Few remember that Google, in its origins, was only the search engine that we all know now. There was no more left. Neither alternative applications nor operating systems. Just the dot com. But despite the existence of the entire ecosystem, Google has never neglected its search engine and it has continued to evolve. Now, the company has announced new features in its travel tools and among them the purchase of tickets arrives.
This improvement comes from an agreement with Renfe and although for now it only allows you to buy train tickets, the company has already announced that they are working to also allow the purchase of bus tickets. All this from the search itself in the browser, without having to do anything more than search for our route. A good time saver for those who need it.
Searching and buying train tickets with Google
For a long time, the Renfe website has received multiple criticisms when it comes to locating trains and buying them for being too confusing. The Google search engine now solves the first problem of friction for Renfe users with respect to the web. And it solves it because the search is now on your account and you only have to enter Renfe to pay. We show you how.
Among the improvements that Google has deployed for its search engine and that are located within the travel tools, comes the new search engine / train ticket buyer. Unlike the search for flights, which belongs to Google Travel and has its own section, the new search for train tickets It appears directly in the browser itself. in its main window.
We will need to do a search of the type ‘train Madrid to Barcelona’ for Google to activate its new functionality and show us a new search result. Just below the ads and after a first search result, the Google search engine will show a box with train schedules and travel days, which we can change with a simple drop-down.
Each route can be expanded so that Google shows us additional information such as the train itinerary, emphasizing the departure and arrival times. And here comes the important thing, because in this extended information we will have a button to ‘Buy ticket in Renfe’. Pressing it, the browser will take us directly to the Renfe website to complete the purchase and we will only have to fill in our data and pay.
