Google Adds New Filter For Free Cancelation To Its Hotel Search Function

by joeheg

There are many ways to search for hotels. If you’re brand loyal, you’ll probably start at that hotel chain’s website. For everyone else, it’s most likely that you’ll go to a travel booking website, as there are plenty to choose from. Sites like Hotels.com, Kayak, Trivago, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Orbitz or even Priceline all will let you book a room with a few clicks.

One of the websites I didn’t think of using to research hotel rooms was Google. While I’ll use Google Flights for researching flights, I never bothered to look at Google Hotels.

If you’re looking at properties but are only willing to stay at a hotel or vacation home that has a free cancelation policy, there’s a new filter on Google Hotels for just that.

In addition, Google will display the percentage of open hotels with availability and percentage of flights operating at the city or county level, along with trendlines for both categories.

Data will come from Google Flights and Hotels data from the previous week.

I took a look and the new features are now live. I searched for Gatlinburg, TN for a few days in November. Screen Shot 2020-08-17 at 5.42.33 PM

You can toggle between hotels and vacation rentals. There’s also a new tab for Free cancellation.  Directly underneath is information for the COVID-19 trends for the area.

Screen Shot 2020-08-17 at 5.42.45 PM

Additional buttons lead to info on the local cases and COVID-19 related news from the area. You can dig deeper into the data about cases and trends if you like.

Screen Shot 2020-08-17 at 5.57.20 PM

Once you do all of the research on Google, it’s still not a great idea to book from their website. It might cost a few extra dollars, it’s usually a good idea to go and make your reservation directly to the hotel website.

#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

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