If you’ve ever sat around impatiently expecting a delivery, or waited for an eBay auction to end, or stood in a long queue at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (not that we have), then you know how hard waiting can be. It’s terrible and filled with unknowns. What if I wither and die here, just waiting for some event that will never happen?
This is one of the anxieties of the flight-booking process that the Hopper app soothes: “What if.”
The biggest unknown when you’re buying a flight is “What if this price suddenly goes up?” We feel you: Flight prices can change hour to hour. An airline could announce a flash sale, and that $300 flight you just bought is now $150 and everything is terrible. So how do you know, when you click that “buy” button, you haven’t booked too early or too late?
The first thing you need to understand is that almost all airfares trend upward as the date of departure approaches. However, there is a lot of volatility in that trendline, as the chart below shows. When there is so much price volatility, that means there are brief but valuable valleys where the true savings can be found.
The first red dot is priced at about $345 (above trend) but later dips under $310 (well below trend), likely as an airline is managing their supply or announcing a sale. It illustrates why you tend to pay more for airfare if you procrastinate or only check prices once in a while, since the trend keeps rising over time and it’s harder for you, the consumer, to spot those price drops. Unless you’re willing to set aside several hours each day for flight shopping, of course. But then you’d be insane.
The trick is to decide whether it’s worth not buying the plane ticket today and instead waiting in the hope of seeing a lower price in the future. That’s where Hopper comes in.
With the billions of pieces of data that we collect every day, Hopper studies and analyzes airlines’ historical pricing patterns to understand how much and how often airfares tend to change. We know the many subtle differences from market to market, how a flight from Newark to D.C. is different than a flight from Newark to Honolulu. We know that booking in some markets too early can cost you hundreds.
This data allows us to estimate, first, how much prices are likely to move around that central trendline, and secondly, how likely it is you’ll find a significantly better price than the one you see today.
When you watch a trip with Hopper, we make a smart recommendation. We’ll tell you to buy now or wait. And we get it right 95% of the time. (See for yourself — check our app store reviews.)
In many instances, as the chart above shows, waiting is worth it, even if it’s the hardest thing to do.
So we’ll catch you one of those great price drops, and we’ll save you a sizable chunk of change.
That’s something worth waiting for.
-The Hopper Team
Interested in becoming part of the Hopper team? Click on our Jobs page for more information and to apply.
