Apify Google Flights Deals

Google Flights Deals, With Real Bargains Separated From Cheap Short-Hauls

One airport code in, thirty destinations out, each flagged for whether it actually beats what that route normally costs.

When to use this skill

• The user wants "flight deals" or "cheap flights from" a specific airport.
• They know where they are leaving from but not where they are going.
• They want fare-drop discovery for a newsletter, affiliate site, or travel agent.
• They need the cheapest destinations filtered to nonstop, business class, or a weekend-length trip.

Not for: pricing a route you have already chosen (use johnvc/Google-Flights-Data-Scraper-Flight-and-Price-Search and the apify-google-flights-api skill) or building a fare history over time (use the companion apify-google-flights-tracking skill). See references/actor-index.md.

Why the baseline matters

Sort any deals feed by price and the top is dominated by short-haul routes that are cheap because they are close. Every row here also carries average_price, what that specific route typically costs, so is_below_typical tells you which fares are genuinely unusual. Measured across three hubs during the build, between 6 and 30 percent of a feed clears its own baseline on a given day.

What you get

One dataset row per destination. result_type separates deal rows from error rows:

• price, average_price, savings, savings_percent
• is_below_typical, true only when the fare beats that route's own norm
• name, country, description, thumbnail for the destination
• route, departure_airport_code, arrival_airport_code
• outbound_date and return_date for the exact itinerary
• airline, stops, flight_duration in minutes, and flight_link

Prerequisites

• Apify account (sign up at https://apify.com?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills).
• Authentication via apify login, or an APIFY_TOKEN environment variable (Apify Console, Settings, Integrations).

The Actor

• Store page: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-flights-deals-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills
• Actor ID: johnvc/google-flights-deals-api
• Pricing: pay per event; see the cost section below and references/gotchas.md for live-price commands.

Run it with the Apify CLI

The thirty cheapest destinations from one airport:

apify actors call "johnvc/google-flights-deals-api" -i '{"departureId":"JFK","maxDealsPerAirport":30,"currency":"USD"}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-flights-deals \
  2>/dev/null

Nonstop only, under a budget:

apify actors call "johnvc/google-flights-deals-api" -i '{"departureId":"LAX","maxStops":"nonstop","maxPrice":400}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-flights-deals \
  2>/dev/null

Business class, weekend-length trips:

apify actors call "johnvc/google-flights-deals-api" -i '{"departureId":"ORD","travelClass":"business","travelDuration":"weekend"}' \
  --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-flights-deals \
  2>/dev/null

Confirm live pricing and the input schema before a large batch:

apify actors info "johnvc/google-flights-deals-api" --json \
  --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-flights-deals \
  2>/dev/null

Every call carries the three flags this repo expects: --json, --user-agent apify-awesome-skills/apify-google-flights-deals, and 2>/dev/null.

Run it from Claude or another AI agent (MCP)

The Actor is MCP-ready. Add the hosted server URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=actors,docs,johnvc/google-flights-deals-api

Then ask, for example: "Where can I fly cheaply from Chicago next month, and which of those are actually below their normal price?" MCP setup docs: https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp

Workflow

1. Set departureId to one IATA code, or departureIds to several. There is no arrival field.
2. Leave outboundDate blank unless dates are fixed; the feed then picks cheap dates and reports the ones it found.
3. Apply at most one or two filters at a time so you can tell which one changed the result.
4. Filter rows on is_below_typical rather than sorting on price.
5. Rank the survivors by savings_percent and hand off flight_link for booking.

Inputs

• departureId (string): one IATA code, for example JFK
• departureIds (array): several home airports in one run
• tripType (enum round_trip, one_way, default round_trip)
• outboundDate / returnDate (string): leave blank to let the feed choose
• travelDuration (enum any, one_week, weekend, two_weeks, default any)
• travelClass (enum economy, premium_economy, business, first, default economy)
• maxStops (enum any, nonstop, one_stop, two_stops, default any)
• maxPrice (integer): budget ceiling
• includeAirlines / excludeAirlines (string): mutually exclusive
• maxDealsPerAirport (integer, default 30, max 30)
• adults, children, infants (integer)
• currency (string, default USD), hl (default en), gl (string)

Cost

Billing is pay per event, plus a negligible platform fee per dataset row. Prices below are the BRONZE tier at the time of writing; confirm live prices with the info command above.

• About $0.0025 per deal returned.
• About $0.001 to start a run.
• A full thirty-destination sweep from one airport is about $0.08.
• Three home airports at thirty each is about $0.23.

Suggested confirmation thresholds: warn the user over about $5; get explicit confirmation over about $20. Present cost as "around $X", never a guarantee.

Honest limits

• No arrival airport. This answers where to go, not what a chosen route costs.
• Thirty destinations per airport is the ceiling, not a setting you can raise.
• maxDurationMinutes makes the source stop returning the baseline, which switches off savings, savings_percent, and is_below_typical. The Actor logs a warning when you set it. Every other filter keeps the baseline.
• This is a snapshot, not a tracker. It keeps no history and sends no alerts.
• Negative savings are real, not a bug: that route is currently priced above its own norm.

Troubleshooting

• No bargains in the results: normal on a given day. Check whether any row has is_below_typical true before assuming the run failed.
• savings and is_below_typical are missing everywhere: maxDurationMinutes is set. Remove it.
• Empty feed: thin-coverage airport. Try a larger hub nearby.
• An error row: clean failure, stated plainly; retry once before investigating.

See references/gotchas.md for cost guardrails and error recovery, and references/actor-index.md for the Actor routing table.

Related Actors

• Google Travel Explore API: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-travel-explore-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills
• Google Flights Data Scraper: https://apify.com/johnvc/Google-Flights-Data-Scraper-Flight-and-Price-Search?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills
• Google Hotels Search Scraper: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-hotels-search-scraper?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills
• Google Maps Photos API: https://apify.com/johnvc/google-maps-photos-api?fpr=9n7kx3&fp_sid=awesomeskills