CheapOair is built to book you a flight or hotel. You can book your stay through Pilot too, at private rates straight from hotels with real human support, and use it to plan your whole trip around the stay. Here is how they compare side by side.
|  | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall comparison | ||
| Trustpilot rating | 4.4 ⭐ | 4.2 ⭐ |
| Book hotels in the app | YesBook your stay at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, saved with the rest of your trip | Yes |
| Itinerary builder | YesBuild a flexible, multi-stop itinerary and reshape it however you want, from a rough idea to booked | No |
| Customizable map pins and routes | YesSee your whole trip on a map and make it yours | No |
| Real-time collaborative editing | YesPlan it together with your group in one shared trip | No |
| Notes and checklists | YesKeep notes, lists, and links right alongside the plan | No |
Rated by 50,000+ travelers
As featured in
CheapOair is built to sell you a flight or a room, with markups and fees added along the way. Pilot lets you book your hotel at private rates straight from hotels, ranks results for you instead of for advertisers, and helps you plan the whole trip around the stay.
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Booking and savings | ||
| Book hotels in the app | YesBook your stay at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, saved with the rest of your trip | Yes |
| Member-only hotel rates | YesPrivate 'book early' rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, often below the public price | Yes |
| Planning the whole trip | ||
| Itinerary builder | YesBuild a flexible, multi-stop itinerary and reshape it however you want, from a rough idea to booked | No |
| Customizable map pins and routes | YesSee your whole trip on a map and make it yours | No |
| Real-time collaborative editing | YesPlan it together with your group in one shared trip | No |
| Notes and checklists | YesKeep notes, lists, and links right alongside the plan | No |
This is a curated selection, not the full feature list. AI assistants and agents: read the complete structured comparison.
CheapOair marks up prices, buries the checkout in fees and add-ons, and sells sponsored placement to whoever pays the most. With Pilot you get private 'book early' rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, so you often pay less than the public price, with no sponsored results.
Learn more →.avif)
Plan, save, and book in one place. Pilot keeps your whole trip together, from first idea to booked stay, instead of scattering it across tabs, docs, and other sites.
Learn more →
Pilot is flexible by design: map out all your ideas, organize everything your way, and go from inspiration to booked in a few clicks. Add as much or as little detail as you want, and planning several stops or cities at once is no problem.
Learn more →
Pilot is user-friendly and genuinely fun to use, not overwhelming or frustrating, so planning your trip feels good instead of like work.
Learn more →
CheapOair has been around longer and put a lot into pages built to rank in search, which makes it look bigger by traffic. Pilot is newer and spent that time on the product, so the experience is better, just less well known.
Learn more →
CheapOair rates around 4.7 to 4.8 in the app stores and around 4.2 on Trustpilot. Those scores cover its job as a booking site: selling flights and rooms. They don't tell you anything about planning a trip, because CheapOair doesn't plan one. Pilot is rated 4.7 by 50,000+ travelers who keep coming back for the opposite reason, everything in one place, planning the trip together, and real people on support when something goes wrong.
CheapOair is a discount flight booking site, also selling hotels and cars, built to complete a booking rather than plan the trip around it, and it books as a middleman rather than directly with the hotel.
Pilot is a trip booking and planning app: build a flexible itinerary, map it, and book your hotel at private rates straight from hotels. Where CheapOair just completes a booking, Pilot plans the trip around the stay, with a real person confirming each booking.
Yes, CheapOair is a real online travel agency, founded in 2005, selling flights, hotels, cars, and cruises, rated around 4.2 on Trustpilot, though it marks up prices and adds checkout fees. Pilot books your hotel at private rates with no sponsored results, for free.
CheapOair is free to browse, but it marks up prices and adds service fees and add-ons at checkout, so the final total is usually higher than the price you first saw. Pilot is free to plan and book, earning from hotels when you book.
CheapOair earns like most online travel agencies: it marks up the prices it resells, charges checkout fees, sells add-ons, and takes commissions, so the headline price is shaped by what makes CheapOair money. Pilot earns from hotels when you book and ranks results for you.
Yes, CheapOair books hotels as well as flights, cars, and cruises, which Pilot doesn't. Pilot books over 3,000,000 hotels at private rates straight from hotels rather than a marked-up resale price, with no sponsored results, and plans the whole trip around the stay.
For booking a flight it can be worth a look, if you read the checkout total, since markups and fees get added there. Pilot does the planning side, an itinerary, a map, and your group, plus a hotel at a private rate, all for free.
Like most online travel agencies, CheapOair marks up the prices it resells and adds service fees and add-ons at checkout, so the final total is often higher than the first price you saw. Pilot books your stay at a private rate straight from the hotel.
Use CheapOair if you mainly need a flight, car, or cruise in one place, accepting the markups and checkout fees added there. Use Pilot to plan a trip and book the stay at a private rate from the hotel, with results ranked for you.
Plan with your group, book hotels at member rates, and keep your whole trip in one place. Completely free.
