We all know the cost of living is continuing to rise, and since wages aren’t following suit, many of us have a lot less money to play with once the bills are paid. Luckily, TikTokers have found a cool Google Flights hack that can help find some pretty stellar prices on plane tickets so you can get away and de-stress, even if only for a few days. Or, maybe you’re desperate for a girls’ trip to reconnect with your besties.
According to NerdWallet’s Travel Price Index, it costs 18% more to travel in 2023 than it did since pre-COVID. In fact, those prices have risen 3% since this time last year, so it’s clearly not getting any better even now that the pandemic is, well, no longer a pandemic. That’s why the Google Flight trick people on TikTok are using is so welcome — just because times are hard doesn’t mean we all don’t need a vacation now and then.
It’s pretty straightforward in the sense that everything you need is on the Google Flights website — you don’t need to download any extensions or anything. That being said, you’ll have to let go of rigidity and be willing to go with the flow more than normal to get the best prices. That means being open when it comes to where you’re going and when.
So, how do you use Google Flights to find cheap plane tickets?
To get started, just hit up the Google Flights page and you’re on your way to cheap plane tickets. Once you land on the site, you can choose your departing airport as well as where you want to go and when. However, don’t go filling all of that in!
The TikTok Google Flights hack requires you to fill out the departing city field but leave the destination field empty. That’s right, don’t tell the service where you actually want to go. You also don’t need to fill in any dates for now — you can sort that out later.
Under the departure, destination, and date fields, there’s a map. You’ll want to click on that in order to generate your flight options and prices. The dates are auto-filled to be a random week sometime in the next six months that may or may not work for you. If it doesn’t, click in that field to change it. You can also change the duration, so if you only have a few days to get away, that’s fine too.
Being a bit more flexible with where you’re traveling to and when allows Google to generate the cheapest possible flights. Pretty cool, eh?
