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

What is Momondo?

Momondo is a flight price comparison site. People use it to compare flight prices across airlines and sites. It compares prices and sends you to another site to book, rather than booking directly or planning the trip.

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 Momondo compares prices and sends you elsewhere to book, Pilot books your hotel directly and keeps the plan and the booking in one place.

Is Momondo legit and safe to use?

Momondo is a real, long-running travel search site (it launched in 2006 and is owned by the same group as Kayak), so the search itself is legitimate. The thing to understand is how it works: Momondo doesn't sell you the flight or room itself. It compares prices and then sends you to an airline, hotel, or third-party booking site to actually pay, and that final site is where the price can change at checkout and where any problem with the booking has to be sorted out. On Trustpilot, which reflects how a company treats its customers, Momondo sits around 1.3, with recurring complaints tied to that handoff. Pilot lets you book your hotel directly, at a private rate straight from the hotel, so there's no third-party site in the middle, and if anything goes wrong you can reach a real person on our team.

Is Momondo free?

Yes, Momondo is free to use, because it's a search engine that earns referral fees when it sends you to other sites to book. That's also why the cheapest-looking option isn't always the best deal: the price can change once you reach the site it sends you to. Pilot is free too, but it works differently. Pilot earns from hotels when you book directly in the app, not from selling placement, so results are ranked for you, not for whoever pays the most, and the whole planning suite, the itinerary, the map, notes, and group collaboration, stays free with no paywall on the basics.

How does Momondo make money?

Momondo earns referral commissions when it sends you to an airline or booking site to complete a purchase, and the price can change once you reach that site, which is why the cheapest-looking option isn't always the best deal for you. Pilot earns from hotels when you book directly, and doesn't sell sponsored placement, so the results you see are ranked for you and you book the room at a private rate straight from the hotel.

Can you book hotels on Momondo?

Momondo lists hotels and shows prices, but it doesn't complete the booking itself. It hands you off to another site to pay, and that site can add fees or show a higher price than the one you clicked. Pilot lets you book over 3,000,000 hotels directly in the app, at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, and the booking is saved right alongside the rest of your trip. So if booking a stay (not just searching for one) is what you're after, Pilot does it directly, where Momondo passes you along.

Does Pilot compare flights like Momondo?

No, and it's worth being upfront about that. Momondo focuses on flight search: it compares fares across many airlines, has flexible-date and flexible-destination tools, and sends price alerts. Pilot doesn't compare flight prices and doesn't book flights or rental cars. What Pilot does is book your hotel directly at a private rate and plan the whole trip around it: a flexible itinerary, a map of everywhere you're going, notes, and your group in one shared trip. You can add your flights to a Pilot trip to keep everything together, you just book the flight itself elsewhere.

Is Momondo worth it?

For comparing flight prices quickly, Momondo's search and price-alert tools do that job. But it stops at search: it sends you to another site to book, where the price can climb, and your trip stays scattered across tabs and confirmation emails. Pilot is worth it when you want the trip handled in one place: book the hotel directly at a private rate, plan every stop on a map, keep notes and files with the plan, invite your group to edit it together, and reach a real person if a booking goes wrong, all for free. Many people use both: Momondo to eyeball a fare, Pilot to plan the trip and book the stay.

Momondo vs Pilot: which should I use?

Use Momondo if your main goal is to compare flight prices across lots of airlines and sites and you're happy to finish the booking on whichever site you're sent to. Use Pilot to plan the trip and book the stay: a private rate reserved instantly with hotel partners and confirmed with the hotel by a real person, results ranked for you instead of for advertisers, your whole trip (the itinerary, the map, the group, and the booking) in one place, and real support, all for free. Momondo is the older, search-traffic-heavy name; Pilot is newer and put that time into the product, so the experience is better even if it's less well known.