can use Flight Search to search for countries, states, islands and even continents from any origin in the U.S., Canada, France, U.K., Italy, Spain or Netherlands.

Set your parameters and go explore the U.S.! It’s easier than you think.

Cara Kretz, Marketing Communications, Travel

Want to go on that dream vacation with your American Airlines’ AAdvantage miles but not sure where you can fly? Redeeming miles for flights just got easier now that American has launched the new Award Map, powered by our QPX™ Reward Shopping feature.

This new tool helps users quickly and easily search for and book award travel using their AAdvantage miles. Users simply search with criteria, such as destination category by region or interest, and the miles they wish to use, in addition to regular search parameters like their departure airport, dates of travel and cabin preferences. Behind the scenes the QPX Reward Shopping engine quickly computes a huge number of possibilities to present the user with all available award flight options within their desired mileage amount. Available destinations are then displayed on American’s intuitive Award Map, making it easy for travelers to evaluate all their options and book using their AAdvantage miles.

“We’ve had a long standing relationship with American Airlines, helping them innovate with pricing and shopping since 2004,” said Gianni Marostica, Commercial Director for Travel at Google. “We were thrilled to help them take this latest innovation from idea to implementation in a few short months. Congratulations to the team at American Airlines on this exciting and successful launch.”

Posted by Nate Nottke, Senior Technical Account Manager

If you live in the UK, France, Italy, Spain or the Netherlands -- and are thinking of hiking the Swiss Alps, visiting the Greek Isles, taking a bite out of the Big Apple in NYC or simply planning a business trip -- Flight Search is now available to make planning your trip easier.

Starting today, you can use Flight Search to quickly find, compare and book flights originating from each of these countries to any airport in the world. You'll also be able to search for flights from airports in these countries and see prices in your local currency. Additionally, you can conduct searches in 8 languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Dutch -- and see prices in your local currency.

Smarter travel planning
Let’s say you’ve decided the Greek Isles are your vacation destination of choice, but you’re not sure which airport offers the most affordable fares. By typing ‘Greece’ as your destination, you’ll be able to quickly compare the cost of the different options, viewing live prices on the map.

Likewise, if you’re looking to take the family to New York City but are unsure of the best time to go, you can click on our ‘Lowest fares’ icon to see which dates will get you the lowest fare.

We choose the best flights based on cost and total travel time, while covering a variety of departure times and airlines. But, you can always view longer or more expensive flights by selecting, 'Show all'. Flight Search makes it easy for you to:

• Find flights quickly. As you make changes to dates, destinations and filters, results will load fast in a format that’s easy to scan. 
• Discover places to go on a map. Explore possible destinations and view live ticket prices by surfing the map. You can filter by price, airline or flight duration. 
• Figure out the best time to travel. Quickly see which travel dates are least expensive by dragging the date selector forward or backward, or click the "Lowest fares" icon to compare lots of dates at once. 
• See a simple list of the most relevant flights. Use our easy-to-scan list or compare options and find the flight that's most convenient, least expensive, wi-fi enabled or simply the one that best meets your needs. 

Sometimes we are not able to show results for every single airline and we will make that clear. We are working to expand our relationship with other airlines, and bring Flight Search to more countries and in more languages.

To access Flight Search in your local country or language, type:

• google.co.uk/flights/ 
• google.fr/flights/ 
• google.it/flights/ 
• google.es/flights/ 
• google.nl/flights/ 

We’ve worked to provide you with fast results as you browse a simple list of the most relevant flights, figure out when to travel, and get ideas about where to go and book your trip online. We hope you’ll enjoy planning your next trip with Flight Search! Bon Voyage!

Posted by Noam Ben Haim, Senior Product Manager, Travel

Virgin Atlantic, one of the world's leading airlines, recently launched new functionality and a completely new website at www.virgin-atlantic.com. Using our QPX™ pricing and shopping technology, the new website improves the overall shopping process and lets flyers search for flights in a much faster manner -- across all global markets where Virgin Atlantic flies. Since re-launching the website five months ago, Virgin Atlantic has seen a sizeable increase in online bookings and nearly 5% in cabin uplift. 

Virgin Atlantic first launched these capabilities for their European, United States, South African and Australian markets. They recently completed launches for Hong Kong, Nigeria and China. In April of this year, their global rollout will be complete, launching to the Caribbean, UAE, Japan, Ghana and India.

With the new capabilities, Virgin Atlantic can now present flyers with more information, earlier in the process -- such as offering solutions for all classes of service on the initial flight selection page. This lets flyers quickly choose between Economy, Premium Economy and Upper Class options to find the best time, cost and class of service across a 7-day window.

As part of the launch, Virgin Atlantic also added videos about in-flight amenities and services to their search page, to aid conversion and upsell. These videos let travelers get a first-hand view of what it’s like to fly in the different cabin classes.

Michael Daventry, Manager of eBusiness Channel Delivery & Operations, Virgin Atlantic said, “We’ve been very pleased with the results of this launch! When flyers see the value they can get for the higher fares, they often trade up. The changes we’ve made to our website, in partnership with our IT team and web development agency LBi, plus the ease of integration that ITA offers, will allow us to introduce new features and functionality to our customers in a much faster manner. Later this year we hope to add: interline shopping, the ability to combine award miles and money, and award calendar shopping. We’ll be able to deliver the same great online service for all our customer needs.”

Virgin Atlantic is a great customer and we’re really pleased with the success they’ve had so far. We look forward to helping them achieve their goals throughout 2013.

Posted by Brian Mulvey, Program Manager

One year ago, Cape Air launched our new airline platform, a 100% completely new, scalable and modern airline passenger service and reservations system. After 130,000 flights and three New England superstorms, we can say the system has been fully tested and is proven, reliable and efficient.

Hosted on two parallel systems, disaster recovery is integrated into the very architecture of the system. When unplanned events strike, or major infrastructure upgrades are required, we have the capability to move between parallel systems without downtime or interrupted service -- and in a matter of minutes. There is no need for experts to fly data tapes to another safe location or spend hours transferring large data files, as with some legacy systems.

Having a redundant architecture allowed us to move Cape Air from their primary reservations environment to their secondary environment and back again, a number of times over the past year. Even during Nemo, Superstorm Sandy and the recent Nor’easter, Cape Air employees were able to offer uninterrupted service to their customers, getting them where they needed to go -- as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Since launching, Cape Air has seen additional benefits and efficiencies, including:

• The new system made it easy for Cape Air to roll out a steady stream of new features and releases that lighten the load for customers and employees. In the past 12 months, Cape Air integrated 464 improvements with an average integration time of only 30-45 days. 
• The integration between the reservations and departure control components allows Cape Air employees to easily shift between the call center and the airport -- using a system that looks and feels the same across these very unique functions. 
• Agents love how easy it is to check in passengers and baggage, and to add other additional information, to better serve their customers. 
• Cape Air customers often cite the ease of use, convenience of booking with a profile, how quickly and easily they can change and cancel reservations, and the general intuitiveness of the system. 

Dan Wolf, CEO of Cape Air, said “The past year has been full of success moments, in large part thanks to the team and technology provided by ITA. The launch was just about the smoothest I’ve ever seen, and we’ve been able to roll out new features without missing a beat. More importantly, our passengers are finding the way they search, book and travel to be faster, easier and more personal. ITA’s airline platform did not disappoint!”

We’re thrilled with the success Cape Air has had over the past year, and look forward to the exciting updates they’re planning for 2013. To learn more about how Cape Air is making history and delighting its travelers, you can read the full case study.

Posted by Ed Orciuch, Manager, Software Engineering, Travel

MileWise uses our QPX™ pricing and shopping technology on milewise.com to give users a faster and more comprehensive flight shopping experience. Now, Android and Nexus 7 users have access to the same great speed and broad range of search options. In addition to these benefits, QPX also enables other innovative features for MileWise Users: Combo Fares let users combine two one-way tickets with different carriers and payment types, for big potential savings Price Alerts let users instantly know if the lower-tier mileage seat or a great cash fare has become available Search Filters give users a full set of filters, making it easier to find exactly what they're looking for Users also have access to several innovative MileWise features that allow them to:

• Track 500+ programs (including airlines, hotels, credit cards and many others) 
• Explore places to go, using individual rewards or cash 
• Get expiration alerts to make sure they never lose hard-earned miles and points again 
• Receive activity notifications when status level or balance changes 

MileWise lets users see real-time flight prices in cash, airline miles, and hotel and credit-card points -- on one screen. They track reward program balances, status and expirations, combining that data with travel and redemption preferences, to recommend the best way to pay.

Congrats to MileWise on their successful launch. MileWise for Android is available for download in the Google Play Store at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.milewise.app.

To learn more about ITA by Google, visit www.itasoftware.com.

Posted by Asif Khan, Sales and Business Development Manager

When visiting a city for the first time, you may want to stay close to the sites you want to see -- or, you may wish to stay in an area of town that you find intriguing. We've made it easier for you to do both, via a new Google Hotel Finder feature that makes it easy to explore neighborhoods in some of the most popular destinations.

Just go to www.google.com/hotels and choose the city you’re planning to visit. After you pick your travel dates, you’ll see a small panel on the top left corner of the results map. You can hover over that panel to see descriptions of different neighborhoods within the city you’ll be visiting. When you’ve done your reading and chosen the neighborhood that best suits your travel needs, you can select that neighborhood to narrow the list of available hotels.

In addition to making it easier to choose the location of your hotel, we’ve also simplified the process for filtering hotel results. To take advantage of this improved experience, simply type your preferences in the search box along with the location (e.g. “3 star hotel in London under $200 with wifi”). The correct filters will be automatically set.

Finally, you will now be able to find your favorite hotel chains with greater ease via a new filter that restricts results by hotel brand.

We look forward to helping you find the best hotel for your next trip.

Posted by: Maciek Nowakowski, Product Manager, Travel