How fresh are prices on deals, explore and route pages?

Deals, Explore and route pages show prices before you have chosen exact dates. To do that, they use fares found recently in searches across our partners. This article explains what that means and how to get from a recent price to a live one.

Recent prices, not live quotes

A recent price is a real fare that someone found on a partner’s site not long ago. We collect these, keep them up to date through the day, and show the lowest for each route, month or day.

This lets you browse many destinations and months quickly. The trade-off is that a recent price can change before you book.

Why a recent price can change

• The cheapest seats sold out.
• The airline changed its fares.
• The fare was for specific dates, and you searched different ones.
• The fare was for one adult, and you searched for more travelers.
• Exchange rates moved, if the fare was found in another currency.

Turning a recent price into a live price

1. Open the deal or pick the day on the calendar.
2. Check the dates on the results page. Deals are tied to the dates they were found for.
3. Look at the nearby dates strip for similar fares.
4. Press View deal. The partner shows the live price and what is included.

How often prices update

Prices are refreshed through the day. Pages may show a stored copy for a short while so they load quickly. If you come back later, you may see different prices.

Example prices

Before a site is connected to its partner, it can show clearly labeled example prices so the design can be previewed. If you see a note saying prices are examples, they aren’t real fares.

If this, then that

• If a deal price is much lower than anything in the results, it was likely a short-lived fare. Set a price alert in case it returns.
• If the live price is a little higher, it may still be a good fare. Compare with the route page’s cheapest months chart.
• If the live price is lower, a new fare has appeared since our price was found.
• If you see the same deal for days, the fare may be stable on that route. Check the live price before you decide.

Our guide to how flight search engines work explains recent and live prices in more depth.

Still stuck? Contact us with the page you were on and the departure city, and we will take a look.