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

What is Hopper?

Hopper is a price-prediction travel booking app. People use it to predict whether flight and hotel prices will rise or fall and to book through the app. 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 Hopper 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 Pilot a good Hopper alternative?

For booking a hotel and planning the trip around it, yes. Hopper is built mainly around predicting flight prices and telling you whether to book now or wait, and it sells paid add-ons like Price Freeze and Cancel For Any Reason. Pilot lets you book your hotel directly, at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, with no sponsored results, and with real people on support instead of a bot. On top of booking, Pilot helps you plan the whole trip: a flexible day-by-day itinerary, a map, notes, and real-time collaboration with your group, which Hopper doesn't do. The honest caveat: Hopper also tracks and books flights and rental cars, which Pilot doesn't, so for flight price prediction it still has a role. For planning a trip and booking the stay, Pilot does more, for free.

Is Hopper legit and safe to use?

Hopper is a real travel booking app, founded in 2007, that books flights, hotels, and rental cars and is built around flight price-prediction. Its app rates around 4.6 on the App Store and Google Play. As with any app that books on your behalf and sells add-ons, it is worth reading exactly what each paid extra covers before you buy it. Pilot is newer and lets you book hotels directly, at private rates straight from hotels, and keeps the booking with the rest of your trip, and you can always reach a real person on our team if anything goes wrong.

How does Hopper work and how does it make money?

Hopper watches flight and hotel prices and predicts whether they will rise or fall, so it can tell you to book now or wait, then books the trip for you in the app. It earns from the bookings themselves and from paid add-ons such as Price Freeze (you pay to lock a price for a window) and Cancel For Any Reason, plus its Hopper Cash card, which gives cashback you spend back inside Hopper. Pilot earns from hotels when you book directly 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 Hopper, and how is Pilot different?

Yes, Hopper books hotels as well as flights and rental cars. The difference is how Pilot lets you book a hotel: directly, at a private rate straight from the hotel, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, and the booking lives with the rest of your trip instead of sitting next to a flight you tracked. Pilot also helps you plan the whole trip around the stay, a flexible itinerary, a map, notes, and your group in one place, which a flight-price app doesn't do. Pilot lets you book over 3,000,000 hotels and focuses on hotels only, so it doesn't book flights or cars.

Does Pilot predict flight prices like Hopper?

No, and it's worth being upfront about that. Predicting whether a flight price will rise or fall, and the book-now-or-wait call, is Hopper's main thing, and Pilot doesn't do it. Pilot focuses on booking your hotel directly at a private rate and planning the whole trip around it. Where Pilot wins is the hotel booking itself, private rates straight from hotels, plus planning, groups, and real support. If watching flight prices is the main thing you want, Hopper still does that; for the hotel and the trip, Pilot does more.

Is Hopper free to use?

Hopper is free to download and search, and it makes its money on the bookings and on paid add-ons like Price Freeze and Cancel For Any Reason, plus its cashback card. Pilot is completely free too, with no paywall on the basics: planning, the map, collaboration, AI itineraries, and booking are all included. Pilot can stay free because people can book hotels through it, so it earns from hotels rather than charging you to plan.

Pilot vs Hopper: which should I use?

Use Pilot to book a hotel and plan the trip: a private rate reserved instantly with hotel partners and confirmed with the hotel by a real person, real support, and your whole trip, the plans, the group, and the booking, in one place, for free. Use Hopper if your main goal is to predict flight prices and decide whether to book now or wait, or to book flights and rental cars, which Pilot doesn't do. Many travelers use a price tracker for the flight and Pilot for the hotel and the plan.