How to Track Flight Prices (2026)

Official Google Flights help says that if you are not ready to book, you can track prices for specific flights, routes, and dates. After you set the number of stops, cabin class, and ticket count, and enter airports, you can turn on “Track prices” for the route — for your searched dates or, if dates are flexible, for “Any dates.” You can also select specific flights and turn on tracking for those flights. When a tracked flight or route price changes significantly, official help says you can get email updates.

Official “Any dates” language is more specific: you get an email when the route’s minimum price drops significantly over a month; if there is not a large enough drop, you get a regular email with the best available flight prices. Official help also says Google Flights can email you when prices for a tracked route are likely to go up, or when the current fare for a flight expires soon and the new fare is likely to cost more, including an estimate of how much prices are likely to go up and Google’s confidence in each estimate. You manage or turn off emails from the official Tracked Flights page, using “Add notification,” and you can stop tracking with “Remove.”

Official “find the best fares” help adds booking tips that can appear in a Tips section: “Prices are unlikely to drop before you book,” “Prices are less than usual,” and “Prices are likely to increase” by a certain amount in the coming days. Official language is clear that these predictions are based on an analysis of past price trends, “and there is always a chance that future prices will not behave as we expect.” A Price graph, official help says, lets you explore fare trends by month or week if dates are flexible, and is also a place you can opt in to tracking flights and prices.

Official Google Flights search help says you can use an interactive calendar and price graph, and that when you click the calendar you will find the lowest total price to fly for each day. Official language: “Flight prices are updated approximately once every 24 hours.” Official help also says Google Flights allows booking from more than 300 airline and online travel agency partners, and that “these partnerships have no impact on the ranking of offers suggested to you.” A separate official fares page says travel partners do not pay Google to appear in the list of flights, and that list order is not influenced by Google’s relationships with those partners. Official search help adds that not all airlines or available flights are included, because a partnership is required.

Official default ranking for “Top departing flights” or the “Best” tab is described as the best trade-off between price and convenience, including duration, number of stops, and airport changes during layovers. The official “Cheapest” tab “prioritizes low prices, and includes additional itineraries and prices from online travel agents,” which official help says may involve trade-offs such as self-transfer of luggage or flying through different airports in the same city on the outbound and return. Official language also says you might find cheaper OTA fares in Cheapest for the same itineraries as in Best. Official green-font prices are “the most affordable flights and booking options,” determined “based on price relative to the lowest-priced option, and the total number of options available” — not a cheapest-rate guarantee.

Official search help says the price shown is only for the passenger air transport service itself, and includes VAT/GST and airport taxes; additional fees may apply (baggage, credit card, and so on). Official self-transfer language says separate tickets can save money or open more schedules, but may require claiming and rechecking bags, can incur change fees on each ticket, and can leave you to miss a later flight if the first one is delayed. Official help tells you to complete the booking on the airline or OTA site and to contact that company to confirm, change, or cancel.

Official Skyscanner help describes Everywhere as a feature for when you know where you want to fly from but are not sure where to go. The official U.K. article says: enter your departure airport and travel dates, then select Everywhere to see destinations ranked by price. Official U.K. language: “Prices shown in Everywhere are indicative and may change when you select a destination and search for flights.” The official U.S. article on the same topic says Everywhere shows “a list of the cheapest destinations to travel to from your origin,” and that “these prices are only estimated prices that have been found by our users in the last 8 days.” We quote both official wordings.

The same official-article split appears for month view and flexible dates. Official U.S. help says you can search a whole month, the cheapest month, or even a whole year, and that month-view prices are estimated prices found by users in the last 8 days, which can change constantly. Official U.K. help says Flexible dates lets you compare prices across different days, months, or destinations; calendar and grid prices “are indicative,” “based on recent searches made by travellers and may not be available when you select a date,” and “the price shown in the calendar may differ from the price available when you continue searching.” Official U.K. language also says a magnifying-glass icon, instead of a price, means Skyscanner does not currently have a recent indicative price for that date; you still select the date to search live prices. Official help in both regions also mentions nearby airports as an optional way to widen a search.

Official Skyscanner price-alert help says alerts let you track price changes for a route and date, and that you need to be logged in. Official desktop language: use the “Like these flights?” banner and “Track prices,” or “Get Price Alerts” at the top left. Official mobile-website language: saving a flight with the heart icon sends a price alert when prices change. Official app language: a toggle in the “Like these flights?” banner, or the bell in the top right. Official help says you can stop alerts from the bottom of a price-alert email or from your profile.

A separate official Skyscanner article is explicit that alert emails “are intended as a guide, and are based on a snapshot in time on the day it was sent for a single adult travelling.” Official language: live availability “can change very rapidly,” and a flight may no longer be available at the emailed price, “or at all,” especially if there is any delay between the email and the click, “but can sometimes even change within minutes or even seconds of the alert going out.” Official language also says Price Alerts check for single-adult prices only; if your original search was for multiple passengers, the click-through will show prices for those passengers, which can also create a difference. Official help still describes the feature as useful “the majority of the time,” and asks for search details if you think there was a technical error.

• Readers who want a guarantee that either tool will catch the cheapest fare, or a scored “best alerts” winner. Official pages describe estimates, indicative prices, significant-change emails, and snapshots. We have not booked a matched itinerary.
• People shopping only for a product-versus-product comparison of Google Flights and Skyscanner. See Google Flights vs Skyscanner and Skyscanner vs momondo.
• Anyone who needs a locked-in fare rather than a tracking email. Official Skyscanner language says alert prices can disappear in minutes, and official Google language says calendar prices update about once a day and that fare tips can be wrong.