How to Leverage Price Alerts for the Best Flight Deals

A common dilemma for frequent flyers is, "Should I book my flight now, or will the price drop further?"

Airline fares fluctuate based on various factors—like the number of seats available, seasonal demand, special events (such as the Olympics or a World Cup), oil prices, and the frequency of flights on specific routes—making it hard for travelers to forecast fare changes.

You could spend hours searching online for a price that suits your budget (or simply book and hope for a future fare drop to rebook your flight), but using price alerts can streamline this process for you.

Here’s what you should know about price alerts, how they function, and how to set them up so you can snag the best flight deals when they become available.

What are price alerts?

Price alerts are optional notifications you can set up using flight search platforms like Google Flights, Kayak, Hopper, and Skyscanner. These alerts track your chosen flight routes and travel dates, notifying you via email or app notifications when prices change. If you're flexible about your travel plans—say, looking for budget flights during spring break without a specific destination—some services will monitor various locations for you and send alerts about great deals as they arise.

How to set up price alerts on Google Flights

Google Flights is a favored flight search tool for good reason. It offers travelers a wide array of flight options from various airlines, allowing you to filter based on your preferred number of stops, chosen airlines, and baggage requirements. You can search across multiple departure and arrival airports and even compare carbon emissions for different flights. Essentially, there are numerous search filters to help you find and book flights that perfectly match your preferences.

To start tracking flights, input your departure and arrival cities, along with your intended travel dates. You can also apply any of the preferred filters mentioned earlier. After hitting search, a “track prices” option will appear on the left side of the screen, just below your inputted information (and above the departing flight listings). You can choose to track prices for your specific dates or for any date range. Clicking either option will enroll you in email updates regarding price changes for that flight.

It's important to remember that Google Flights doesn't capture every deal available; for instance, it misses fare information from Southwest Airlines because the airline restricts third-party sites from displaying its prices. Additionally, tickets are not purchased directly through Google Flights; instead, the site redirects users to the airline's website or another travel service that sells flights.

How to set up price alerts on Hopper

Hopper is a flight price search and booking application that not only alerts you when fares drop but also forecasts if prices are likely to increase in the future.

To create an alert, visit Hopper’s website or download the app. Once there, select “Flights” and enter your desired destination and travel dates. The following page will display current flight prices alongside Hopper’s recommendation on whether to purchase now or wait for a better deal. If waiting is advised, you’ll see a “Watch This Trip” button in the center of the page, allowing you to subscribe to email updates or push notifications for the flights you’re monitoring.

How to set up price alerts on Kayak

Kayak excels at compiling a list of the lowest flight, hotel, and rental car prices for specific dates or date ranges. For flights, it also tracks prices to help you secure the best possible deal.

To receive alerts, you'll need to create a Kayak account first. Once you've searched for your desired destination and entered your travel dates, you can click “track prices” on the flight options page. The tracking button is located in the upper left corner, and above it, Kayak will provide recommendations on whether to buy now or wait (based on its forecast of fare changes in the upcoming week).

Regardless of price fluctuations, Kayak will send you daily updates about ticket prices unless you modify the notification settings in your profile (accessible in the top right corner of the website). You can also monitor your alerts through your “watchlist,” which is available on your profile page.

One of the unique features of Kayak is its ability to set flexible price alerts. For example, if you wish to travel from Los Angeles, California, to Bali, Indonesia, but have no specific travel dates in mind, you can select “flexible dates” and choose “anytime” to receive alerts when prices drop below average.

How to set up price alerts on Skyscanner

Skyscanner is a platform that gathers flight, hotel, and car rental prices from various sources online, functioning similarly to Google Flights. After entering your travel dates and preferred route (you can also select “Add nearby airports” to include results from other local airports), you'll arrive at the results page. There, you’ll find a “get price alerts” button located near the top left corner. To receive price alert emails, you'll need to create a Skyscanner account. Generally, if your flight is within 100 days, Skyscanner will send you daily updates. For flights scheduled further out, notifications are sent weekly.

Skyscanner offers a feature to search for flights to “everywhere” (meaning it will look for the cheapest tickets to any country during your specified timeframe), but this option does not integrate with price alerts. If you want to monitor several destinations, you’ll need to set up alerts for each one individually. Fortunately, Skyscanner consolidates your searches into a single email, making it easier to compare prices and keeping your inbox less cluttered.

Subscribe to flight deal alerts on Going.com

Going.com operates a bit differently from typical price alerts for specific flights or destinations; it is a newsletter service that delivers both domestic and international flight deals straight to your inbox. It’s an excellent option for travelers open to exploring new destinations based on fantastic flight offers.

In every email, the Going.com team provides details about the deals they've discovered and how you can take advantage of these lower rates (including information on the typical prices for those flights).

Going.com offers three tiers of service:

• A free version, known as Limited, which provides a curated selection of international economy-class deals for up to five airports of your choice, delivered monthly.
• A Premium version, priced at $49 per year, featuring both international and domestic economy-class deals from as many as 10 airports. This plan also includes access to mistake fares (when an incorrectly low fare is posted on an airline's website) from your local airport, along with weekend getaway offers.
• An Elite version, regularly costing $199 per year, which encompasses all the benefits of the Premium plan, plus deals for first-, business-, and premium economy class tickets from an unlimited number of U.S. airports.

This article was first published in November 2022 and was last updated on November 10, 2023, to provide the latest information.