How I Use Google Flights to Find Better Business Class Deals
Google Flights is an incredibly powerful flight-search tool, but its real value appears when you stop treating it as a simple A-to-B search engine. This is how I use flexible dates, selected airlines and the Explore map to find Business Class opportunities without wasting time on hundreds of results I would never book.
Google Flights is one of my favourite tools for finding flight deals. But when you start searching for Business Class, there is one obvious problem: Google can show you absolutely everything.
And I don't necessarily want everything.
Some airlines offer genuinely excellent Business Class cabins with direct aisle access, good privacy, lie-flat seats and consistently competitive premium products.
Others technically sell a ticket as "Business Class", but on certain routes the experience can sometimes feel much closer to Premium Economy with a better meal.
So rather than removing the same airlines every single time I search, I built my own pre-filtered Google Flights search.
Why filter the airlines in the first place?
When I'm looking for Business Class deals, price is obviously important.
But price is not the only thing that determines whether a fare is actually good.
Finding a €1,500 Business Class ticket doesn't automatically make it a fantastic deal if you're getting an outdated seat, poor privacy, a bad connection or a cabin that is substantially weaker than what other airlines are offering for a similar price.
My filter therefore concentrates mostly on airlines whose Business Class products I would genuinely be interested in investigating if an attractive fare appeared.
That includes carriers such as Qatar Airways, Emirates, Etihad, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, ANA, Japan Airlines, Air France, KLM, ITA Airways, TAP Air Portugal, Condor, Virgin Atlantic and Finnair, among others.
The objective isn't to declare that every flight operated by these airlines is perfect.
It is simply to give myself a much cleaner and more useful starting point.
Is the filter perfect? Definitely not.
There is one important limitation you should understand before using it.
Google Flights can filter by airline, but it cannot guarantee exactly which Business Class seat or cabin configuration you are going to get.
For example, British Airways and Lufthansa both have newer Business Class products that can be considerably better than some of their older cabins.
Unfortunately, the older products can still appear in the results because Google is filtering the airline rather than the individual aircraft configuration.
The same principle applies to several other carriers.
An airline might have an outstanding Business Class seat on its newest A350 or 787 while another aircraft in the same fleet offers something substantially less impressive.
Think of this as a shortcut, not a guarantee
The purpose of the filter is to remove a large amount of unnecessary noise and save time. Once you find an interesting fare, you should still verify the aircraft, cabin and seat before booking.
What am I trying to remove?
Instead of allowing Google Flights to throw virtually every possible Business Class result at me, I prefer to concentrate on a more selective list of airlines.
That means you shouldn't need to spend as much time filtering through carriers such as EgyptAir, Air India, Icelandair or Eurowings, along with other products that I personally wouldn't prioritise when specifically hunting for a strong long-haul Business Class experience.
That doesn't mean those airlines should never be booked.
There can absolutely be situations where the route, price or schedule makes one of them a sensible choice.
But if I'm opening Google Flights with the specific intention of finding an excellent premium-cabin deal, I would rather start with airlines whose Business Class products I am more interested in flying.
Open my pre-filtered Business Class search
I've already done most of the setup.
Open the search below and Google Flights should load with Business Class and my selected airlines already applied.
From there you can change the departure airports, destination, dates, trip length and other filters to suit your own travel plans.
One reason I really like Google Flights: it is airline-first
This is one of the things I appreciate most about Google Flights.
Once you identify an interesting itinerary and move towards booking, the airline's own booking option is usually presented very prominently.
Google Flights can also display third-party sellers, but it generally doesn't overwhelm the booking page with dozens of online travel agencies.
Personally, I really like that approach.
If the difference in price is small, I will normally favour booking directly with the airline.
Having the airline control your ticket can make life considerably easier if you later need to deal with a schedule change, cancellation, rebooking or another disruption.
First: check the airline
Look at the direct fare and understand exactly what the airline includes for that price.
Then: compare the market
If the saving elsewhere is significant, check whether a reputable OTA is selling exactly the same itinerary for less.
But don't stop at Google Flights
Google Flights is excellent for discovering opportunities, but I don't necessarily use it as my final price comparison.
Because Google tends to show only a relatively small selection of online travel agencies, I often take an interesting itinerary I've found there and check exactly the same flights on Skyscanner.
Skyscanner can display a broader range of OTAs selling the same ticket, and occasionally one of them can be noticeably cheaper.
That doesn't automatically mean I book the cheapest option.
Saving €20 is probably not enough to persuade me to book through an unfamiliar agency instead of directly with the airline.
But if exactly the same Business Class flights are €100, €200 or considerably cheaper, it is certainly worth investigating.
My preferred workflow
Google Flights: discover the opportunity, compare dates, explore destinations and identify the exact itinerary.
Skyscanner: broaden the price comparison and see whether another seller is offering exactly the same flights for less.
Before booking through an OTA, check the fare conditions, baggage allowance, seat selection, cancellation rules and who will actually handle your ticket if something goes wrong. Sometimes paying slightly more to book directly with the airline is money very well spent.
Remove the destination and let the deal choose the trip
One of my favourite ways of using Google Flights is not deciding where I'm going first.
Most people begin with something like:
But when I'm simply looking for a great trip, I might search:
Now Google Flights can show me the opportunities instead of forcing me to search destination after destination manually.
Maybe Bangkok is expensive but Singapore is unusually cheap. Maybe Tokyo suddenly appears at a price I wasn't expecting.
Maybe Cape Town, New York or another destination I hadn't even considered becomes interesting because the fare is exceptional.
The little-known trick: search Anywhere with only one airline
Normally, Google Flights will happily show you results from virtually every airline that matches your search.
That's useful when your only priority is finding the cheapest flight.
But sometimes I already know which airline I want to fly.
Maybe I specifically want Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad or another carrier whose product I enjoy.
Here's the problem: if you begin directly inside Google Flights Explore, selecting one individual airline isn't always as straightforward as it is in the normal Flights search.
There is a simple workaround.
Example: I want to fly Emirates from Frankfurt
Imagine I'm departing from Frankfurt and I specifically want to fly Emirates, but I don't actually care where I travel as long as I find a good fare.
I know Emirates sells itineraries between Frankfurt and Bangkok via Dubai, so I can temporarily use Frankfurt → Bangkok to make Google Flights display Emirates in the airline filter.
You've now transformed a very ordinary flight search into something much more useful.
Google can now search for destinations from Frankfurt while keeping Emirates as the selected airline.
Bangkok might not actually be the bargain.
Perhaps Dubai is. Maybe Johannesburg suddenly appears at an excellent price. Or Singapore, Bali, Tokyo or another destination becomes interesting because Emirates happens to have a particularly competitive fare.
Try the exact example yourself
I've prepared the search for you. This shortcut opens Google Flights with Frankfurt as the departure point, Anywhere as the destination and Emirates selected.
This isn't just an Emirates trick
You can use exactly the same method with other airlines.
The important part is starting with a normal route where Google Flights recognises your chosen airline and allows you to select it individually.
Once that airline filter is active, remove the original destination and broaden the search.
Emirates
Start with a valid Emirates itinerary, select Emirates only, then change the destination to Anywhere.
Qatar Airways
Begin with a Qatar Airways itinerary, lock the airline filter, then remove the destination.
Etihad Airways
Use an Etihad itinerary first, select Etihad only and then let Google explore destinations.
Your favourite airline
The principle is the same: establish the airline first, then broaden the destination search.
The useful part of this technique is activating the individual airline filter in the normal Google Flights search first. Once your chosen carrier is locked in, you can remove the destination and turn it into a much broader Anywhere search.
Use flexible dates whenever you can
Flexible dates are one of the biggest advantages of this method.
If you tell Google Flights you absolutely must travel from the 14th to the 21st, the search is naturally restricted to those dates.
If your plans are flexible, you can compare different combinations and let the fare determine the best time to travel.
Even moving a trip by one or two days can sometimes create a significant difference in price.
For leisure travel, I often prefer finding the exceptional fare first and building the trip around it afterwards.
Don't limit yourself to your nearest airport
This becomes particularly important when you're dealing with expensive Business Class tickets.
Imagine the same destination costs:
From Vienna
€3,000
From another European city
€1,650
Suddenly a cheap positioning flight or train becomes worth investigating.
For Economy Class, I probably wouldn't travel halfway across Europe just to save €100.
But when another departure airport saves €800, €1,000 or even more on Business Class, the calculation changes completely.
This is why I like looking across several European departure points rather than restricting the entire search to one airport.
Always check the aircraft before you book
This is probably the most important step after finding an attractive fare.
Google Flights will often tell you that the flight has a lie-flat seat, but that alone doesn't necessarily tell you enough about the actual Business Class product.
It might show:
But that doesn't automatically tell you whether you're getting the newer Club Suite or an older Business Class configuration.
The same issue exists with several airlines.
A useful second check: Skyscanner's “View info”
Once I find an interesting itinerary on Google Flights, I often search for exactly the same flights on Skyscanner as well.
When Skyscanner displays the different places where you can purchase the ticket, open the “View info” dropdown for the itinerary. It can sometimes make the flight details and aircraft information easier to identify before you decide whether the fare is genuinely attractive.
Before I consider a fare genuinely good value, I normally check:
A €1,700 ticket with an excellent 1-2-1 lie-flat seat and a sensible connection can be fantastic value.
A €1,500 ticket with an outdated cabin and a terrible overnight connection might not be.
The complete workflow I use
1. Explore
Start broad: flexible dates, several departure airports and no fixed destination.
2. Filter
Remove airlines and products that I'm not particularly interested in flying.
3. Investigate
Check the aircraft, schedule, baggage, connection and actual Business Class seat.
4. Compare
Compare the airline's direct price with Skyscanner and reputable third-party sellers.
Before I publish or book a deal, I ask myself these questions
Prefer me to do the searching?
I regularly go through Business Class fares and publish the ones that I think are genuinely interesting.
That means looking beyond the headline price and checking the airline, aircraft, schedule, connection times, baggage and overall value.
You can browse my latest handpicked fares on DinoTheTourist, or join the dedicated Business & First Class Flight Deals Club on Facebook.
The group is also a place to ask for help finding a fare, share Business or First Class deals, discuss premium cabins and lounges, and compare whether a particular ticket is genuinely worth the money.
A final word before you start searching
Flight prices are extremely dynamic. The fares visible in the screenshots on this page may be completely different by the time you open the filter.
That's completely normal.
This guide isn't designed around one particular fare. The objective is to give you a better, faster and cleaner starting point for finding the next one.
Some links on this page may be affiliate links. If you make a booking through one of them, DinoTheTourist may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.
