Pilot vs. CheapOair: feature comparison, ratings, and FAQ

What is CheapOair?

CheapOair is a discount flight booking site. People use it to book flights, and sometimes hotels and cars, at a discount. It is built to complete a booking rather than plan the trip around it, and it books as a middleman rather than directly with the hotel.

What is Pilot?

Pilot is a trip booking and planning app. You plan the whole trip in one place, a flexible itinerary, a map of your stops, and notes, and you book your hotel in the app at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents. Where CheapOair completes a booking, Pilot plans the whole trip around the stay, instantly reserves your room with its hotel partners and has a real person confirm each booking with the hotel, and keeps the planner free.

Is CheapOair legit?

Yes, CheapOair is a real Online Travel Agency. It was founded in 2005, sells flights, hotels, rental cars, and cruises, and rates around 4.2 on Trustpilot and 4.7 to 4.8 in the app stores. The honest thing to know is how an OTA like CheapOair makes its money: it marks up prices, adds fees and add-ons at checkout, and earns referral and commission revenue, so the headline price often climbs by the final screen. Pilot is a different kind of tool. It lets you book your hotel at a private rate straight from the hotel, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, with no sponsored results, and it helps you plan the whole trip around the stay. If you want to book a flight, CheapOair still has a role; for booking a hotel and planning the trip, Pilot does more, for free.

Is CheapOair free to use?

CheapOair is free to browse and search, like most booking sites. You pay when you book, and that is where the cost shows up: CheapOair marks up prices and adds service fees and optional add-ons at checkout, so the final total is usually higher than the price that first caught your eye. Pilot is completely free too, with no paywall on planning, and when you book a hotel you get a private 'book early' rate straight from the hotel, pushed at you during checkout. Because people can book through Pilot, we earn from hotels, so we never have to charge you to plan.

How does CheapOair make money?

CheapOair earns the way most Online Travel Agencies do: it marks up the prices it resells, charges service and booking fees at checkout, sells optional add-ons like seats and insurance, and takes referral and commission revenue from airlines and hotels. It also runs a paid loyalty program, ClubMiles. None of that is hidden, but it does mean the top result and the headline price are shaped by what makes CheapOair money, not always by what is the best deal for you. Pilot earns from hotels when you book and doesn't sell sponsored placement, so results are ranked for you, not for whoever pays the most, and the planner stays free.

Can you book hotels on CheapOair?

Yes. CheapOair books hotels as well as flights, rental cars, and cruises, and it confirms the booking in-app. Pilot lets you book hotels too, over 3,000,000 of them, but at private rates straight from hotels rather than a marked-up resale price, with no sponsored results. The bigger difference is what happens around the booking: Pilot helps you plan the whole trip, a flexible day-by-day itinerary, a map, notes, and your group in one shared place, while CheapOair is built mainly to sell you the room. Where CheapOair stays ahead is the rest of its inventory, flights, cars, and cruises, which Pilot doesn't book.

Is CheapOair worth it?

It depends on what you came for. As a booking site, CheapOair covers a lot of airlines and also sells hotels, cars, and cruises, so for putting a flight together it can be worth a look, as long as you read the checkout total carefully, since markups and fees get added there. What CheapOair doesn't do is plan the trip: there's no itinerary builder, no map of your trip, no notes, and no way to plan it with your group. Pilot does all of that for free, and lets you book your hotel at a private rate straight from the hotel. So if the trip is mostly a hotel plus planning, Pilot is the better value; if you specifically need to book flights or a cruise, CheapOair still has a role.

Does CheapOair add hidden fees?

CheapOair is an Online Travel Agency, and like most OTAs it marks up the prices it resells and adds service fees, booking fees, and optional add-ons at checkout, so the final total is often higher than the first price you saw. It discloses these, but they are easy to miss until the last screen. Pilot lets you book your stay at a private rate straight from the hotel, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, with no sponsored results, and your booking lives with the rest of your trip rather than as a standalone transaction.

CheapOair vs Pilot: which should I use?

Use CheapOair if you mainly need to book a flight, a rental car, or a cruise in one place, and you're willing to read the checkout total, since markups and fees get added there. Use Pilot to plan a trip and book the stay: a private rate booked straight from the hotel, results ranked for you, and your whole trip, the plans, the group, and the booking, in one place, for free. CheapOair has been around since 2005 and put a lot into ranking in search, which makes it look bigger; Pilot is newer and spent that time on the product, so the experience is better, just less well known.