hopper online travel agency

How to Use Hopper to Save Money on Flights

Jessica Spiegel

August 6, 2023

10 min read

Anyone who has spent a fair amount of time researching and tracking airfare knows that even after you click the “buy” button you can’t help but wonder if you really got the best deal. That post-purchase worry is exactly what Hopper is built to relieve.

What Is Hopper?

Hopper is an online travel agency (OTA) and app that tracks the cost of airline tickets, car rentals, and hotel rooms over time to give users a historical analysis of whether the current price is above or below the typical fare for a given date. The data is also used to predict the best time to book—Hopper claims a 95% accuracy rate.

The Montreal-based company was founded in 2007 by Frederic Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk, both of whom formerly worked for Expedia.

How Does Hopper Work?

Hopper pulls prices on air tickets, hotel rooms, and car rentals from elsewhere on the web (such as airline sites for airfare, OTAs for hotel rooms, and rental car companies for cars) so you can find the lowest price. That’s where the system stops for room rates and car rentals, but with flights there are a few more steps that make it even more useful for budget-conscious travelers.

Once Hopper has all the airfare data, the algorithm compares it to historical data for the same routes and dates to let you know how the fares you’re seeing compare. Then, Hopper offers predictions about whether the ticket price is likely to go up or down in the future and even suggests when the best time to book will be (this is where they claim the 95% accuracy rate up to one year in advance). You’ll be notified via the app when the price is right and then you can book directly through Hopper.

Unlike other OTAs, Hopper limits its full functionality to its app. The website features price information and booking capabilities only for hotel rooms, while the app offers that information for hotels plus flights and car rentals.

The Hopper App

While hotel information is available on the Hopper website, to get the best user experience you need to get the Hopper app. It’s available for both iOS and Android devices.

Once you’ve downloaded the app, you’ll see a series of screens explaining the app’s basic functionality. On the second screen, tap the “Notify Me” button in order to get push notifications of price changes on anything you want to track.

You can search for prices without having a Hopper account, but you must create an account in order to actually book anything. Tap the person icon in the upper left-hand corner of the screen and then the “Sign Up or Log In” prompt to create an account and “choose your bunny.”

The app asks for your cell phone number and sends a verification text with a link. Tapping on that link brings you back to the app, where you can finish creating your Hopper profile.

And, yes, that includes choosing your bunny avatar. ‍

Note that if you ever sign out of the app, you’ll need to repeat the verification text process to log back in.

How to Use The Hopper App to Book Cheap Flights

On the main screen of the Hopper app, tap on the “Flights” option.

Enter the departure and arrival airports, and edit the number of travelers (if necessary).

On the next screen, you can edit the preliminary search to be a one-way flight (the default is round-trip). You can also tap on the “Filters” button to avoid “basic economy” tickets and limit the number of layovers.

The Hopper flights search results are in a colorful calendar format, with green dates being the best deals and red being the most expensive. There are even two shades of yellow/orange to indicate more gradations on the cheap-to-expensive scale.

For more details about Hopper flights, choose the month you want to look at by tapping on the month name. The larger version of the calendar you’ll see next lets you tap on departure and return dates.

If you’re happy with the travel dates, tap on the “Select These Dates” button at the bottom of the screen. Once the bunny has finished its calculations, the next screen includes a whole bunch of information.

The “current lowest price” is in big, bold lettering—and this price may include a discount based on any “Carrot Cash” you have available. (See below for more details on Carrot Cash.)

Underneath the bunny, you’ll see a note about price predictions. In this case, Hopper is suggesting we wait to book this particular flight but that we should book before January 27th. For added emphasis, the word “Wait” is in a little gray box next to the same listed price at the bottom of the screen.

You’re automatically set up to be “watching” any trip you search for this way; you can scroll down to deselect “Watching” if you’re not ready to do that yet. There’s also an option to “Watch with your travel buddy”—AKA send this Hopper flight info to anyone you might be planning a trip with.

Note that sending this information to your travel buddy means they’ll also get notifications about price changes.

Keep scrolling to find more details about Hopper’s price predictions. For this example, Hopper says that airfare on this route will change over the next seven weeks and be as much as $139 lower than it currently is. Then, after January 27, the prediction is that fares will go up by at least $128 from the current price.

When you’re ready to look at flights in more detail, tap the “View Flights” button at the bottom of the screen.

The first flights you’ll see are for the outbound flight. You can scroll to see all the flight possibilities or filter for a specific fare class at the top of the list if you’re only looking for (for instance) Premium seats instead of Basic seats.

Hopper lists the cheapest flight first (“Cheapest” and “Best Flight” are in green boxes in our example), with other descriptors assigned to other options on the list—including “Fastest,” “Best Quality,” and “Best Refundable.” If there’s no cost to change the ticket, that’s listed in a blue box that says, “$0 Changes.”

Select the outgoing flight you want and then you’ll see more fare options with various amenities at different price points.

After choosing the fare class you want, you’ll see all the details about that outbound flight. If it’s still the one you want, tap “Select This Outbound.”

Then, you’ll repeat the same basic process for your return flight.

The next screen shows a synopsis of the flights you just chose, the cost per ticket, and any “Carrot Cash” savings you’re getting. You can then choose to do a Price Freeze (details below) or tap “Continue” to book the flight.

Hopper offers add-on options for things like travel insurance for missed flights (if there are multiple connections on an itinerary), instant refunds on flight cancellations, and flight change guarantees.

Finally, you’ll get more detailed information about each flight, including whether seat selection is an option, how many carry-on bags are allowed, what a checked bag will cost, and the charges for things like changes and cancellations.

The next step is to add the traveler information for each ticket. If you already entered traveler information from the “Settings” screen when you created your profile, you can select those travelers and automatically apply their details to the tickets you’re booking. If not, you’re prompted to add a new traveler—including frequent flyer numbers and Redress Numbers or Known Traveler Numbers (if applicable).

Later, when you want to check on any flights you’re watching, tap the notification bell icon on the upper right hand corner of the main screen to see the whole list.

When you create an account with Hopper, you automatically get some Carrot Cash—basically credit that can only be used on Hopper—in your Hopper Wallet. You can see details about what’s in your Hopper Wallet by tapping on the carrot icon at the top of the main screen.

Additional Carrot Cash is earned with each hotel or flight booked through the app and can be used toward anything booked through the app (flights, hotel rooms, and car rentals).

Carrot Cash does expire, though the expiration dates vary depending on the promotion. You can see exactly when each reward expires by scrolling through the offers in your Hopper Wallet.

One of Hopper’s unique features in the flights department is the “Price Freeze” option.

Let’s say you need a little more time to make a decision about a flight, but you’re concerned that if you don’t book right now the price will go up. With Price Freeze, you put down a deposit based on the ticket price to lock in that price. In our example, the deposit is $65 per ticket.

If the cost of the trip increases, Hopper will cover the difference up to a certain amount per ticket. The limit varies with the cost of the ticket; in this example it’s $100 per traveler. If the cost of the trip decreases, you’ll pay the lower price.

The key here is that these Price Freeze deposits are nearly always non-refundable, even if you decide not to book the flight. (Exceptions include if your flight is cancelled or tickets get sold out.)

Hopper’s Price Freeze gives you a certain amount of time to use the deposit toward the cost of that airline ticket. The time allowed varies—here we’re given a 20-day window in which to book this ticket.

Note that Hopper chooses an itinerary for you with Price Freeze. You can change it by tapping the “Change” option.

Even if you don’t use the Price Freeze option, Hopper has another product—Price Drop Guarantee—that can be really handy if the cost of a ticket goes down after you purchase it.

If Hopper’s algorithm recommends you book a flight today and you do, the Price Drop Guarantee is automatically added to select tickets for free. For ten days after you make an airfare purchase based on a Hopper recommendation to buy, Hopper continues to monitor the cost of the exact ticket you bought. If the cost drops, you’ll get the amount of the price difference in Carrot Cash.

How to Use The Hopper App for Car Rentals

On the main screen of the app, tap “Cars.”

Enter the location where you want to pick the car up. It could be an airport, but you can also type in any address or simply a city or neighborhood name to get started.

Returning the car to the pick-up location is the default, so if you plan to make a one-way drive and need to drop off the car at a different place, be sure to uncheck that box.

Once you enter the pick-up location (and drop-off location, if applicable), the next screen is a calendar so you can choose the dates you need for the Hopper car rental. Unlike the flights calendar, this one doesn’t have color-coding that reflects prices.

Tap on the date you want to pick up the car, then the date you want to drop the car off. Then, tap “Choose Dates.” ‍

The next screen asks for the pick-up and drop-off times and the driver’s age.

You’ll then see the list of cars you can choose from. Narrow down the search by things like car size, price range, transmission type, etc. by tapping the “Filter” button.

As you saw with flights, the results page for Hopper car rentals highlights perks with a given deal in green—such as “Free cancellation” and “Unlimited mileage” with the first item on this list.

Browse the list until you find the car you want to rent. Tap that list item to see all the booking details.

If you have not entered traveler information into the Hopper app already, you’ll need to do that under the “Driver Information” section. There are also options for insurance (which you can decline). There are a couple of things at the bottom of the screen that contain all kinds of fine print, so it’s a good idea to read through the details on the “Important Information” and “Booking Conditions” pages before you book the car rental.

Many car rentals don’t require any payment before you pick up the rental car, in which case you don't need to enter payment information. If you choose a car that does require some kind of deposit, you’ll be prompted to add payment information under the “Confirmation” heading.

Keep in mind that if you added payment information into the app from the main “Settings” page, that’s what Hopper pulls into the payment section—so if you plan to use a different form of payment, be sure to change that before you make the reservation.

Carrot Cash can be used toward Hopper car rentals, just like it can for flights. If you have Carrot Cash in your Hopper Wallet that can be used toward a car rental, you’ll see a note to that effect at the top of the list of search results.

How to Use The Hopper App for Hotels

On the main screen of the app, tap “Hotels.”

Enter a location for where you want to stay. You can enter a city, a state, a neighborhood, or even a point of interest to get started.

Note that the app default is that there will be two people staying in the room, so be sure to change that before you enter a location.

The next screen will look familiar—it’s the same kind of color-coded calendar Hopper uses in its flight search screens, with green dates being the best deals and red being the most expensive.

Choose your arrival and departure dates and then tap “Choose Dates” to see the search results.

You can filter the search results via the “Filters” button by things like price range, the number of stars a hotel has, guest reviews, and what amenities are available. You can also change how the results page is sorted via the “Sort” button. The default is “Most Recommended,” but you can sort by price, guest ratings, or star ratings.

Tap on the map to zoom into a specific area to look at the hotel options in more detail.

Tap on a hotel to see more details about it, including additional photos, a full amenities list, check-in and check-out policies, and all the fine print.

If you want to consider this hotel but also want to keep browsing, tap the heart icon in the upper right-hand corner of the hotel’s screen to save it to your favorites list.

Tap the “View Rooms” button at the bottom of a hotel’s screen to see what rooms are available, as well as all the details about each of the rooms.

When you find the room you want to book, select the option you want. Depending on the room, you may be able to choose from a lower rate that’s non-refundable or a higher rate that is refundable.

As with car rentals and flights, you may have Carrot Cash that you can use toward your Hopper hotel. If you do, that will be specified next to the “Continue” button at the bottom of the screen.

There are add-ons like trip insurance you can choose (or decline), and then you’ll be asked to add the travelers whose name the reservation will be under. Again, if you’ve already added traveler information into the app you’ll be able to choose from that list. If not, you’ll be prompted to add a new traveler.

Next, you’ll see the screen with all the booking information, each portion of which you can edit. You’ll add payment information here, unless you’ve already saved that in the app.

At the top of the screen, you’ll see a note about how much Carrot Cash you’ll earn with this Hopper hotel booking, and tapping on that note prompts a pop-up that includes details on when that Carrot Cash will expire.

Hopper offers a Price Freeze option with hotel rooms, just like it does with flights. Tapping on the “Price Freeze” button reveals how long the current room rate will be frozen and what your deposit would be, but for the nitty gritty details on the Hopper hotels Price Freeze, be sure to tap the “Terms and Conditions” line.

Hopper App Reviews

The Hopper app has 3.8 stars (out of 5) on the Google Play store with more than 96,700 reviews. In Apple’s App Store, the app gets 4.8 stars (out of 5) and has more than 659,000 reviews.

Some common themes in the complaints are about the customer service experience within the app, especially before a booking has actually been made, though Hopper seems to have replied to every single negative review in both app stores.

Hopper’s Price Predictions

As mentioned at the outset, one of the main draws Hopper offers in a crowded OTA market is its price prediction algorithm. Hopper claims its predictions are 95% accurate, based on historic data collected “ more than one billion individual, real-time flight prices each day .”

In fact, they’re so confident in their algorithm that many flights come with the aforementioned Price Drop Guarantee , which automatically gives you a credit of Carrot Cash if you book a flight on Hopper’s recommendation and the cost of that specific ticket goes down within 10 days.

Still, because the prediction accuracy number isn’t 100%, that also means Hopper’s predictions are not guaranteed .

Hopper’s Cancellation Policy

Hopper has different cancellation policies depending on what you booked, and they’re based on the airline, hotel, and car rental company policies. Cancellation policies are listed in each section before you book or make a reservation.

• Hopper flights : It varies by airline and fare class. Some airlines offer free cancellations within the first 24 hours after you book, although basic economy tickets are almost always excluded from this.
• Hopper hotels : For hotel bookings that are refundable, you’ll be able to cancel the reservation within the app through the “Contact Support” option on the trip details page. If your reservation is non-refundable, you’ll need to contact the hotel directly to see if they’re willing to give you a refund.
• Hopper car rentals : If the car rental you booked has a free cancellation policy, you can cancel the reservation within the app. If there’s a cancellation fee or if the booking was non-refundable, you’ll need to contact Hopper support instead.

Is the Hopper App Legit?

Yes, Hopper is a legitimate company. They have raised $600 million from investors to date and have been around since 2007.

How to Use Hopper with Going

Hopper is great for informing you about price trends and alerting you when prices for a particular route drop. But, like fare alerts you can set on Google Flights and other OTAs , it has its limitations. If you're looking for a deal to Paris and only Paris, you might miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime fare to Chile, and maybe for that price you'd be open to swapping croissants and the Eiffel Tower for ceviche and the Andes mountains.

Going , on the other hand, alerts you any time there's an amazing deal departing from your airport. Additionally, deals we send out can typically be booked directly with the airline, which makes it easier to deal if things go wrong. Though, if you want to take advantage of Hopper's price freeze, after finding out about a deal from Going, you could just...hop (it was too easy) on over to Hopper and use the info from Going to book the deal with Hopper.

Hopper has some undeniable perks, like Price Freeze and Carrot Cash, that can help you save money on hotels, car rentals, and even flights. But we recommend it not be the only tool in your kit for finding the best flight deals.

Hopper FAQs

How does hopper’s price drop guarantee work.

Although Hopper’s predictions are not guaranteed to be accurate 100% of the time, they’re confident enough in their accuracy rate that many flight bookings automatically come with Hopper’s Price Drop Guarantee .

If the ticket you book has the Price Drop Guarantee on it, that means that if you purchase based on Hopper’s recommendation to buy today and the price of that exact ticket drops within 10 days after your purchase, Hopper will give you the price difference in Carrot Cash.

How much is the Hopper app?

The Hopper app is free to download and use. You can download it at https://www.hopper.com/ .  

How accurate is the Hopper app?

Hopper claims its price prediction is 95% accurate for airline tickets.

What is Hopper Carrot Cash?

Carrot Cash is credit you can use toward bookings in the Hopper app. You can earn Carrot Cash on Hopper bookings, and each amount you earn has an expiration date. You can check your Hopper Wallet balance and the expiration dates on various Carrot Cash awards by tapping the carrot button at the top of the main screen.

How to call Hopper

To reach Hopper customer support, they recommend going through the Help Center on the app, which you can find on the Settings page. There is a customer service phone number, however, at their Montreal office. That number is 1-514-276-0760.

How to get a refund from Hopper

Refunds on anything you book with Hopper is “at the discretion of” the airline, hotel, or car rental agency. You can, however, add Hopper’s Instant Travel Refund Promise to any flight you book for a fee during the booking process (it’s basically like a trip insurance add-on). If you choose to do that, you can cancel your trip up to 24 hours before your departure for any reason at all. You’ll get a travel credit with the airline for the full amount of the ticket you originally purchased or a refund from Hopper if the credit isn’t available.

Hopper Alternatives: Other Flight Searching Tools

• Travelocity

Freelance Writer

Published August 6, 2023

Last updated December 21, 2023

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Best Online Travel Agencies

Booking.com is our top choice for making your trip arrangements

Ligaya Malones is an editor, blogger, and freelance writer specializing in food and travel. Ligaya's work has appeared in publications including Lonely Planet and BRIDES.

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. Learn more .

Planning a trip can be easier through an online travel agency than if you handle each aspect of the planning separately. You can book hotels, air travel, rental cars, and more through a single site, and booking everything together sometimes results in discounts. By inputting a destination, a range of dates, and other preferences, you will see a list of options for each aspect of travel.

The best online travel agencies offer options from the largest number of airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, and more. Look for sites that offer discounts for combining reservations for different aspects of your trip. For example, the best sites will have lower rates if you book both plane tickets and a hotel through their services. The best sites also provide reviews from customers who actually have booked through the service. These are our top picks.

• Best Overall: Booking.com
• Best Budget: Skyscanner
• Best Price Predictor: Hopper
• Most Innovative: Kiwi.com
• Best for Eco-Conscious: Kind Traveler
• Best for Social Impact: I Like Local
• Best for Design-Forward Homestays: Plum Guide
• Our Top Picks
• Booking.com

Kind Traveler

I Like Local

• See More (4)

Final Verdict

Frequently asked questions, methodology, best overall : booking.com.

 Booking.com

This industry leader offers one of the most comprehensive trip planning platforms on the Internet.

Lots of options to choose from

Interface is easy to use

Numerous filters to customize your search

Tricky to tell whether changes/cancellations can be made with Booking.com or the vendor directly

Booking.com was founded in 1996 and has grown into an industry leader that stands out for being one of the most comprehensive trip planning platforms out there. From one website, you can compare and book accommodations, flights (including one-way and multi-city flights), sightseeing activities, and even airport taxis. The website lists more than 28 million accommodation options, from hotels, hostels, and B&Bs to vacation homes and luxury resorts—you can browse more choices per destination on Booking.com than other online travel agencies. The website also performs well on cost and typically returns lower-than-average prices for flights and hotels. 

Booking.com's interface is also easy to use. On the home page, search for a hotel by entering your chosen destination and dates. Then, use the extensive list of filters—such as price range and distance from the city center—to narrow the results down and find the best fit. You can also search for a specific hotel, or seek inspiration by clicking through options grouped by destination or property type or by topic such as the country’s best Michelin-starred hotel restaurants or the top cities for vegan travelers. The flights, car rental, and other tabs are just as intuitive. 

Best Budget : Skyscanner

 Skyscanner

You can compare prices across airlines, hotels, and car rentals.

Simple interface

Option to toggle searches between specific dates or by monthly calendars

Search Everywhere button is great for spontaneous planners

Extra clicks are required to make a final purchase

Must read fine print for changes/cancellations—may need to deal directly with the vendor

Ads on the sidebar can be distracting

Find deals on airfare, hotels, and car rentals with an aggregator site like Skyscanner , which uses a metasearch engine to compare prices from all online travel agencies and the airline, hotel, or car rental company in question. Run searches with fixed dates, opt to compare airfare prices month to month, or click “Cheapest Month.” Searches also include options for nearby airports or non-stop flights only. With hotel searches, you can choose to select only from properties with free cancellation, a cleanliness rating of 4.5/5 or higher, or 3- or 4-starred hotels only. Car rental searches include an option to select “return car to different location.”

Once you’ve found the best rate, click on the link to be redirected to the third-party site to make your booking. Feeling spontaneous? The Search Everywhere button on the homepage offers a list of the cheapest flight deals for destinations both locally and across the world—just plug in your departure airport first.

Best Price Predictor : Hopper

The company claims a 95 percent accuracy rate at predicting when flights and hotel rates will be cheapest.

Color-coded system makes it easy to determine cheapest days to buy

App is easy to use

Option to track flights and receive alerts when the best time to buy arises

Some have mentioned the app functions better as a research tool than a booking tool

Unclear whether Hopper will price match if you find a cheaper flight elsewhere

Hopper is a travel app available on iOS and Android that aims to help travelers save on airfare by usng historical data and their own algorithm to predict when flights will be cheapest. Just type in where and when you’d like to fly and Hopper will present you with a color-coded pricing calendar indicating how much tickets are likely to cost. (Green is the least expensive, then yellow, orange, and red for most expensive.) Hopper will also recommend you either buy now or wait, or you can choose to watch a trip and receive notifications on the best time to buy. In addition, the app has expanded to offer hotel and car rental price predictions, too.

Some newer features since the app’s inception in 2009 include an option to freeze a price for a limited time—for an extra fee—as well as exclusive app-only discounts. Hopper is free to download, and you can choose to book directly through the app, though some users mentioned they use Hopper as more of a research tool before booking directly with the airline or hotel. The company claims a 95 percent accuracy rate at predicting flight rates up to a year ahead.

Most Innovative : Kiwi.com

This metasearch engine scours the web to piece together the ideal itinerary using planes, trains, buses, and more.

Creative itineraries get you where you need to go, especially if you’ve got a multi-stop trip

Kiwi Guarantee offers rebooking or cancellation protections

Nomad option appeals to travelers with a lot of flexibility

Creative itineraries mean you may not fly out of the same airport you flew into

Kiwi Guarantee has an additional fee

Charges all-in-one fee for booking flights, trains, buses (though you can always purchase a la carte)

Travelers planning multi-city destinations and seeking a bargain, as well as those looking to take planes, trains, and automobiles to get there, might consider Kiwi . Kiwi is a metasearch engine that scours and pieces together itineraries from various airlines (even if they don’t have a codeshare agreement), considers multiple airports (even if your arrival airport is different from departure), and offers booking options, whether you’re looking at very specific dates or more general ones (up to 60 nights).

Some will find the ability to make multiple bookings for a particular trip more convenient than going at it manually several different times, though note that you must opt into the Kiwi Guarantee program to access rebooking and refund protections should your reservation change or be canceled. Kiwi’s Nomad option allows you to plug in a bunch of destinations you’d like to visit and the length of your intended stay, and the website will churn out the most affordable itineraries for review.

Best for Eco-Conscious : Kind Traveler

A give-and-get business model means booking accommodations with exclusive perks, a donation to environmental organizations, and more.

All participating hotels include a local give-back component

Exclusive savings and perks

Participating hotels are located in some of the most beautiful places in the world

Inventory is much smaller compared to other booking platforms

Some of the amenities mentioned are based on availability only

In 2022, Kind Traveler (an online trave agency focused on hotel bookings) announced an increase in environmentally and socially conscious hotels, charity donations, voluntourism opportunities, and additional perks like waived resort fees or a welcome amenity.

Unlock exclusive hotel rates and perks from participating Kind Traveler hotels with a minimum $10/night minimum donation to a local charity. For example, stay at the Six Senses Laamu in the Maldives and receive up to $33 off the nightly rate and perks such as a food and beverage credit and an Earth Lab or Alchemy Bar workshop when you make a donation to Manta Trust. The organization funds coastal research to protect the island nation’s large yet fragile population of reef mantas.

Select from more than 140 participating hotels from the Hawaiian Islands to Bozeman, Montana, and the Maldives. Charities include wildlife, human rights, arts, education, and environmental preservation organizations.

Best for Social Impact : I Like Local

Choose from a host of travel experiences with the peace of mind that 100 percent of the cost goes directly to local partners.

Social impact mission woven into organization’s business model

Immersive experiences led by local guides

Range of experiences offered

May not be best fit for those seeking upscale, luxury experiences and stays

Can’t sort experiences by a list of countries (though an interactive map is available)

No experiences outside of Africa and Asia

For an online travel agency with a booking platform designed to route dollars spent directly to the communities travelers intend to visit, consider I Like Local . Visit the website to browse a host of travel experiences in countries including Indonesia, Kenya, and Cambodia. Experiences include homestays and farmstays as well as wellness and culturally oriented experiences—from cooking and cycling tours to weaving classes.

To search for an experience, select from drop-down items like travel dates and experience categories, or view a global map and click on a country to view experiences that way.

The platform got its start in 2014 and has grown to 4,000 local hosts across nearly 20 countries. As a social impact organization, 100 percent of each booking fee goes to local hosts. To date, 16,000 travelers have booked with I Like Local.

Best for Design-Forward Homestays : Plum Guide

Browse and book seriously vetted, design-forward vacation homes.

Highly curated inventory of vacation rentals across the world

Design-forward

Thorough vetting process

Does not publish guest reviews

Other platforms have homes available across more destinations

When it comes to booking a vacation home, serviced apartment, or condo, travelers are spoiled for choice. Plum Guide is an online travel agency that specializes in accommodations—though not just any home makes its directory. The company claims that each potential home listed on its site must jump through 150 hoops to be included, from internet speed and mattress and pillow quality to the showers’ water pressure and the home’s proximity to dining, shopping, and attractions.

Search by a featured collection on the website such as “ pet-friendly homes ” or “one-of-a-kind homes in Palm Springs.” Scroll to the bottom of its homepage to view its top destinations, as well as a list of all destinations where Plum Guide homes are available, including Barbados, Mexico, Portugal, Switzerland, the U.S., and Turkey. Note: From the top right-hand corner of the site, use the dropdown menu to select currency of choice.

As long as you know what you value most out of your travel experience—such as affordability, social impact, or luxe accommodations—there’s an online travel agency to help plan your next trip. Be sure to read the fine print, as some agencies are third-party websites and not direct vendors. If you're not sure where to start, Booking.com is your best bet for a smooth user experience and hard-to-beat offers on flights, hotels, and other travel arrangements.

What Is the Biggest Travel Agency?

Our choice for best overall, Booking.com, is known as an industry leader with listings for all major hotels, airlines, car rental companies, and more. It boasts more choices for accommodations per destination than any other site, and we found its interface to be user-friendly.

Are Online Travel Agencies Worth It?

This depends on your needs and priorities. The best online travel agencies certainly can save time by booking everything all at once. However, if you're someone who is good at haggling and enjoys the details of planning a trip, you might be able to find better deals by reaching out to hotels or other destinations and speaking to someone personally.

Is It Cheaper to Book Online Than With a Travel Agent?

Not always. A travel agent you know and trust should have the experience and connections to find deals that can match or surpass what you'll find online. Additionally, if something goes wrong, travel agents provide you with an actual person you can use as an advocate to correct the problem . But if you don't have access to a good travel agent, online sites still provide plenty of ways to streamline planning and save money .

We considered dozens of online travel agencies and narrowed down the options based on user experience, volume and quality of inventory, unique offerings and specials, and customer reviews. We also assessed travel companies’ environmentally and socially conscious policies.

Catherine Falls Commercial / Getty Images

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Hopper’s Rise in Travel 2023

Executive summary, an overview and history of hopper, hopper has gained market share , top line growth and segment mix, profitability and cost base, growth driver 1: first principles thinking, growth driver 2: fintech , growth driver 3: hopper cloud, growth driver 4: differentiated marketing strategy, growth driver 5: super app ambitions, modeling future growth trajectory, price prediction , fintech products, related reports.

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Report Overview

Skift Research has gained unprecedented access to one of the fastest growing online travel agencies (OTAs) in North America – Hopper. We interviewed senior executives across each of Hopper’s verticals, as well as speaking to their co-founder and to their CFO in order to produce a deep dive analysis of Hopper’s rise in travel. Since being founded in 2007, Hopper has become a formidable disruptor of the OTA market, which for so long has been dominated by the duopoly of the legacy players. It has leveraged big data, machine learning algorithms and predictive analysis to launch an array of unique fintech products which have been fundamental in helping it become the third largest OTA in North America.

In this report, we take a deeper look into how exactly Hopper differentiates itself from its competitors and what has fuelled its tremendous growth. Based on our conversations with senior executives, we have also estimated Hopper’s key financial and performance indicators, such as total gross bookings, revenue and marketing spend, as well as modeling its future growth trajectory. Hopper is a private company and much of the data and analysis presented in this report is not publicly available, nor has it been published in such detail before – making this a truly differentiated piece of work.

What You'll Learn From This Report

• The evolution of Hopper’s business strategy and how that has influenced top-line growth and market share gains
• Hopper’s key metrics such as gross bookings, revenue, take rate and segment mix, as estimated by Skift Research
• Hopper’s key growth drivers, such as the launch of its fintech products and Hopper Cloud (its B2B arm)
• Skift Research’s projections for Hopper’s growth trajectory
• Hopper’s unique user acquisition and marketing strategy within the travel industry, specifically its vision of utilizing social commerce as inspired by Chinese app Pinduoduo

Executives Interviewed

• Dakota Smith, Co-Founder & President of Hopper
• Daniel Calderon, Chief Financial Officer of Hopper
• Ella Alkalay Schreiber, General Manager of Fintech at Hopper
• Makoto Rheault-Kihara, Head of Hopper User Acquisition
• Kiera Haining, General Manager of Hopper Flights
• Lexi Caron, Head of Hopper Hotels Marketplace
• Ani Malkani, Head of Hopper Ground Transport 
• Susan Ho, Head of Hopper Homes 
• Hayley Berg, Lead Economist at Hopper

Hopper was founded in 2007. It spent nearly a decade building out a structured database of travel information and price prediction algorithms advising users on when to book flight tickets. In 2016, it changed its business model, deciding to utilize its data-driven approach to not only advise customers on when to buy flight tickets, but also allow them to book on Hopper’s own app.

In early 2019, Hopper launched its first fintech product called ‘prize freeze’ which allows customers to lock in flight prices based on advice from Hopper’s price prediction models. Since then it has launched a whole fintech suite which has materially contributed to top line growth.

For instance, as of 2022, we estimate that Hopper’s total gross bookings are around $3.5 billion which places it at only 3% to 4% that of Booking and Expedia’s respectively – but despite Hopper’s relatively smaller size and the fact that it’s not yet fully at scale, its take rate of around 12-14% (Skift Research estimate) is in line with Booking’s 14% and Expedia’s 12%, largely thanks to the expansion of its fintech products. In the last few years, Hopper has gained significant market share, and in 2021 it was the most downloaded travel app in the U.S. Today, it is the third largest OTA in North America. 

What has fuelled such rapid growth at Hopper and what differentiates it from its peers? There’s certainly a sense that Hopper’s success is comeuppance for the legacy travel industry which in many ways has been held back by outmoded ways of working. Hopper, with its first-principles thinking and desire to address pain points in the industry has allowed it to leapfrog other OTAs through its fast adoption of new systems such as NDCs (New Distribution Capabilities) in the flights business and its differentiated offering of anxiety-alleviating fintech products.

Hopper, not held back by legacy tech systems and contracts, is simply capitalizing on what the long-established players have been too slow to implement. Perhaps even more ironic is that through its fintech suite, Hopper’s monetization of traveler anxiety is in fact a direct product of the unfriendly selling practices, such as “ hate-selling ”, long perpetuated by the traditional OTAs themselves. 

Hopper’s customer-led strategy is an overarching theme that has powered growth drivers for the company, from the launch of its fintech suite which have significantly boosted top line growth and take rates to its social commerce inspired marketing strategy which hopes to increase user engagement and life-time value of customers. Hopper is clearly not afraid to innovate and pivot strategy, as dictated by the needs of its users – and this unique characteristic makes it a formidable competitor in today’s distribution landscape. 

Hopper is an online travel agency (OTA), co-founded in Montreal, Canada in 2007 by Frederic Lalonde (who is the current CEO) and Joost Ouwerkerk, both formerly Expedia executives. 

Prior to launching their website in 2013, Hopper spent several years building out a database of travel information, with its original value proposition being to harness a data-driven approach in allowing better travel inspiration and planning, based on aggregated content from sources such as blog posts and travel reviews. 

In 2014, Hopper changed its business model from content aggregation to flight bookings, utilizing its structured database of travel information and price prediction algorithms to advise users on when to book flight tickets, launching an app based around this in 2015. In 2016, it officially launched as a travel agency, allowing consumers for the first time to use Hopper as a channel to book flights. 

However, whilst Hopper is well known for its data capabilities and utilizing that data to optimize savings for flight bookings, the company’s management, such as co-founder Dakota Smith, quickly realized that “you don’t make a lot of money when you sell air travel alone. The average airline pays a 1.5% to 2% commission and that’s not really enough to even cover the cost of payment processing or customer service.”

Therefore in attempts to expand margins and better monetize its price prediction tools, Hopper expanded its scope from standalone air travel to other verticals within travel such as hotels in 2017, car hire in 2019, and private rentals in 2022, as well as launching an array of fintech products which aid in mitigating consumer anxiety around price volatility and cancellations. 

In 2021, Hopper expanded into the business-to-business (B2B) space with the launch of Hopper Cloud, powering the travel capabilities of keynote partners such as Capital One (which also led Hopper’s latest funding round), Uber, and most recently Australian bank CommBank. Hopper Cloud also provides Hopper’s suite of fintech products to partners already within the travel ecosystem, such as Agoda and Kayak, amongst others. Through its acquisition of tours, activities and experiences provider PlacePass in 2021, Hopper also powers the experiences arm of Marriott’s Bonvoy loyalty program. 

Hopper is also well known for its desire to evolve into a social ecommerce platform and become a travel super app, with its CEO often citing Chinese app Pinduoduo as an inspiration behind this vision. Hopper intends to introduce a gamification element to the app which allows users to collect and spend ‘carrot cash’ – Hopper’s currency for its loyalty program – as a means to bypass traditional marketing spend on search engine marketing, as well as increase retention and the lifetime value of users. This strategy plays to its primarily Gen-Z and Millennial customer base, with 80% of bookers aged 18-35, with an average of 25. 

Hopper is also an app-only platform. Hopper does have a desktop presence, but the website doesn’t allow bookings, instead leading customers to download and use the app. Below we present some screenshots of some of Hopper’s products, such as Hopper flights, Hopper hotels and its price freeze product.

The app is clearly built to appeal to its target audience of Gen-Z and Millennials, with Dakota Smith, co-founder of Hopper saying “We would like to become the defining travel brand for Gen-Zs. And the app has fully embraced that, with the whimsical tone of bunnies and bears, elements of gamification, social commerce, carrot cash as well as our marketing channels of TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat all really leaning into that image.”

Since launching as a travel agency in 2016, Hopper has firmly established itself as a popular app for flight and hotel bookings, becoming well known for its price prediction tools and fare alerts. In 2021, it became the most downloaded travel app in the U.S., as shown in the chart below.

Hopper has materially grown its market share of total app usage, from 11% of the U.S. market in 2019 to 19% today, as shown in the chart below.

Hopper’s +8% share gain since 2019 places it as the second fastest gainer of market share, behind Vrbo’s +11%, as shown in the chart below. Vrbo, which is Expedia’s vacation rental brand, likely benefited from the surge in demand for private homes throughout the Covid pandemic, especially for whole accommodations in non-urban destinations which is where the majority of Vrbo’s supply sits. 

The fact that Hopper — which didn’t benefit from the same demand for vacation rentals (having only expanded into Hopper Homes in 2022) — has gained share faster than giants Booking Holdings (which is aggressively expanding into the U.S.) and Expedia (which is likely closest to Hopper in terms of revenue mix out of the major OTAs) goes to show the level of traction it has garnered over the last few years.

Hopper’s Key Financial Metrics 

Over the last few years Hopper has seen enormous expansion, growing its revenue 40x since 2019 – largely due to its evolution from selling solely flight tickets into higher revenue generating streams such as hotels, fintech and Hopper Cloud. In 2022 Hopper made roughly $3.5bn of gross bookings and revenues of around $455m (as estimated by Skift Research, and shown in the charts below). 

Though Hopper is primarily a U.S. focused company, it is quickly expanding internationally, with international users comprising more than 20% of their sales today, versus about 5% the prior year. However, globally, as of 2022, we estimate that Hopper’s gross bookings are only 3% to 4% that of Booking and Expedia’s respectively. Despite Hopper’s relatively smaller size and the fact that it’s not yet fully at scale, its take rate of around 12-14% (Skift Research estimate) is in line with Booking’s 14% and Expedia’s 12% – largely thanks to its fintech offerings. 

Much of Hopper’s growth can be attributed to its expansion of fintech products (rolled out early 2019), as well as the launch of its B2B business Hopper Cloud (launched in 2021)– each making up close to 40% of Hopper’s total revenue today. 

Despite being best known for selling flight tickets, today Hopper’s hotel gross bookings roughly match that of flights (with Hopper reporting that hotel bookings have grown 100x since 2019, selling roughly 2 million hotel room nights annually), as shown in the chart below. Whilst flights and hotels make up a similar share of Hopper’s total gross bookings, as a percentage of revenue, hotels have the larger share due to the much higher take rate available for hotel bookings versus flight bookings. 

Additionally, since launching fintech products in early 2019, fintech has grown to become a significant source of revenue for Hopper, and we estimate that it makes up around 70% of flights revenue and around 45% of hotels revenue. 

This goes to show how Hopper’s expansion into both hotel bookings and fintech has helped fuel growth at the company, with co-founder Dakota Smith saying that “the most profitable segments are fintech and hotel bookings. This isn’t a secret, right? The existence of fintech turns air travel from what is generally a loss maker at other travel agencies into a small profit center for Hopper. That said, people are just as likely to buy fintech on hotel bookings [which offers a much higher take rate than air tickets]. So we still would rather sell you a hotel booking.” 

Hopper likely has negative EBITDA margins today, with focus being on market share growth rather than bottom line profitability. Though it is “gross profit positive on every product” it sells (with fintech products having higher gross profits than travel bookings), Hopper re-invests much of its free cash flow into research and development (R&D) as well as marketing in order to spur growth on the top line and continue gaining market share. Hopper’s co-founder Dakota Smith said to us that, “Hopper has been growing really fast; over the last seven years, we saw a 100% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). That said, we are investing a lot of money into research and development. We have a big team made up of about 500 software engineers. We are letting the products re-invest all of their gross profit back into market share growth, and that is still the priority.” 

According to Smith, R&D is about 80% of Hopper’s operational expenses, with half of their team working on new initiatives that have yet to generate material revenue. Smith explains that “that’s why you see us able to do things like launch new fintech products, but also the entire Hopper Cloud business unit out of thin air in 18 months because we were already positioned with the kind of cost structure to support that kind of innovation. In contrast, at a more mature company that you might see in the travel industry, less than 10% of their operating expenses would be spent on developing and launching new initiatives.” 

Whilst Smith expects R&D spend as a percent of operating expenses to decrease to 30% over the next few years as new initiatives get rolled out, even this level of spend on R&D is non- traditional for an OTA, which would typically invest the majority of its operating expenses in sales & marketing, rather than technology advancement; Hopper’s edge on tech development is a clear differentiator between it and its peers. 

Another differentiator is its strategy around marketing spend. Despite being a young company which is not yet fully at scale, we estimate that Hopper’s marketing spend is only around 2% of its gross bookings, versus 4.9% and 6.4% at Booking and Expedia respectively and 2.4% at Airbnb. 

Unlike Booking and Expedia, that continue to spend performance marketing dollars to acquire traffic from Google – not daring bite the hand that feeds them – Hopper doesn’t list on Google or any other metasearch platform and also gets more of its customers through direct channels (with Hopper receiving 100% of its bookings from its app – having no booking presence on desktop web, for its non-B2B business at least). Hopper instead focuses the majority of its performance marketing spend on social media (appealing to its mainly Gen-Z and Millennial consumer base). 

Hopper is also significantly investing into building out a social commerce platform with a gamification aspect that allows users to collect carrot cash (Hopper’s currency for their loyalty program) on a daily basis such that the app retains consumers until they’re ready to book a trip. This differs from the broad strategy used at Booking and Expedia, which are “buying high intent users ready to book today, and are deep in the funnel of Google search or metasearch.” 

Daniel Calderon, Hopper’s CFO, compared Hopper to Airbnb – which also rarely lists on Google – explaining that “you can think of us long term more like Airbnb – the only other travel app that is single brand and is focusing on demographics also. We should be like Airbnb in terms of sales and marketing.” 

We go deeper into Hopper’s user acquisition and social commerce strategy in a later section of this report. 

What Fuels Hopper’s Growth? 

We identify 5 key drivers behind Hopper’s growth trajectory. They are:

• First Principles Thinking
• Hopper Cloud
• Differentiated Marketing Strategy
• Super App Ambitions

From our discussions with executives across the various verticals at Hopper, one thing which stood out was the data-driven, first principles thinking utilized by Hopper to offer its services. Unlike legacy travel companies which have long been held back by outdated modes of working, Hopper has been able to quickly capitalize on opportunities and technologies which the long-established players have been too slow to implement. Hopper heavily relies on data analysis to address pain points in the industry and respond to consumer desires, such as launching fintech products which help mitigate consumer anxiety and launching Hopper Homes upon realizing that 40% of their customers prefer a private rental over a hotel (with Homes having growing to over 4 million properties since being launched in 2022 – and is in the process of expanding supply). 

Hopper has also been addressing a key pain point in the flight business in particular. It has been heavily investing in first party NDC connectivity (New Distribution Capability, which allows upselling of ancillaries such as seat selection and class upgrades) through direct partnerships with airline providers, which – as we have written in The State of Airline Distribution 2018 – is an area traditional OTAs and corporate travel agents have been slow to implement. For instance, many traditional OTAs still heavily rely on decades old Global Distribution Systems (GDSs), which are based on legacy mainframes that do not have built-in capability to support the vast majority of ancillary and branded fares.

We spoke with Kiera Haining, General Manager of Hopper Flights, who said that “one of the primary goals of Hopper is to make sure we’re able to offer all of that ancillary content, which NDC unlocks for us. We are actually able to drive market leading ancillary attach rates for seat selection for our airline partners and is something we work very closely with airlines in order to achieve, and make sure we’re able to offer, promote and merchandise that content to customers effectively.” 

Hopper’s first-principles thinking and customer-led strategy is an overarching theme that has powered key growth drivers for the company, as discussed in detail in the sections below, from the launch of its fintech suite which have significantly boosted top line growth and take rates to its social commerce inspired marketing strategy which hopes to increase user engagement and life-time value of customers. Hopper with its data driven strategy and technology capability also allows it to be differentiated from the older, more traditional OTAs. This coupled with Hopper’s fintech offering layered across all of its products provides partners and suppliers an alternate avenue to diversify their source traffic and revenue streams, allowing Hopper to be a very real competitor to the giants of Booking and Expedia. 

Before Covid and before the launch of fintech products, the majority of how Hopper made money was similar to that of traditional OTAs – Hopper received a commission per travel booking, with “take rates” ranging from 2% for flight bookings to 5-7% for car hires and 10-15% for hotel bookings. 

In order to lead peers on price – a key reason why Hopper’s mainly Millenial and Gen Z consumers use the Hopper app – Hopper regularly discounts prices and offers the savings back to users in the form of ‘carrot cash’ (Hopper’s loyalty scheme). Hopper’s lead on hotel prices is shown in the chart below, with Hopper likely to be the cheapest option 30% of the time versus only 11% of the time for Booking and Expedia’s app, according to Bernstein. 

By funding these discounted prices Hopper gives up a share of its take rate and we estimate that Hopper’s take rate in 2018/9 was only around 4% – due to both its skew to low take-rate flights bookings and its discounting practices. 

While Hopper still offers discounted prices which carve into its take rate, it has also significantly grown its fintech business — which offers higher take rates than just standalone flight or hotel bookings – and we estimate that Hopper has expanded its take rate from around 4% pre Covid to about 12-14% in 2022.

We spoke with Hopper’s co-founder Dakota Smith and CFO Daniel Calderon who provided a breakdown of take rate by travel segment, explaining that before launching their fintech offering, the take rate from flights was only 2%, but has since grown to 10-12%; similarly for hotels, with hotels take rates expanding from about 10-15% pre-fintech to 20-25% today. 

Hopper’s launch of fintech products has clearly aided in their goal of optimizing long-term value and revenue gains. Its suite of fintech rivals traditional travel insurance – something which has been a standard for decades – but the new offering has innovated on product types and has resonated with Hopper’s consumers. According to Hopper, 50% of their app bookers are attaching a fintech product to their travel bookings, with an average of 1.4 fintech products per travel booking, paying an extra 10% per booking. 

Hopper’s novel fintech offering is helping boost top line growth and market share gains, even if it is less margin accretive than traditional insurance, all in the name of easing consumer anxiety and acquiring high lifetime value users. For example, Ella Alkalay Schreiber, General Manager (GM) of Fintech at Hopper explained that “though we might work on less than half the margin of a traditional insurance fee, we also provide high utility to our customers and make sure that we are building products that our customers love. For example, only about 2% of users would exercise their travel insurance, but about 10% or even higher of customers would exercise on our fintech portfolio. Additionally, traditional insurance comes with a lot of friction – there’s claims portals and a high rejection rate. Our [Hopper’s] acceptance rate is 100%. And it’s all automated. This suggests a new level of service and different level of protection in the travel space – selling products that add real value and that are working with less friction.”

Whilst Hopper’s launch of fintech products have significantly boosted both growth and take rates, it is worth noting the risks that Hopper takes on its balance sheet whenever a consumer exercises the option associated with the various fintech offerings. (See the appendix for a full explanation of Hopper’s fintech products – such as ‘prize freeze’, ‘leave (a hotel) for any reason’ or ‘change or cancel (flight bookings) for any reason’ – and how Hopper utilizes and monetizes its data through fintech). For example, if a consumer decides to buy the ‘leave for any reason’ fintech product when booking their hotel, and upon checking in realizes that the hotel isn’t up to their expectation, they can exercise their option to ‘leave for any reason’. This would see Hopper reimburse the hotel for the original booking, at no extra cost to the customer. Hopper’s ‘leave for any reason’ product differs from the cancellation policy offered by other OTAs in that Hopper enters an obligation to fully reimburse the hotel if the customer decides to leave, whilst cancellation policies place no such obligation for Expedia or Booking to pay out the hotel.

Though Hopper claims its price prediction tools are 95% accurate, and that they dynamically price their fintech products and have sophisticated risk management strategies in place, if there is another black swan event like the Covid pandemic  this could potentially place significant pressure on Hopper’s balance sheet. 

However, Hopper’s CFO is not worried. Calderon claims that “today the risk that we assess is 10 times smaller than the cash that I have in the bank account”, and he sees the fintech products as having a “healthy risk to margin ratio”. The fintech offerings are also fairly diversified and have natural hedges in place, with Schreiber, Hopper’s GM of fintech, explaining that “it’s really hard to think about a time when everyone would want to ‘cancel for any reason’ and at the same time everyone would also want to exercise their ‘price freeze’.” This effectively shows the negative correlation in play between their fintech products, such that by underwriting some products, Hopper can help hedge the risk on others – meaning that whilst the margins of one product might decrease, margins of others will increase. 

There are, however, additional risks on the horizon. Other major players such as Google Flights and Expedia are also launching their own price prediction tools in competition with Hopper, as is Booking which has established its own fintech division. The travel industry is no stranger to highly competitive dynamics, and with new players launching their own fintech products – which, unlike Hopper, are for the most part free, but not yet as sophisticated – we expect Hopper to further invest into fintech and price discounting in order for it to remain price competitive, likely biting into margins and delaying their route to company-wide profitability. 

In 2021 Hopper launched Hopper Cloud, its B2B offering, where it powers the travel booking platforms and fintech capabilities of various partners, such as Capital One, Uber, and Agoda, amongst others. Half of Hopper Cloud’s clients are those already in the travel industry looking to expand the scope of their travel platform or launch a fintech offering, with the other half not in travel currently but looking to become a travel booking platform, such as Capital One. 

According to Hopper’s co-founder Dakota Smith, there are “really active pipelines for both, with two teams internally pursuing the opportunity in both segments.” For example, in the last couple of years we have seen a flurry of activity from financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, Revolut, and American Express partnering with OTAs such as Expedia through B2B deals as a means to tap into the aspirational appeal of travel to their customer base.

Hopper Cloud’s partners tap into Hopper’s inventory through a white label site, utilizing Hopper’s Application Programming Interface (API) to power their own booking products. We estimate that these partners likely take 25-40% of commission earned on each travel booking, with the rest going to Hopper. For partners utilizing Hopper’s fintech products, there are likely various contracts in place, with Hopper managing the pricing and fulfillment of exercised fintech products (i.e. Hopper takes the risk of a fintech product being exercised on its own balance sheet, even if it is through a B2B partnership) as part of the service they offer to their clients. 

For Hopper, B2B partnerships allow it to capitalize on the value of its existing inventory and scale its operations with minimal additional costs. Additionally, whilst Hopper’s B2C app mainly targets Millennial and Gen Z consumers, Hopper Cloud allows the distribution of Hopper’s travel agency and fintech products to other demographics, with co-founder Dakota Smith saying “We need to grow up with our user base and retain them through their lifetime as they grow in purchasing power. Along the way, some will drop out, some will become loyal members of other travel programs. Some will go from brand neutral to brand loyal, others will graduate from the mass market and qualify for some of these premier travel credit cards. The strategic idea is that we will be there to meet them because of the loyalty programs or credit cards that they graduate into, hopefully many of them will be Hopper Cloud clients.”

We have talked at length about Hopper’s key growth drivers of fintech and B2B. The fourth arrow in the quiver is its unique strategy around marketing and user acquisition, namely its investment into building out a social commerce platform and becoming a travel super app. 

Not Playing the Search Engine Marketing Game

Hopper spends much less on marketing than peers Booking and Expedia despite being much younger and not yet fully at scale – in 2022, we estimate that Hopper’s marketing spend was under 2% of its total gross booking, versus 5-6% at Booking and Expedia respectively. This is largely due to Hopper spending none of its marketing dollars on Google advertising or metasearch services, which at Booking and Expedia makes up an estimated 60-70% of their marketing budgets. As a result, Hopper receives more of its web traffic organically (as shown in the chart below), and is further helped by the fact that it is an app-only booking platform, receiving 100% of its B2C bookings on the app, versus roughly 45-50% of bookings coming from app at Booking and Expedia. 

We spoke with Makoto Rheault-Kihara, Head of User Acquisition at Hopper, who explained that “One of the reasons we’ve been able to keep our costs a lot lower than our competitors is that we don’t compete at all on search engine marketing (SEM). The traditional travel companies’ growth models are based on bidding on Google for really high intent keywords, trying to convert them on the spot and extract as much revenue from that transaction and then the next time around go through the process again. At Hopper we decided not to compete in that game at all. Instead Hopper has a lot of features like price freeze and flight watches that are meant more for users that are a little bit lower intent but higher in the funnel. We also acquire all of our app installs on channels like Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube, as well as through partnerships with influencers, which are channels that are much lower cost than a pay per click on traditional SEM.”

Investing in Product-Led Growth

Hopper was already ahead of peers in terms of marketing efficiency in 2021 – and Hopper continues to innovate, moving away from social media advertising and instead investing its marketing dollars towards product-led growth and the development of a social commerce platform and super app. 

Whilst paid marketing channels through social media allowed Hopper to quickly grow its app downloads, the focus is now on retaining those customers rather than continuing to attract more downloads. Hopper’s app has been downloaded more than a 100 million times, with Hopper being the most downloaded travel app in 2021, growing app installs near 200% year-on-year from 2020. However it will be difficult to keep up this growth momentum – the U.S has a population of about 330 million, meaning that at 100 million app downloads, a certain saturation level gets hit. Continued paid marketing will not see the same level of returns as before. 

Rheault-Kihara explains that “In 2021 we got a really good amount of installs and we lead travel pretty consistently in terms of the number of app installs that we get. [However], now it’s less of growing installs because we’re up there with Uber and Amazon in terms of total install volume. The next opportunity isn’t in increasing installs by 2x or 3x every year. So we started to look a lot more inwards towards product led growth.”

According to Rheault-Kihara, marketing spend on paid marketing external to the app (i.e. through social media channels) was 80% of Hopper’s marketing spend in 2021, and has today dropped to 25%, as shown in the chart below. 

For example, since April 2021, Hopper has been spending less on buying keywords such as “flights” or “cheap flights” in the app store, giving up these keywords mainly to Expedia, which launched its own flight prediction capabilities in April 2021, as shown in the chart below. Hopper clearly realizes that OTAs such as Expedia are far more experienced in search engine marketing and it would rather not compete head on with companies with much larger performance marketing budgets. Rheault-Kihara says, “We don’t really do that much Apple search; as a percentage of our spend, it’s really low. What we see is there’s not that much search volume and again, it’s usually being stuck to competing head on with our competitors, which we just want to avoid.” 

By investing in product-led growth such as its social commerce mechanisms (explained in the next section) and referral programs, Hopper is hoping that users specifically download the Hopper app looking to use these discount-offering products and for these to become a key value proposition and a core part of the product provided by Hopper, rather than just a marketing tool. 

Interestingly, Rheault-Kihara sees Hopper’s retention focussed marketing strategy as being cheaper on a per customer basis than the in-the-moment conversion approach deployed by the traditional OTAs. For Booking and Expedia, marketing spend correlates fairly linearly with gross bookings (i.e. it costs a certain amount to get every single booking) – instead Hopper is hoping to “get long term conversions, not instant bookings”, which in theory can stretch the initial marketing spend to attract a user over several bookings, extending the life-time value of a customer. 

Hopper has long talked about its ambitions to become a super app in travel, which it hopes to do through its strategy shift towards social commerce.  

Rheault-Kihara explains that “What we’re trying to do is build a super app for travel and we definitely have consumer demand for that. Every time we launch new products, users want to do their entire trip in one app and have rewards that encompass their flights, hotels, car rentals, etc. One of the most interesting examples that we wanted to follow was around these super apps in Asia that figured out how to use the product itself as a main growth lever, instead of external marketing, by giving customers discounts and rewards which incentivizes users to convert and be retained over a longer life cycle.”

Hopper’s CEO particularly cites Chinese company Pinduoduo as inspiration behind this vision. 

What is Pinduoduo? 

Pinduoduo, which in Chinese translates to “together, more savings, more fun”, is a Chinese e-commerce platform which offers customers discounts on a huge range of everyday products from groceries to home appliances. Its core value proposition is to allow users to experience a shared shopping trip with their friends and in turn receive group savings – with the app showing incremental discounts with each additional buyer added to a group purchase. This engineers the sharing of deals on social media, mainly WeChat.

The app also heavily utilizes gamification such as spinning wheels which give out coupons and leaderboards showing which users have had the most number of friends sign up to the app. Additionally, unlike shopping apps such as Amazon, Pinduoduo’s app is built for browsing deals, rather than searching for a particular product, which increases consumer engagement. 

Pinduoduo has seen incredible growth since being founded in 2015. As shown in the charts below, Pinduoduo has grown its revenue at an enormous >150% CAGR from 2016-2022 to become one of China’s largest e-commerce platforms. In September 2022, Pinduoduo launched its U.S. subsidiary Temu, which quickly became the most downloaded shopping app in the U.S.

Introduction Gamification Elements

Hopper has clearly been inspired by Pinduoduo’s huge success, and hopes to implement some of Pinduoduo’s key characteristics such as social sharing, gamification, and viral app design as a means to drive repeat bookings and increase customer retention. 

For example, Hopper is currently working on introducing a gamification component to its app which, similar to apps such as Duolingo, incentivize users to log onto the app every day in order to collect discounts or ‘carrot cash’ which they can use towards an eventual booking. At Skift’s Global Forum 2022, Fred Lalonde, CEO of Hopper, explained: “So the idea is you come in and you do something repetitive in what Google calls micro-moments like waiting for your latte at Starbucks and you press that Claim Today’s Reward button. And if you miss a day, you lose the $10 discount. But if you do it a couple of days straight, in this case a week [as shown in the screenshot below], you get $10 of future booking credit. Duolingo is the only real example of this in the West. Fundamentally this is called engage-to-earn. So you come in and you do something that you would do anyway, so you water this tree and it grows and then there’s a secret chest that opens up and it contains vouchers and coupons. And this is actually what will replace the established eCommerce players in travel, in my opinion.” 

Rheault-Kihara sees this marketing strategy as being more akin to a gaming company rather than a travel company. In our interview with him, he said “We look at an LTV (Long Term Value) to CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) ratio, instead of ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend) like a travel company would, that is more of what we’re interested in because we’re playing that long term game in the same way that a mobile app or a meditation app or an Uber would do.” 

Additionally, the introduction of social commerce and gamification also allows Hopper to hark back to its original value proposition from 2007, of harnessing a data-driven approach in allowing better travel inspiration and planning. Rheault-Kihara explains that “[Social commerce and travel inspiration] are pretty intertwined. When a customer comes onto the Hopper app, unlike a SEM [search engine marketing] customer, they’re not looking for a specific trip or a specific date yet, they’re still pretty high in the funnel in terms of deciding where to go. So a lot of the gamification elements around giving you specific discounts for specific destinations help you choose a place and aids in travel discovery. So [travel discovery] would be a pretty natural extension of the gamification product.” 

Is Hopper’s Super App Vision Achievable? 

Whilst we applaud Hopper’s differentiated marketing approach around gamification, social commerce, and travel inspiration, we expect Hopper will have to go through several iterations before perfecting their product-led growth strategy. For example, recently Hopper has had to answer to concerns that the various add-ons (such as fintech products, controversial opt-out tips , paid VIP customer support – and now a gamification element) are adding unnecessary friction to the booking process. These products can complicate and distract from Hopper’s core value proposition of being the most price competitive OTA on the market and we believe that Hopper has to strike a balance between efficiently monetizing its products whilst also offering a streamlined user experience. 

Additionally, we believe that Hopper faces tough competition in its ambition of being the one-stop-shop for travel bookings. This is a dream shared by many of its peers, with Booking in particular regularly citing its ‘connected trip’ vision. Players outside of travel are also looking to enter the sphere of super app-dom, notably Uber which has forged a B2B partnership with Hopper in order to sell flights and fintech within its own app. The emergence of new players in travel will likely only make the competitive dynamics more fragmented. Whilst Hopper doesn’t intend to sell products outside of travel, it might in fact see the most competition from the likes of Uber (which is primarily known for ride-hailing and food delivery, not travel) rather than pure-play travel companies such as Booking or Expedia. 

Consumer survey data conducted by PYMNTS and PayPal (as shown in the chart below) shows that there is higher demand for a super app in areas of life which sees higher frequency purchases such as retail or groceries, with fewer consumers intending to use a super app for travel purchases.

On stage at Skift’s Global Forum 2022, we asked Hopper’s CEO about how he looks at the issue of travel being a low-frequency travel purchase. He sees their social commerce initiative as the key behind increasing user engagement on the app, explaining “Everyone knows what their next trip is, so instead of scrolling on Instagram when you are waiting in line for a latte at Starbucks – from which you gain nothing– log onto the Hopper app, come water a tree [i.e. engage in its gamification elements], and collect discounts and coupons towards that next trip.” After completing ‘streaks’ (i.e. by logging onto the app every day and ‘watering a tree’ for example), Lalonde expects users to start browsing deals, which due to the discounts collected, are now cheaper than they were before. 

Though we applaud this strategy, we are still wary of how successful Hopper’s – or any travel company’s – implementation of it can be. One reason behind social commerce company Pinduoduo’s immense success is that it sells everyday, high-frequency purchase items such as groceries, meaning that users naturally log on to the app more regularly – and also get addicted quicker – than they would for buying low-frequency purchases such as travel bookings. 

Companies whose main offering is high frequency purchases such as retail, ride-hailing, or banking services might end up being a more formidable competitor to Hopper’s super app dream than one might expect, with the irony being that Hopper itself is helping power the travel platforms of these companies through B2B partnerships. Clearly the dynamics at play are complex, with many stakeholders involved, and we at Skift Research eagerly look forward to seeing how Hopper’s super app dream pans out. 

Hopper made roughly $3.5bn of gross bookings in 2022. Though it has grown substantially since launching as an official travel agency in 2016 – we estimate at a CAGR of near 50% – it is barely scratching the surface of what it could achieve given its current penetration of the TAM (Total Addressable Market) available by travel vertical. 

Hopper is best known for being a flight OTA, but today it has only 0.1% share of the flights market globally. In 2017, Hopper started selling hotels, but at about $1bn of hotel gross bookings, it has only a 0.2% share of the total hotels market. Similarly for car hire and private rentals, where it again has less than 1% market share. 

Hopper’s expansion into fintech and B2B have been key growth drivers for the business, as we have discussed in detail throughout this report, and both segments offer a long runway for growth, with its CEO identifying a $200-400bn TAM available for travel fintech, of which Hopper currently only has 0.5% share, and a TAM of $100bn for Hopper Cloud, of which it has only single digit percentage share. 

In the charts below, we model Hopper’s gross bookings growth trajectory, benchmarking its performance to that of Booking, Expedia and Airbnb 10 years after their respective launches. In 2022 (i.e. in the 15th year post Hopper’s founding in 2007), Hopper overtook Booking in terms of year-on-year gross bookings growth, largely fuelled by its launch of Hopper Cloud and expansion of fintech products. Based roughly on Booking’s growth pattern and our conversations with executives, we model that Hopper can reach more than $10bn of gross bookings by 2025 and $20bn by 2030. 

We model that Hopper can grow its gross bookings from about 1.5% of Booking and Expedia’s combined gross bookings in 2022 to more than 5% by 2030. 

Hopper has seen immense success in just a few short years, from selling its first flight booking in 2016 to becoming the third largest player in North America today. This growth has been fuelled by its approach around fintech, B2B partnerships, and a differentiated marketing strategy.

Hopper is still a young and burgeoning company, not yet fully at scale, meaning that the company is likely to see several iterations before undergoing a potential IPO, such as learning to strike a balance between efficiently monetizing its products whilst also offering a streamlined user experience.

However, regardless of whatever doubts someone might have, one thing for sure is that Hopper has been a redoubtable disrupter of the OTA market, unafraid to pivot strategy and innovate – a unique characteristic in today’s landscape which for so long was dominated by the duopoly of legacy players. 

Appendix: How Do Hopper’s Fintech Products Work?

Since being founded in 2007, Hopper has been building a database of travel and flights information by archiving receipts, or “echo traffic”, sourced from global distribution systems (GDS) and using this data to feed their price prediction tools. 

Hopper’s lead economist, Hayley Berg, explains that “anytime an online travel agency sends out a ping to the GDS, looking for all the flights available to be booked at that moment, the various itineraries, the prices, etc. – it’s called an echo event – and we have been archiving these events since 2007 to create a database that is made up of about 80 trillion historical prices and itineraries. And every single day we get the previous day’s itineraries, which we call shadow traffic, and this is the data that feeds into our machine learning models and is what fuels the price prediction in the app.” 

Hopper claims that their price prediction tools are 95% accurate. For hotel prices, due to the fragmented nature of the hotel industry, and a lack of a centralized database, Hopper bases its pricing estimates on what’s already available to book in the app. 

Through Covid, Hopper expanded its price prediction tool into a price freeze fintech product, as well as launching an array of other fintech offerings (explained below), and today fintech sales make up about 70% of flight bookings, 45% of hotel bookings and 15% of car bookings. 

Hopper has 5 key fintech products: 

Price Freeze – Price Freeze protects customers from pricing volatility by enabling them to freeze prices. For an upfront fee, the Price Freeze product will protect you against price increases, up to a specified amount, for a flight for a set time. It allows customers to take more time to finalize their plans before they book. We do note that sometimes Hopper will pay the customer out in the form of ‘carrot cash’ – the currency for its loyalty program – rather than an actual cash refund. Price Freeze is available for flight, hotel and car bookings. 

Change for Any Reason – This plan gives you the power to change your flight, including date, time, and airline, for any reason up until the time of your scheduled departure with no added fees. If a traveler ends up utilizing this plan, Hopper pays any fees due to the airline.

Cancel for Any Reason – Available on flights and hotels, this plan gives you the power to instantly cancel your flight for any reason up until the time of your scheduled departure and receive at least 80% your ticket cost back. If a traveler ends up utilizing this plan, Hopper pays any fees due to the airline or hotel.

Flight Disruption Guarantee – If your trip is delayed or you miss your connection, you can instantly rebook the next flight to their destination in the app – no matter the airline – at no additional cost.

Leave for Any Reason – With this product, you can leave your hotel for any reason at or after check-in and book a new hotel of the same star category at no cost (with 100% of the rebooking costs covered by Hopper).

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Hopper - statistics & facts

How popular is the hopper app, who are hopper’s main competitors, key insights.

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Estimated EV/Revenue ratio in the online travel market 2024, by segment

Estimated enterprise value to revenue (EV/Revenue) ratio in the online travel market worldwide as of April 2024, by segment

Number of aggregated downloads of selected leading online travel agency apps worldwide in 2023 (in millions)

Number of aggregated downloads of leading online travel agency apps in the U.S. 2023

Number of aggregated downloads of selected leading online travel agency apps in the United States in 2023 (in millions)

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Estimated enterprise value to EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio in the online travel market worldwide as of April 2024, by segment

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Market cap of leading online travel companies worldwide as of September 2023 (in million U.S. dollars)

Monthly active users of leading online travel apps in China 2024

Number of monthly active user number (MAU) of the leading online travel apps in China as of February 2024 (in millions)

Online travel market size worldwide 2017-2028

Online travel market size worldwide from 2017 to 2023, with a forecast until 2028 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Yearly online travel and tourism services expenditure South Korea 2023, by service

Estimated annual online spending on travel and tourism services in South Korea in 2023, by service (in million U.S. dollars)

Online travel and tourism spending growth in Vietnam 2023, by category

Growth of e-commerce expenditure on online travel and tourism among internet users in Vietnam in 2023 compared to 2022, by category

Online travel and tourism e-commerce spending Vietnam 2023, by category

E-commerce expenditure on online and travel tourism among internet users in Vietnam in 2023, by category (in million U.S. dollars)

Spending on Google of leading online travel agencies (OTAs) worldwide 2019-2024

Estimated expenditure on Google advertising of leading online travel agencies (OTAs) worldwide from 2019 to 2023, with a forecast for 2024 (in million U.S. dollars)

Average number of reviews of travel and tourism apps worldwide 2022

Average number of reviews of travel, tourism, and hospitality apps worldwide in 2022

Average number of ratings of travel and tourism apps worldwide 2022

Average number of ratings of travel, tourism, and hospitality apps worldwide in 2022

Average retention rate of travel and tourism apps worldwide 2022

Average retention rate of travel, tourism, and hospitality apps worldwide in 2022

Online travel market scale APAC 2023, by country

Online travel market size in the Asia-Pacific region in 2023, by country (in billion U.S. dollars)

Online travel and tourism expenditures in Poland 2023

Annual spending on online travel and tourism in Poland in 2023, by type (in million U.S. dollars)

Market size of online food delivery in India 2020-2026

Size of the online food delivery market across India from 2020 to 2023, with estimates until 2026 ( in billion U.S. dollars)

Usage of online travel agencies Asia 2023, by country

Share of consumers who have used online travel agencies before in Asia as of June 2023, by country or territory

Appreciation of apps that reduce travel stress worldwide 2023, by generation

Share of travelers who appreciate travel apps that reduce the stress of a trip as of July 2023, by generation

Online travel agency usage penetration in Japan 2023

Share of people who have used an online travel agency before in Japan as of June 2023

GMV of online travel market Thailand 2019-2030

Annual gross merchandise volume (GMV) of the online travel market in Thailand from 2019 to 2023 with forecasts for 2025 and 2030 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Market share of leading online travel agencies (OTAs) in Europe 2021

Relative market share of major online travel agencies (OTAs) in Europe in 2021

Estimated online travel and tourism revenue Philippines 2023, by category

Estimated revenue on online travel and tourism services in the Philippines in 2023, by category (in million U.S. dollars)

Number of online travel booking users in China 2015-2023

Number of online travel booking users in China from 2015 to 2023 (in millions)

Online travel sales in South Korea 2011-2022

Transaction value of online travel sales in South Korea from 2011 to 2022 (in billion South Korean won)

GMV of online travel sector in Vietnam 2019-2025

Annual gross merchandise volume (GMV) of the online travel sector in Vietnam from 2019 to 2023, with a forecast for 2025 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Online travel market size in India FY 2020-2025, by type

Online travel market size in India in financial year 2020, with an estimate for 2025, by type (in billion U.S. dollars)

Estimated online travel market share in India FY 2023-2027, by type

Estimated online travel market share in India for financial year 2023 and 2027, by type

Market size of online retail industry in India 2018-2027

Market size of online retail industry across India from 2018 to 2023, with estimates until 2027 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Market share of leading online sports betting operators in Italy 2023

Market share of leading online sports betting operators in Italy in December 2023

Global online sales of the art and antiques market 2013-2023

Total online sales of the art and antiques market worldwide from 2013 to 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars)

U.S. travel agency industry market size 2012-2022

Market size of the travel agency sector in the United States from 2012 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Online shopping market retail sales volume in China 2015-2023

Retail sales volume of China's online shopping market from 2015 to 2023 (in trillion yuan)

Market size of online gaming industry in India 2011-2026

Market size of the online gaming industry across India from 2011 to 2023, with estimates until 2026 (in billion Indian rupees)

Online travel market value SEA 2019-2025

Value of the online travel market in Southeast Asia from 2019 to 2022 and a forecast for 2025 (in billion U.S. dollars)

ACSI - U.S. customer satisfaction with online travel websites as of 2023

U.S. customer satisfaction with online travel websites from 2000 to 2023 (index score)

Usage of online travel agencies for accommodation Asia 2023, by country

Share of online travel agency users who have booked accommodation in Asia as of June 2023, by country or territory

Annual spending on online travel and tourism services in Turkey 2023

Annual spending on online travel and tourism services in Turkey 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Most downloaded travel apps worldwide 2022, by aggregated downloads

Most downloaded travel apps worldwide in 2022, by aggregated number of downloads (in millions)

Download distribution of leading travel booking apps in the U.S. 2019-H1 2022

Distribution of downloads among the leading travel booking apps in the United States from 2019 to 1st half 2022

Most used online travel agencies Asia 2023, by country

Most used online travel agencies in Asia as of June 2023, by country or territory

Growth rate of travel and transportation digital market value in Italy 2018-2026

Percentage change in value of the digital market in the travel and transportation industry in Italy from 2018 to 2022, with a forecast until 2026

Usage of online travel agencies for package holidays Asia 2023, by country

Share of online travel agency users who have booked package holidays in Asia as of June 2023, by country or territory

Usage of online travel agencies for car rental Asia 2023, by country

Share of online travel agency users who have rented cars in Asia as of June 2023, by country or territory

Usage of online travel agencies for transportation Asia 2023, by country

Share of online travel agency users who have purchased flight, train, or bus tickets in Asia as of June 2023, by country or territory

Digital market value in the travel and transportation industry in Italy 2017-2026

Value of the digital market in the travel and transportation industry in Italy from 2017 to 2022, with a forecast until 2026 (in million euros)

Number of bookings through Booking Holdings worldwide 2010-2023, by segment

Number of bookings through Booking Holdings worldwide from 2010 to 2023, by business segment (in millions)

Market share of leading online casinos in Italy 2023

Market share of leading online casino companies in Italy in December 2023

Market capitalization of leading travel and leisure companies in Europe 2024

Market capitalization of leading travel and leisure companies in Europe as of March 2024 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Market size of the travel agency services industry worldwide 2011-2024

Market size of the travel agency services industry worldwide from 2011 to 2023, with a forecast for 2024 (in million U.S. dollars)

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What is Hopper and How Does it Work for Vacation Rentals?

Top 5 things vacation rental hosts and property managers need to know about Hopper Homes

• Bookings can only be made on the Hopper app.
• Hosts are not charged a commission (or guests a fee). Instead, Hopper asks for a discounted net rate and adds a dynamic markup. Its prices are low for guests and cheaper for hosts than other OTAs.
• It does not hide guest details from hosts.
• According to Hopper, 50% of its users don’t book on other OTAs.
• Gen Z and Gen Y make up 70% of its customer base. It also attracts older and more affluent users through strategic partnerships.

What is Hopper?

Hopper is an accredited online travel agency (OTA) that brings together four verticals - flights, hotels, vacation rentals, and car rentals - into one easy-to-use booking platform. The fast-growing, app-first OTA has gained plenty of buzz for being a one-stop-shop for travelers that not only helps them save on travel bookings by being notified of the best prices available at any given time but also provides fin tech products like price guarantees and rewards. And unlike larger competitors like Airbnb , Hopper has built a reputation for providing good customer support.

Hopper is said to have helped over 75 million travelers. According to Apptopia , it is the most downloaded OTA app in the US and third in the world. It is also the fourth most downloaded travel app in the US, behind Uber, Google Maps, and Lyft. Having raised over $600 million of private capital and backed by some of the largest institutional investors like Goldman Sachs, Hopper looks well on its way to hopping success.

Based in Montreal, Canada, Hopper was founded by CEO Frederic Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk, both of whom previously worked at Expedia .

How does Hopper Work?

Hopper aims to be a modern, full-service travel agency that alleviates the pain points of booking your travel itinerary.

It pulls price data – 30 billion price points in real time every day - on air tickets, hotel rooms, vacation rentals, and car rentals from a variety of online sources so it can provide the lowest price.

It uses historical data, comparing the current available price to its previous prices in order to make predictions on how likely the price will decrease or increase in the future. It also provides suggestions on when the best time to book for the best price will be and claims an accuracy of 95% for its algorithms up to one year in advance. Users can track prices of what they are interested in and Hopper will notify them soon as the price changes.

While Hopper does operate a website where deals are visible, full functionality is reserved for the app alone. The app is available for both Android and iOS devices. Hopper allows users to search for prices but they must create an account to make a booking. Creating a profile includes verifying your number and ‘choosing your bunny’ avatar.

What are the Features of Hopper?

Hopper sells bookings across four travel categories, i.e. flights, hotels, car rentals, and vacation rentals, offering customers the best deals to be found online.

1. Hopper Flights

Hopper partners with over 200 airline carriers, monitoring prices in real-time to alert users on the best time to book for the best deal. Hopper Flights is backed by 63 trillion price points and claims to save users an average of $65 per flight booking.

2. Hopper Hotels

Hopper partners with top hotels to provide exclusive deals from over 2 million properties worldwide, saving users an average of $61 per night. Rates are monitored 24/7 and users are notified when it’s the best time to book.

3. Hopper Rental Cars

Hopper Rental Cars features 180 different retail brands from across the world. It claims its rental car rates are 20-25% cheaper and save users an average of $40 per rental.

4. Hopper Homes

Featuring 2.5 million homes located around the world and managed by individual hosts as well as professional property managers, Hopper Home s promises lower prices in even the most demanding markets and an exclusive cash back program.

What are Hopper’s Products?

Carrot cash rewards.

Each time a user makes a booking or refers friends to Hopper, they earn rewards of 5% back on hotels, 3% back on cars, and 1% back on flights.

Price Prediction

Perhaps Hopper’s biggest draw, Price Prediction is the Hopper feature that predicts prices with 95% accuracy, saving users an average of $65 per trip. When a person searches for their trip, Hopper analyzes trillions of price points to provide the cheapest prices as well as provide predictions on prices in the future. If it doesn’t tell you to Book Now, you can choose to Watch the Trip instead and Hopper will notify you when a great deal is available or if prices are starting to climb.

Price Freeze

By choosing Price Freeze and paying a service fee, users can freeze a price for a specific period of time. According to Hopper, it saves travelers an average of $45 per booking.

Cancel for Any Reason

By adding Cancel for Any Reason when making a booking, users can literally cancel their booking sans fees for any reason up until departure. According to Hopper, it saves travelers an average of $214 per use.

Change for Any Reason

By choosing Change for Any Reason on booking, travelers can change dates, airlines, destination, or trip type, for any reason, up until departure. According to Hopper, it saves users an average of $252 per use.

Leave for Any Reason

By adding Leave for Any Reason, travelers can leave the hotel they booked at or after check-in and book a new one for free.

Flight Disruption Guarantee

Users who choose Flight Disruption Guarantee can instantly rebook a flight or receive an instant refund if their flight is delayed or canceled or they missed a connection. According to Hopper, it saves travelers an average of $508.

VIP Support

Travelers who add VIP Support when booking are provided priority service including instant access to expert agents at any time.

What is Hopper Cloud?

Hopper Cloud is its B2B initiative. It is how the company makes its solutions, products, and infrastructure available to businesses such as Amadeus, Kayak, MakeMyTrip, and Trip.com. It also allows other brands to sell their own travel products and content to its customers as white-label offerings.

How does Hopper work for Vacation Rentals?

Hopper Homes, its category for vacation rentals, is the latest addition to its portfolio. It launched in January 2022 with over 2 million properties around the world, a portfolio that has continued to grow since.

To grow its supply fast Hopper directly engaged with large property managers to supply properties. These include but are not limited to Evolve, VTrips, FrontDesk, RedAwning, SkyRun, Kasa, Casago, and Casiola. Hopper also has a partnership with Vrbo , where it taps into Vrbo’s inventory while allowing Vrbo to manage the booking.

Here are the top things property managers and vacation rental hosts need to know about Hopper Homes:

Guests can search properties using filters like location, number of bedrooms, amenities, and even price.

Hopper does not charge a commission from hosts or a service fee from guests. Instead, it gets a discounted net rate from each property and adds a markup to it that is dynamic to ensure that the price is the lowest available while also maximizing its own revenue. This is cheaper for hosts than the 14-17% fees charged by OTAs like Airbnb and Booking.com. It is also cheaper for travelers.

In August 2022, Hopper revealed the average booking value on Hopper Homes as:

ADR - $268 Average order value - $946 Average length of stay - 3.5 nights

In comparison, according to Airbnb’s Q2 2022 results , ADR grew to $164.

Hopper assumes the cancellation policy being used by the host.

Hopper offers instant booking capability.

Hopper does not hide guest details from hosts like Airbnb and Booking.com do.

Property managers can get their rental agreements signed by guests through Hopper itself. Vrbo too offers this feature but Airbnb and Booking.com do not.

As Hopper continues to collect more and more data coming through Hopper Homes and analyzes it to discern patterns in booking, cancellation, etc, it will be able to offer its much-loved fin-tech products like Price Prediction for Homes as well.

Hopper offers its Carrot Cash Rewards for Hopper Homes bookings too.

Hopper claims it has more engaged users than other OTAs. Its app has more monthly active users than any other travel app.

According to Hopper, its users are more loyal: 50% of Hopper users do not book on other OTAs.

While many OTAs rely on Google Adwords to reel in customers, Hopper’s strategy is based on social media such as TikTok.

With its app-first approach, Hopper is known as a Gen Z focused product. And according to Hopper data, the app is primarily used by Gen Z and Millennial females. Nearly 70% of its bookings are from users below 35 years of age.

Hopper recently announced a partnership with Capital One with a separate portal where Capital One customers, who are older and more affluent, can access Hopper Homes.

To list on Hopper Homes, property managers must fill out a short form after which Hopper will get back to them.

Hopper is more than an exciting platform that generates a lot of buzz. Its solutions, products, and service also make it worthy of that buzz.

A disruptor of a market that originated as a disruptor itself, Hopper is combining a fun sensibility, an attractive business model, and a focus on loyalty to provide a striking platform. Despite its reputation for being a Gen Z focused platform and its large customer base of those under 35 years old, it is also going after older and more affluent users through strategic partnerships like that with Capital One, combining old and new customer acquisition strategies. There is even speculation that Hopper will eventually allow bookings on its website as well though this remains to be seen.

Interestingly, younger U.S. travelers prefer short term rentals over hotels, with more than 4 in 10 short term rental travelers being under 35. According to Hopper, 40% of its customers have indicated they prefer homes over hotels while 24% have no preference between the two. This makes Hopper Homes even more attractive to hosts, providing an engaged and enthusiastic base with potential to keep returning. Thus Hopper and Hostaway ’s partnership provides the PMS’ customers access to the award-winning platform while Hostaway provides Hopper with access to a significant market share of short term rentals across North America.

Hopper’s acquisition of PlacePass, one of the largest activity aggregators in the world, saw it make available its over 300,000 experiences in over 800 global destinations through Hopper Cloud. Incidentally, this makes Hopper the engine that powers the Marriott Bonvoy Tours and Activities platform. However, this also provides Hopper a means through which to add experiences as a fifth vertical in the future, competing with Airbnb Experience s, which revealed a gross booking value of $15.6 billion in Q3 2022 .

Ultimately its core strengths are its price algorithms which have thus far lived up to their promise, providing the lowest prices, predicting prices into the future, and alleviating the frustrating pain points of planning and booking travel online and fin-tech products which provide peace of mind and ease of use while catering to the different scenarios encountered with travel. Traditional OTA products like travel insurance for guests are more afterthought in comparison to Hopper’s fin tech suite. In fact, about 70% of Hopper’s revenue comes from these ancillary products than its traditional travel verticals.

While Airbnb pivots to focus on private rooms again while showing a total fee in an attempt to curb its reputation for high prices, Hopper Homes’ model is refreshing for both hosts and guests, particularly the younger demographics who may age into their loyalty for the platform.

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Radiators fail once more: Moscow suburbs residents appeal to Putin

R esidents across the Moscow suburbs are besieged by a heating problem, for which they plead direct intervention from President Vladimir Putin. These individuals have yet to experience any semblance of home heating since winter started due to a dwindling supply of heating oil. The issue, one largely avoided by local authority communication, has left residents desperate to the point of directly appealing to the president.

While plots have been uncovered to disrupt Ukraine's infrastructure for a second consecutive winter, thus depriving civilians of heating, it seems Russians are now mired in their crisis. Irony drips from the fact that those under Putin's leadership are looking to cause turmoil in Ukraine, yet at home, they face a similar predicament.

Many dwellings within the Moscow agglomeration are presently without heat. The capital's residents are desperate, directly appealing to President Putin due to a perceived lack of alternate avenues for assistance. The absence of suitable heating functionality since winter commenced pushes them towards desperation with no relief in sight.

This seems improbable, but in Russia, it appears that anything can happen.

It remains uncertain if Vladimir Putin is actively addressing the heating crisis. Some experts suggest that Russia's heating oil reserves are depleting, which negatively affects residents' quality of life. Plagued by cold radiators and plummeting winter temperatures, these citizens have directly addressed their pleas to their head of state.

This heating crisis is happening in Elektrostal, a town approximately 71 miles from Moscow.

Ironically, Russia has constantly aimed to destroy the Ukrainian infrastructure since war broke out, deliberately trying to leave Ukrainians without heating during the harsh winters, aiming to break their strong will. It's an irony they now struggle with a domestic heating crisis, particularly near Moscow, their largest and most pivotal city.

Desperate individuals are reaching out to Vladimir Putin. They question his knowledge of the heating infrastructure conditions in the Moscow suburbs and the dire situations residents face there. Sundown brings no relief from the harsh Russian winter and without heating, their houses turn cold. With elections nearing, more and more residents find themselves reaching out directly to their president.

"Since winter's start, we've been without heating. This has been a yearly occurrence for the past three years. Despite paying for heating, we don't have enough. We implore you, help us!" - these are the desperate pleas from the heavily dressed populace dealing with the Russian winter conditions.

Experts attribute the heating oil shortage to international sanctions and surging demands for diesel fuel, pivotal to military operations. Russia now grapples with a dearth of raw materials essential for boiler and heating plant operation. As supplies dwindle, houses grow cold with little hope of any immediate corrective intervention.

It would be adequate if the war ceased, residents were prioritized, and attention accorded to their welfare.

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Elektrostal, visit elektrostal, check elektrostal hotel availability, popular places to visit.

• Electrostal History and Art Museum

You can spend time exploring the galleries in Electrostal History and Art Museum in Elektrostal. Take in the museums while you're in the area.

• Cities near Elektrostal

• Places of interest
• Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center
• Peter the Great Military Academy
• Central Museum of the Air Forces at Monino
• History of Russian Scarfs and Shawls Museum
• Balashikha Arena
• Balashikha Museum of History and Local Lore
• Bykovo Manor
• Pekhorka Park
• Ramenskii History and Art Museum
• Malenky Puppet Theater
• Drama Theatre BOOM
• Likino Dulevo Museum of Local Lore
• Noginsk Museum and Exhibition Center
• Pavlovsky Posad Museum of Art and History
• Saturn Stadium
• Fairy Tale Children's Model Puppet Theater
• Fifth House Gallery
• Church of Vladimir
• Malakhovka Museum of History and Culture
• Orekhovo Zuevsky City Exhibition Hall

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