Let’s say you want to go skiing in Vail, Colorado this winter, but you’re flexible on when you leave and how long you stay. Try our improved Flight Search calendar from any of your devices to help you quickly figure out the best deal. As soon as you start entering your dates, a new, expanded calendar pops up with the lowest fare highlighted for each day. Select your outbound date and prices update instantly for return dates. You can change stops, length of stay, preferred airline or more -- and prices update instantly, without having to do any extra searches!

To see how prices may fluctuate based on the season, holidays or other events, use the lowest fares graph under the calendar. It lets you scroll through future months to quickly and easily compare airfares across dates. Now you can see low-fare flight options, even if your travel dates are far in the future.

For your Vail trip, as you enter your origin and destination cities, a calendar pops up with lowest fares for each day. If you quickly scan the lowest fares graph below, you’ll see that March is the least expensive time to travel. Select your outbound and return dates. Try restricting the results to non-stop flights and compare the price difference for a 3, 4 or 5 day trip. Now you can make your final selections and book your flight, feeling confident you’ve found the best option for your trip.

We hope the changes we’ve made will help you save time and money! If you haven’t already done so, try our enhanced calendar shopping and lowest fares graph when planning your next trip.

Posted by Rani Manoharan, UI designer, travel

(Cross-posted on the Google Maps blog)

Whether it’s touring the canals of Venice, swimming with the seals in the Galapagos or climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, Street View has taken you to some of the most beautiful and exciting places around the world. Now, in addition to scoping out your destination, Street View can help you cut down the stress of traveling by giving you a preview of your journey, too. Our first efforts to map global transit locations include 16 international airports, over 50 train and subway stations, and even a cable car station in Hong Kong.

Here’s an interactive map so you can see the new Street View transit locations worldwide.

Now you can visit the check-in counter of your airline in Madrid, map out the way from baggage claim to the bus at Tokyo International Airport and check out where to pick up your rental car at Eindhoven Airport; you can even scope out your seat on an Emirates flight from Dubai! Or, if you’re planning to take the train, navigate through Waterloo station so you can be one step ahead, whether you’re with a group of friends, family or a baby stroller.

Check in at Madrid Barajas, ES

Arrivals, Tokyo International Airport, JP

Eindhoven Airport, NL

Emirates A380 at Dubai Airport

Waterloo Station, London, UK

Don’t let travel logistics get you down this holiday season. With Street View, you can see how to get where you’re going faster and easier. Enjoy and safe travels!

Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Google Street View Program Manager

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

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

Since launching Flight Search, we’ve heard from many travelers eager to use Flight Search to plan trips for their entire family. Starting today, we’re adding support for multiple passengers, as well as children and infants.

It’s easy. Select the number and type of passengers you want to bring along. Your price will be updated, instantly. Then click on the “Book” button to conveniently complete your booking with our partners.

Our goal is to make planning and booking travel as fast and enjoyable as possible -- whether you’re traveling alone, with a friend or with your entire family. Try Flight Search today to see how fast and easy it is.

Posted by Bob Lewis, Software Engineer

Let’s say you want to take your family to Hawaii for spring break, but you’re not sure which of the islands sounds most appealing. There is now a way to quickly and easily search for a broader set of destination information. In this case, instead of checking prices to Kailua-Kona or Kahului, you could type ‘Hawaii’ into Flight Search. Live prices would then appear on the map, so you can quickly compare the cost of the different options.

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 U.S. or Canadian origin.

Try searches like ‘Australia’, ‘Europe’ or ‘Florida’, and don’t forget to send us a postcard!

Posted by Peter Balsiger, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Google Inside Search blog)

Google aims to help people turn their intents into actions, lightning fast. For travelers, this means we’re helping to take the complexity out of planning a trip by making it fast and easy for users to find the information they need to plan their next journey. Whether you’re looking for information about flights, hotels, activities or destinations, we have tools to help you -- and they are easily accessible for people on the go. Some of our favorite new functionality is outlined below.

More information, better presentation 
This year, we’ve made some changes to the user interface of Flight Search, and added features that offer more information about amenities and fees; we did this to help users feel well-informed, and to help them quickly choose the best itinerary.

For instance, you can now quickly compare multiple destinations and multiple days simultaneously, using live prices, with our recently introduced experimental feature called Flight Explorer. Try it at www.google.com/flights/explorer.

    Flight Explorer experiment search results page 

You can also use a number of new features to tailor your flight shopping:

• More easily calculate the total cost of your trip by taking a look at the baggage fees displayed next to each flight option 
• Choose a flight offering in-air connectivity by viewing a new indicator noting flights that offer Wi-Fi 
• Consider a little more luxury in the sky by comparing the cost of flying business or first class instead of coach 
• Easily plan complex itineraries -- such as those including multiple stops, or trips that involve a flight into one city and a return trip from another -- without confusion, using our new, user-friendly interface 

Multi-city trip, Wi-Fi availability indicator, upgrade cost and checked baggage fees 

Going global 
In March, we made it possible for users to find flights to more than 500 destinations outside the US. Soon after, we enabled this capability for any international destination airport, for flights originating from the US or Canada. Globetrotters can try these features at www.google.com/flights, or just type your departure city and destination in the search box.

Results for international destination flight 

And late this year, we rolled out localized versions of Hotel Finder in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, UK and Ireland. Now, people in those areas can search for and view hotel options in their own language and currency.

Helping people make informed hotel choices 
 In 2012, we made it even easier to find and book the right hotel for you using Hotel Finder. We also added more content including Zagat reviews and amenities. Hotel Finder now shows the price and availability for a choice of room types.

Pricing information, reviews, hotel details on Hotel Finder 

Varying room types on Hotel Finder 

You can try these features, and others, at www.google.com/hotels.

Empowering road warriors, delivering better destination data 
In September, we made it easier for you to find the information needed to plan a trip, whether you’re searching via desktop, smartphone or tablet.

Soon after, updates to Google Now offered a number of ways for you to stay informed while on the go:

• Automatic flight status notifications 
• Updates on weather at your destination 
• Showcase of events happening nearby 
• Website suggestions to help you explore as you research things to do
• Electronic boarding pass cards for ease of travel

Google now travel cards

Finally, you can easily tap into the collective intelligence of the web to uncover a list of information relevant to your destination, using the Knowledge Graph carousel -- and hopefully, find inspiration.

Knowledge Graph carousel list of activities in Rome

Stay tuned for more. We think you’ll love what we have coming your way in 2013.

Posted by Jeremy Wertheimer, Vice President, Travel

(Cross-posted on the Android Official blog)

Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen! For Santa’s holiday travel this season, Google Now is just the prescription.

As you head off this holiday season, the latest update to Google Now makes it even more useful for traveling. Before you even leave your house, Google Now will tell you what the weather will be like at your destination (just in time to make sure you remember to pack those mittens). At the airport, your boarding pass is automatically pulled up, helping you breeze through to the gate (launching shortly for United Airlines, with more to come). And once you've arrived at your destination, Google Now can help you uncover some great activities, by showing you events happening around you, suggesting websites for you to explore as you research things to do, or allowing you to learn more about specific pieces while you’re at a museum (using Google Goggles).



All of this builds on top of some of the other cards designed for travel, like the currency conversion, translation, and flight status cards -- hopefully taking a little bit of the stress out of holiday travel so you can focus on family and fun.

We're also making Voice Search even more powerful: you can find out the name of the song that’s playing (“What’s this song?”), quickly find product info (“Scan this barcode”) and post updates to Google+ simply by using just your voice.

These goodies are waiting for you in the updated Google Search app, available on Google Play for devices running Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, or higher.

Posted by Baris Gultekin, Product Management Director

(Cross-posted on the Google Inside Search blog)

More and more travelers are using tablets to search for and book travel. In fact, 46% of all US tablet owners who search for travel, actually purchase via their tablet. We also know that people use their tablets differently than they use their desktop. That’s why we’ve optimized our Flight Search experience for those who prefer to search with a tablet, such as a Nexus 7 or an iPad.

Starting today, travelers can search for and book flights on any tablet device by going to http://www.google.com/flights/. With the touch of your finger, you can easily explore places to visit on the map and see prices updated in real-time for each destination.

              

If you’re flexible with your dates you can also use our lowest fares tool and scroll across days, weeks and months to find the cheapest dates to take your trip. Your results will be updated super-fast, even when you switch dates or destinations.

                 

We hope this makes planning your next trip easier and more enjoyable -- whether you’re using your desktop, laptop, mobile device or tablet. We look forward to your continued feedback on Flight Search.

Posted by Rani Manoharan, User Interface Designer, Travel

We just released the latest version of our airfare shopping mobile app for Android. One of the new features in OnTheFly™ 1.2 is the flexible date search that allows you to browse 35 days of potential departure dates on a calendar combined with an interactive price graph.



You can also save and access search history now, including particular itineraries of interest. We’ll even check price changes for those itineraries so you can know the best time to plan that dream trip.

Designed to demonstrate the comprehensive search abilities offered with our QPX™ airfare shopping engine, OnTheFly makes it fast and fun for you to compare options across airlines, dates, and alternate cities/airports.

If you haven’t already tried OnTheFly, you can download it for free from the Android Market or App Store. OnTheFly for use with BlackBerry (OS 4.6+) can be accessed at http://bbmatrix.itasoftware.com.

We’re excited about the response to OnTheFly so far, both from our first time and loyal users! Keep sending us your feedback and suggestions.

Posted by Stefan Frank, Product Manager