Google Could Bring Back a Flight Price Guarantee
What one might loosely call “fintech” is becoming hotter by the moment in travel, and beyond. It ranges from Booking.com’s new payment systems and Grab’s lending and wealth management services to Hopper’s airfare and hotel price freeze features.
Richard Holden, Google Travel’s vice president of product management, told the audience at Skift Global Forum September 20 that the company is mulling bringing back at flight price guarantee that it tested in 2019, but abandoned during the pandemic.
“That is something that we’re looking at trying to renew in the next year or so, which I think is an interesting opportunity,” Holden said. “The consumers really loved when we experimented with it before. And we work a lot on what I would call insights, price insights both on the hotel side and the flight side. But I wouldn’t say there’s anything that I would deem fintech-specific that we’re announcing at this point.”
Holden appears to be making a distinction between fintech services related to banking or investment, and insurance-like features in travel such as price guarantees.
This is how Holden described an early iteration of the feature in 2019:
“When we predict the price won’t decrease for select itineraries booked between August 13 and September 2, we’ll guarantee the price won’t drop, and we’ll refund you the difference if it does. We’ll monitor the price for you and if the price drops any time before departure, we’ll send you an email letting you know once your flight takes off–so there’s no work on your end. This feature is available for select itineraries originating in the U.S. with domestic or international destinations.”