Planning a trip only to find that the flight you had budgeted for has suddenly been hiked is one of the most frustrating things about travel. Now, Google Flights has a built-in feature to keep this unfortunate occurrence from ever happening to you again.
Google Flights has always listed flights of various prices and ranked them accordingly to help you get the lowest price, but now the website will provide Kayak-esque price change predictions as well. The feature manifests as a pop-up box on the browsing screen with a countdown to the moment when the fare will most likely increase.
Even if you’re not ready to book your flight, you can track specific fares and get notifications before they are expected to jump in price, letting you grab the best price.
So how does Google Flights pull off such an amazing feature? The company doesn’t detail its methods, but Google’s all-seeing internet eye can easily spot trends. The time at which a travel company shifts its prices is just a collection of data points, and once Google has enough of those to make an accurate prediction, it becomes a clairvoyant travel agent. Congratulations, you’re living in the future.