This Chrome Extension Searches for the Cheapest Flights on All Airline Booking Sites

You’re not the only person wondering if they’re missing out on booking tickets through Google Flights. Are there discounts you haven’t heard of? What if there is a better price out there? Travel Arrow is a Chrome extension that can alleviate some of those concerns without requiring you to do a lot of extra work. Once installed, Travel Arrow will match your exact flight search with other web search engines and airlines to make sure you’re getting the best deal. Here’s how it works.

What is Travel Arrow?

Travel Arrow is a free extension for Google Chrome that will search your flight itinerary on Skyscanner , Kayak , Trip and Expedia (all major Google Flights competitors) opening up new tabs so you can scan them to find the best price for your flight . flight. And if you’re looking for a domestic flight, Travel Arrow will also look for Southwest Airlines, the only airline that doesn’t usually display fares on third-party websites.

Travel Arrow can find flights cheaper than Google Flights

The tool specifically promises to beat Google Flight prices, so I tested it to see if that was indeed the case by searching several hypothetical itineraries. In some cases, Travel Arrow did what it promised: the cheapest flight from San Francisco to Austin on Google Flights was $281 (via Frontier Airlines, with transfers and a total travel time of 11 hours), while the “best” flight was from three to an hour and a half, $323 direct flight. Travel Arrow offered a cheaper flight via Kayak, which found an 11-hour Delta flight (including transfers) for $243.

The tutorial video above shows a flight from Dallas to Madrid, where the cheapest flight on Google Flights was $1,916 with a travel time of 17 hours. Travel Arrow found a Kayak flight on the same route for $1,083 and a flight time of about 20 hours.

You may not find huge savings on every search, and in some cases Travel Arrow options can be more expensive, but price isn’t everything: Another Google Flights sample search for flights from Atlanta to Rome found a route with 19 hours on the way . time for $1211. The cheapest Travel Arrow option via Expedia was $1,128, although the travel time for this option was significantly shorter at around 12 hours.

In all of these cases, the real strength of Travel Arrow is that it casts a wider web, allowing you to quickly search for all your options at once rather than switching between different airlines and travel booking sites.

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You can also find airline deals with Travel Arrow

If you have more flexibility in travel plans, . Travel Arrow also highlights limited time travel deals. There are two ways to view them through the extension:

• Go to the airline’s website and if there’s a current deal in progress, Travel Arrow will create a pop-up alerting you to the promotion.
• Another option is to search within the extension itself – just type “filter by hotel/airline” in the search bar. All current travel offers will be displayed. You can also scroll and find active offers without doing a keyword search.

A cheaper flight is not always better

There is an important caveat to keep in mind when dealing with Travel Arrow or any other site offering cheap flight options: the cost of your time. Of course, you can save some money, but you need to pay close attention to the total flight time for the options shown to you. Some flights can be $20 cheaper, but include one or two transfers that will extend your travel time, so you’ll have to decide if the tradeoff is worth it.

Also, because Travel Arrow works by comparing options on third-party sites, some prices may seem lower at first, but once you’re ready to pay, you may find fees and other charges increase the price. It is also worth double-checking the route you have chosen directly on the airline’s website; there is a chance you can get a similar rate and it may be easier to change or cancel a flight you booked directly.