Booking a flight or hotel at the best price can often feel like a tedious, time-consuming task, especially when you’re trying to stay within budget. Most travelers start with a quick search on Google Flights or popular sites like Expedia and Hotels.com, but there are many other tools available that can help you save even more. In this post, I’ll share ten of my favorite apps that can help you maximize your travel budget and make planning your next vacation a breeze once your PTO is approved.
Hopper (Mobile App) – One of the best apps I use when booking flights to get the best deal on prices. This app helps track when it is the best time to buy according to its price fluctuation patterns and historical data. The app includes multiple airlines, routes, and airports to depart from to get the best price. You can book directly through the app and earn credits or book on the airlines website when it recommends the time to buy. They also have an option to book hotels, and there are bundle deals as well! I will warn and suggest not to book through the app as there have been many instances of flight cancellation or change problems for users and some of my friends. I mainly use this to see when it would be the best time to book to get the lowest price.
Roame.Travel (Mobile App & Website) – If you use your credit cards to rack up points for miles but are unsure how to get the most out of your points, Roame.Travel is here to help! Designed to help consumers find the best way to get the most of their miles for their next destination. When you search for your flight, not only does the flight listings show how many miles (and possible extra charge) it will cost, but also what credit cards you can use to transfer those miles to the airline you will be flying! This app can also help you fly out of economy and into business class. You can subscribe to their membership for more hacks on the best ways to use your credit cards and different tips on how to get to the next destination for free (aka credit card points.) Make sure to check out our blog post on credit cards to see which ones are recommended and that are even featured on Roame.Travel!
Skyscanner (Mobile App & Website) – I have been using Skyscanner for years and is another great way to track the fluctuation of prices for flights! If you are flexible for your days of travel, using Skyscanner instead of Hopper will help you get better deals. The website’s features include hotel and car rental bookings. I also find it a lot easier to filter through your search than other websites such as direct flight options or if you would like to travel to multiple cities.
Hotel Tonight (Mobile App & Website) – Hopefully, you never find yourself in a situation where your accommodation cancels your reservation last minute (Airbnbs or rental is notorious for doing this more recently), but in case you do, Hotel Tonight is a great option to figure out where you can stay for the time being. It is also a great option for a staycation, last minute or late-night reservations! You can also use the app to help plan your vacation ahead of time as they can have some great deals on popular hotels. The best feature of the app is the “Top Deal of The Day” where you can get a free unlock for a one-night stay deal. The catch? You only have 15 minutes to make the reservation before the daily drop seal disappears and you must pay the regular rate. If you recommend friends and they book a hotel room using your code, you both get a $25.00 credit to your next booking. If you would like to support me and want to try the app out, please use my code: (insert code)
Culture Trip (Mobile App & Website) – The app that turns your inspiration board to reality…literally. This app is suitable for solo travelers, couples or groups of people looking for trip itineraries made for them based on what they want! Culture Trip provides options for you to plan a trip on your own, with guides on many different destinations for you to read up on when creating your itinerary. They also host trips with a set itinerary that are open to book as a group or solo.Overall, this is a great alternative to use if you want an itinerary planned out for you, especially if you are planning a group or family trip and don’t want to go through a travel agent.
Roomertravel (Website) – A marketplace for when you can’t get your money back on a prepaid hotel room reservation that you had to cancel. For travelers, this is a plus as you can find some amazing deals on top hotels! This website should be used if you are looking for to stay the day, a week or month-of as it is not the best for planned travel since the hotel room prices are for cancellations (that are most likely last minute.) If you are interested while planning ahead, the search tools can be filtered for the dates of your stay and can be searched on Top Deals to find some great rates.
Wanderu (Mobile App & Website) – Flying isn’t the only transportation option travelers can get deals on through apps. Wanderu was made for finding the best options on bus and train routes in 10 different destinations: Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, United Kingdom and USA. There are many renowned transit companies that have partnered with Wanderu to make your journey seamless. You can book round trip or one-way tickets, find a rental car, explore destinations to get inspiration on where to travel, and read their blog posts on some great deals and information on vacation spots.
Hipcamp (Mobile App & Website) – Calling our campers or anyone traveling in the United States visiting National Parks (or any park for that matter.) Hipcamp is made for finding campsites and supplying information on some of the best destinations to visit. The website provides choices to camp via tent, RV, glamp, beach camping or lake camping! One of the few perks of Hipcamp is that when you book your stay through the website and if your trip rains out, they will reimburse you for the trip costs! The company is also an advocate about saving the environment and has posts about camping trends. If you love to hike and be in the outdoors, you can’t pass up using this app!
Booking.com – Although a more well-known travel app, I have used booking.com for many years and still do! The all-in-one app can be used to book flights, hotels, flight and hotel bundles, cruises, excursions, rental cars and more! I have primarily used the app to find great prices for accommodations on my trips and occasionally will look for flight deals. Regarding finding an accommodation, One of the great perks of the app is (depending on hotel stay) that you can reserve now and pay upon your arrival! The one downside of Booking.com is their rental or “Airbnb” like listings can be a hit or miss. I have found more travelers having their reservations canceled last minute, or the owners trying to charge extra for ridiculous reasons. Booking.com and Airbnb will have the same listings, but sometimes you may find that the Booking.com listing is cheaper!
Seats.aero – Racking up your airline or credit card points to transfer them to your preferred airline is one of the many ways people hack the traveling game, but Seats.aero take it a step further. This website gives you all the possible ways to make sure you fly only using points and how to do it. You can search by airlines, routes, travel guides or search on your own! The main point of the website is to show you which credit cards you can use to book your flight that matches with a certain airline, and how many points you will need to do so. If you are loyal to one airline you can use their points finder tool to help you find the best results to book your vacation as well as other tools listed such as their CHATGPT plug In or Discord Community. It is a free website, but if you have a subscription, it is a lot more user friendly and there are way more perks when using it to find the deals or get the upgrades! The subscription is $9.99 a month and if you are a frequently traveler or have many loyalty points with a credit card or airline to transfer and use it is worth the subscription.
There is a “Get Started Guide” on how to maneuver the website and use it to its best ability for all users. They have a website for the hotel version of Seats.aero that you can find here. Make sure to check out our blog post on credit cards to see which ones are recommended and that are even featured on seats.aero!
