It’s a late Wednesday night. I’m curled up on the couch with a cup of tea, planning an impromptu weekend getaway. My laptop screen glows with Google Flights, while my phone buzzes with Hopper’s latest fare alert. Two different tools, one mission: find me the cheapest flight.
In the world of travel deal-hunting, Hopper and Google Flights have emerged as beloved companions. Both promise to save you money on airfare, but they go about it in very different ways. As an avid traveler (and confessed bargain junkie), I decided to pit Hopper against Google Flights for all kinds of trips – from quick domestic hops to multi-city adventures – to see which one truly unearths the better deals.
Along the way, I navigated their mobile and desktop experiences, tested their price predictions, scoured user reviews, and even consulted fellow travelers’ testimonials. What follows is my personal journey through these two platforms, told in a traveler-to-traveler narrative and backed by the facts I discovered.
What Hopper and Google Flights Are
Before diving into the deal-finding showdown, let’s get acquainted with our two competitors:
- Google Flights is essentially a powerful flight search engine (not a booking site). Launched in 2011 and built on Google's ITA Matrix software, it scans hundreds of airlines and online travel agencies (OTAs) in seconds. When you find a flight, Google Flights typically links you out to the airline’s website or an OTA to book directly – Google itself doesn’t issue tickets. Over the years, it’s become famous for its lightning-fast interface, flexible date search, and robust filters. It’s primarily accessed via web browser (on desktop or mobile), as Google hasn’t released a dedicated Flights app.
- Hopper, on the other hand, is a mobile app (iOS/Android) that functions more like a travel agent in your pocket. Founded in 2009 and launched as an app in 2015, Hopper’s claim to fame is using data and AI to predict flight prices. You search for a trip in the app and Hopper advises whether to book now or wait, based on its forecasts of future price changes. Unlike Google, Hopper is a booking platform – you can purchase your flight (or hotel, car rental, etc.) right in the app. It even has some playful branding (cue the cute Hopper bunny) that makes the experience feel like a game of “beat the airfare.”
At their core, Google Flights is about finding flights efficiently, while Hopper is about timing your booking to save money. But both overlap in many ways now, as we’ll see. With intros out of the way, let’s compare how they perform when I put them through a variety of travel scenarios.
Mobile App vs. Desktop: User Experience and Design
One of the most immediate differences is how you use these tools. Google Flights shines on a desktop browser; Hopper is built for your phone. As someone who plans travel both at my desk and on the go, I felt this distinction keenly.
Using Google Flights on Desktop: On a big screen, Google Flights is a dream for detail-oriented planners. The homepage is clean and straightforward – just input your cities and dates, and off it goes. One feature I love is the calendar view that instantly shows the lowest price found for each date; flexible travelers can quickly spot cheaper days to fly.
There’s also the “Date Grid” and “Price Graph” features that let you visualize fare trends over time. For example, when I searched a round-trip from New York to San Francisco, Google displayed a bar chart of prices for surrounding weeks, so I could identify the cheapest travel window (see image below).
Google’s interface is packed with filters – you can narrow results by airlines, number of stops, flight times, bag fees, connecting airports, and more. There’s even an “Explore Map” feature that shows fares to destinations worldwide if you just want a cheap escape anywhere.
On desktop, juggling all these options feels manageable thanks to the spacious layout. I can open multiple tabs for different date combinations or routes and compare easily. However, I’ll admit that first-timers might find the sheer number of options a bit overwhelming.
Google Flights is so powerful that it “could get complicated for a novice traveler,” as one review noted. It’s like sitting in a cockpit with a lot of controls – intimidating at first, but very rewarding once you learn the ropes.
Using Google Flights on Mobile: There is no separate app, so you access it via a mobile browser. The mobile web design retains much of the functionality – you can still apply filters, view price graphs, and track prices – but it’s a bit more cramped.
I found myself doing a bit of pinching and zooming, and dropping the date-picker or filters was a tad fiddlier than on desktop. It’s perfectly usable for quick searches or checking on a watched fare, but for complex planning (like multi-city trips or scanning a lot of date options), I prefer whipping out my laptop. In short, Google Flights is optimized for a big screen, though it’s handy in a pinch on your phone.
Using Hopper App: Hopper is the opposite: it’s a mobile-native experience that feels like a friendly travel app, not a search engine. Firing up Hopper on my phone, I’m greeted by a bright interface with pastel colors and that signature rabbit mascot. Searching for a flight is easy – input cities and dates – and Hopper quickly shows a color-coded calendar highlighting the cheapest dates in green and pricier ones in red (see image below).
This calendar view is one of Hopper’s strengths. It’s simple, pretty, and effective for flexible planners – a glance tells you, for example, that flying out on the 19th will be much cheaper than the 20th. Google Flights has a similar calendar of prices, but Hopper’s feels more approachable, almost like a game where you’re hunting for green “deal” dates.
Once you select dates, Hopper doesn’t just list flights; first it gives a big recommendation box with its price prediction. This is where Hopper’s personality shines. For a Boston–London search I did, Hopper displayed a screen with the bunny doing a “thinking” pose, and text like: “Current lowest price $550. Wait – we predict prices will drop in the next week by $50” (for example). Or it might say “Prices are expected to rise soon – Buy now!” accompanied by a celebratory bunny.
They even attach a confidence percentage or a date when they expect price changes. As a traveler, this feels like getting advice from a savvy friend (albeit a cartoon rabbit friend) on whether to book or not. Google Flights only recently started offering similar advice (“Prices are high/low for this date” or “Typical prices”).
Until that update, Hopper’s explicit “Wait or Buy” advice was quite unique. In fact, Hopper claims its algorithm can predict prices with up to 90–95% accuracy – I’ll dig into that bold claim later.
Navigation in Hopper’s app is generally smooth. It’s easy to set up price alerts (just tap a binoculars icon to “watch” a trip and get notified of price drops), and the app will send push notifications – which I appreciated when casually tracking a flight months away.
Everything is contained in one place: you search, you get advice, you tap through to see flight options (which are sorted by Hopper’s suggestions for best/cheapest), and you can complete the booking right in the app with a saved credit card. Hopper also offers modern perks like price freeze (put down a deposit to lock a fare for a short time) and flash deals.
For example, some days I open the app and see a little “daily deal” promo – “Save $100 on select international flights if you book in the next 48 hours”. It gamifies the experience a bit and can reward those who are ready to jump on a spontaneous deal.
That said, Hopper’s mobile-only approach has downsides. If you’re someone who likes to do deep research on a laptop, you’ll be frustrated to find Hopper has no desktop website for flight search. (Their website mostly just prompts you to download the app.) I encountered this when trying to plan a complex multi-stop trip – I instinctively went to my computer, only to realize I had to do it on my phone or not at all.
Some users mention that Hopper’s interface can get “cluttered and inconsistent” when dealing with a lot of info on a small screen, and I did notice that once you dive into flight results, there are a lot of numbers, filters, and promo offers jammed into a phone display.
In my experience, simple one-way or round-trip searches are a breeze on Hopper, but more detailed planning can feel cramped compared to Google’s spacious layout.
And occasionally, the Hopper app would stutter or take extra seconds to load flights – not deal-breaking, but noticeable. A UX review found that some users experience crashes or slow loading in Hopper, and while I only had one minor crash, I can see how a buggy app could really sour the experience when you’re trying to book a time-sensitive deal.
Winner (UX): It depends on your style. For desktop power-users, Google Flights is king – it’s hard to beat the efficiency of that interface on a large screen, especially for multi-city or intricate searches.
For mobile-focused travelers who want a handy app with built-in booking and notifications, Hopper is extremely convenient (and frankly, more fun to use on a phone). Personally, I use Google Flights on my laptop when I’m in research mode, and Hopper on my phone when I’m casually checking deals or want an on-the-go alert system.
Hunting Deals in the USA
With user experience in mind, I turned to the real test: finding cheap flights. First up, domestic U.S. trips. I frequently travel between major U.S. cities (think New York, LA, Chicago, Miami) to visit family and friends, so I’m always looking for bargains on these routes.
To compare Hopper and Google Flights, I ran parallel searches for a hypothetical round-trip from Los Angeles (LAX) to New York (JFK), about two months in the future – a fairly common trip. Both tools returned the same “best price” within seconds: around $398 for a basic economy fare on a major carrier.
This was reassuring – it means both platforms had up-to-date data and neither was missing a major deal. In fact, a controlled test by one travel site found that Google Flights, Hopper, and Priceline all tied for the cheapest fare on an LAX-JFK search, with only a few dollars difference versus other sites.
My own experience mirrored that: in terms of raw search results, Google and Hopper found identical prices for the same flights on domestic routes nearly every time. Neither consistently showed cheaper fares than the other, likely because they’re sourcing from the same airlines and inventory.
However, I did notice subtle differences. Google Flights would show a broad set of results – all carriers, including options like one-stop flights via different cities – and let me filter things down.
Hopper’s results were a bit more curated; it auto-sorts by what it deems “Best” (a combination of price and convenience). For the LAX-JFK query, Hopper highlighted one particular nonstop flight as “Best Flight – Cheapest” at $398, and labeled another as “Best Quality” (a pricier Delta Comfort+ option) to cater to different priorities.
I actually liked this sorting approach, since it surfaces the cheapest option, but also a best overall if you value comfort or airline choice. On Google, I had to manually apply filters (like number of stops, airlines, etc.) to zero in on the same options. Google did, however, allow one thing Hopper didn’t: I could search nearby airports or tweak the search radius.
For instance, I know from experience that flying into Newark (EWR) or LaGuardia (LGA) could be alternatives to JFK. Google Flights lets me add those airports in the search or even search “LAX to NYC (All airports)” in one go. Hopper’s search was strictly city to city; if I wanted to compare LAX to EWR vs LAX to JFK, I had to run separate searches in Hopper.
Another point for domestic flights: consider airlines that don’t show up. Southwest Airlines is a big one in the U.S. – they don’t list their fares on any third-party site, Google or Hopper included. So no matter which tool I used, I had to remember to separately check Southwest’s website if I suspected they might have a good fare.
In my test case LAX-JFK, Southwest wasn’t relevant (they don’t fly that route nonstop), but for a trip like Chicago to Los Angeles, Southwest could be an option and neither Google nor Hopper would show it.
This isn’t a knock against these platforms per se, but a reminder that for domestic flights, no single search engine catches everything (a community member on Reddit put it well: “There is no database that is complete and up to date. Always check other options.”).
What about the price predictions for domestic flights? On Google Flights (desktop), I saw notes like “Prices are typical for this date” or “Prices are unlikely to drop further” on some searches. Google has started to incorporate more of these insights based on historical data.
On the LAX-JFK example, I didn’t see a strong recommendation – it was more neutral, implying the current price was about as good as we’ve seen recently. Hopper, on the other hand, explicitly told me “Wait, prices may drop $20” when I first searched (maybe because the trip was two months out and historically that route might dip in price before rising closer to departure).
I decided to follow Hopper’s advice for experiment’s sake: I “watched” the LAX-JFK trip in Hopper and also set up a Google Flights price alert. Over the next two weeks, both apps sent me updates.
Google emailed me twice when the price fluctuated (indeed, it dropped by $15 one day, then back up a week later). Hopper sent me a push notification saying “Good news! Prices dropped to $383 – you should book now.” The predictions were roughly right – there was a small drop.
If I had blindly followed Google’s lack of warning, I might have booked at $398; if I followed Hopper’s wait suggestion, I saved a bit. In this one instance, Hopper’s predictive edge helped save $15. Not a windfall, but something.
However, predictions can sometimes be a double-edged sword. I browsed some user forums and found mixed experiences. One frustrated user on a forum said they tracked a domestic flight for months with Hopper: “The app would tell me to wait, and wait… and then the price went up, not down.” They ended up missing out on the lower fare by following the advice too long.
That’s the risk – airfare is volatile, and even a 95% accurate prediction still fails 1 out of 20 times. Hopper itself admits their forecasts aren’t foolproof despite overall positive results. Google’s approach is a bit more conservative; it doesn’t persistently tell you to wait unless it’s fairly certain or it has that new price guarantee badge (more on that later).
For domestic flights, prices often follow patterns (rising in the last few weeks before departure, for instance), so both tools can guide you, but you have to combine that info with common sense.
One more thing I noticed for domestic trips: Hidden fees or price differences. When you book through Hopper, they may sometimes include a small commission or offer add-ons (like trip protection, or their “VIP support” for a fee). I always check the final price on Hopper against the airline’s website.
In my LAX-JFK scenario, $398 was directly bookable on the airline via Google’s link. On Hopper, $398 was bookable in-app, but at checkout there was a prompt to tip $5 for the travel agent (optional, but pre-selected) and an offer for flight delay insurance.
I deselected those, and ended up paying the same $398. Some users have complained that “Hopper’s prices are not accurate” because they were quoted one fare then saw a slightly higher price at checkout.
This can happen if the fare sold out or if Hopper’s price didn’t include certain fees until the end. In fairness, Google Flights isn’t immune to this either – occasionally you click through and the airline site says “price changed to $X”. But overall, in my testing, both platforms’ listed prices matched the final prices for domestic economy tickets, within a few dollars at most.
The verdict for domestic flights: Both Google Flights and Hopper are excellent at finding the lowest fares for standard domestic trips, and typically they’ll match each other’s results. Google gives you more control (multi-airport searches, robust filters) which can help uncover creative options (like two one-way tickets, or slightly longer layovers for savings).
Hopper gives you actionable advice and tracking that can eke out a bit more savings if you’re patient. Personally, I often use Google Flights to scan the market and then use Hopper to watch a flight I’m not ready to book yet. It feels like having two advisors: one shows me all the options (Google), the other nudges me when timing is right (Hopper).
For a straight-up immediate search-and-book, Google’s simplicity on desktop often means I find and book a domestic flight faster there. But if I’m value-hunting and my dates are flexible, Hopper’s alerts have helped me snag a slightly better deal more than once.
International and Long-Haul Trips
Next, I tackled the arena of international flights – say, a trip from the U.S. to Europe or Asia. This is where the stakes (and potential savings) are higher. A $50 savings on a domestic trip is nice; a $200 savings on a flight to Asia is a big deal for a traveler’s budget.
I was especially curious which tool would find better deals for overseas travel and how they’d handle more complex itineraries (like multi-city routes).
For a test case, I planned a pretend two-week trip from Chicago (ORD) to Paris (CDG) in the spring. Immediately, I noticed one strength of Google Flights: it let me search multiple airports on both ends. I wasn’t picky about which Paris airport, so I could search ORD to “Paris (PAR)” which includes Charles de Gaulle and Orly.
I could even add Brussels or London in the search if I wanted to see if a slight itinerary twist would save money (Google has a feature where you can put up to 7 origin or destination airports in one query).
Hopper’s app doesn’t allow multi-origin or multi-destination input in one search – I’d have to run separate queries for, say, ORD to CDG and ORD to ORY. That’s a minor inconvenience, but for a thorough deal hunt I like casting a wide net.
Both Google and Hopper found plenty of flight options to Paris. Google’s interface once again helped me visualize price trends: I used the Price Graph to see that fares in May were about $200 higher than in April, for instance. Google also now displays a note like “Prices for your dates are high.
In the past 2-4 months, similar trips were $150 cheaper” – a useful reality check when planning big trips. Hopper, for its part, told me something like “We recommend WAITING – prices will likely drop by 5% in the next month” for the April dates I chose, with about 90% confidence indicated.
Interestingly, Hopper also showed me a few itineraries labeled “Combination Fare” which pieced together one-way tickets on different airlines to save money. One example: Fly out on Aer Lingus via Dublin, return on American Airlines – together it was about $50 cheaper than any airline’s round-trip.
Google Flights typically also shows these kinds of mixes (and flags them as “separate tickets” warnings), and indeed Google had a similar option listed for my dates. This told me both are pretty adept at sniffing out creative routings for international travel.
In practice, I’d be cautious booking separate tickets (since if one leg changes you might have issues), but it’s good to know both platforms will present those if you’re looking to shave off cost and willing to risk a bit more logistic complexity.
Multi-City Itineraries: Many international trips aren’t simple round-trips. For example, when I visited Europe in 2019, I flew into Rome and flew home from Paris – a classic open-jaw itinerary.
I remember using Google Flights back then to search multi-city: it has a dedicated “multi-city” search mode where you can add up to 6 legs (e.g., “New York to Rome” on one line, “Paris to New York” on another). This is incredibly useful for planning complex adventures, and I still use it to compare, say, the cost of separate legs vs. one-ways, etc.
Unfortunately for Hopper fans, Hopper’s app does not support multi-city searches as of this writing. This is a confirmed limitation – many travelers have noted it. One traveler on a forum lamented, “Another downside of Hopper is I am unable to put in a multi-city search, which is often what I need for traveling to Europe.”.
I ran into this as well: in Hopper I could only do one-way or round-trip. So for my Rome-to-Paris scenario, I’d have to search Rome–NYC and Paris–NYC separately or rely on Google to piece it together. That’s a big advantage for Google Flights if your trip isn’t a simple A-to-B journey.
In terms of the prices found for international flights, again it was often a tie. For Chicago–Paris, both showed me round-trips in the $700s on the same airlines. Hopper claimed I could save maybe $20 by waiting a bit. Google’s flexibility allowed me to notice that flying a day earlier would save $100 (something Hopper’s color-calendar also hinted at by showing a big green date on the day before).
When I tried a last-minute international search – say, booking for next week – both reflected higher prices (no miracles there; last-minute long-haul flights are rarely cheap). Hopper in one case popped up a special “Flash Deal” banner for a flight from New York to London, which was a limited-time low fare that an airline had dropped. It alerted me like “Great deal – 40% off typical prices for these dates!”
That was nice, because I might not have known it was unusually cheap without that context. Google Flights would show it’s a low price and even has started to indicate if it’s much lower than usual, but Hopper’s push notification felt more proactive.
Traveler Tips & Reviews (International): I dug around for what other travelers say. Many frequent flyers love Google Flights for international travel because of its comprehensive search. As one user puts it, “Google flights is the best I’ve used for flights from US to Europe. I use it to compare, then go direct to the airline to book.” This strategy is popular: Google to find the fare, then book direct for peace of mind (since if something goes wrong, dealing with the airline is easier than a third-party).
On the other hand, I found a person who preferred using Hopper plus some patience, especially outside the U.S. They claimed Google Flights sometimes showed “flight prices that do not exist” for international routes and that “Hopper often offers prices completely different than all other sites.”
In fact, that user would start with Kayak/Google to get a baseline, then check Hopper and sometimes find a lower fare or a deal with Hopper’s Carrot Cash (Hopper occasionally gives its own credits on certain bookings, effectively lowering the price if you count the credit).
There was also a rather dramatic example on a forum where someone found a flight from Stockholm to Bangkok for €490 on Google Flights versus €610 on Hopper – a huge difference.
That person understandably uninstalled Hopper in disgust. It’s hard to know why such a discrepancy occurred (different booking partner, a glitch, or perhaps Hopper showing a higher cabin by default?).
In my comparisons, I didn’t encounter anything that extreme – they were usually within a few dollars – but it underscores that it’s worth cross-checking. If one platform shows a much higher price for the same itinerary, trust your instincts and verify on the airline site or another source. No single tool is infallible.
In terms of predictive savings for international trips, Hopper’s marketing asserts that users save on average $120 on international flights by using their price-watch and buy/wait advice.
They even claim up to 40% off on these big trips if you time it right. Google doesn’t give a neat statistic like that, but its new features aim to do the same: help you book at the right time. In 2023, Google Flights rolled out a feature showing the cheapest time to book certain routes, analyzing historical data.
On some international searches, Google straight-up told me, “Prices for your flight are lowest 2-3 months before departure” – basically a general guideline derived from past trends. That’s something I used to rely on separate studies or tools for (like the Hopper Quarterly Travel Index or reports from Airlines Reporting Corporation). Now it’s baked into these apps.
A cool addition: Google has been piloting a “Price Guarantee” on select flights from the U.S. – if you book when it says “price guaranteed,” they will refund you the difference if the fare drops later.
I actually encountered one flight from New York to London with this badge. It gave me a bit of confidence to book, knowing I wouldn’t miss out on a later sale – essentially Google put some skin in the game. Hopper has a similar concept called Price Drop Guarantee, but it’s slightly different: if a Hopper-recommended flight drops in price after you book, they’ll give you the difference in Carrot Cash (app credit) rather than cash back.
So Google’s guarantee (when available) pays real money via Google Pay, up to a certain limit, whereas Hopper’s guarantees funnel back into their ecosystem as credit. A travel writer summarized it well: Google’s guarantee is on booked flights, while Hopper’s extends to those it predicts and sells, offering app credit if it’s wrong. Both are nice safety nets, but not ubiquitous on all flights.
Multi-city international travel – this is where Google wins hands down, as mentioned. I actually planned a mock itinerary like: Fly Los Angeles → Tokyo, then a week later Tokyo → Bangkok, then Bangkok → Los Angeles. Google Flights handled this three-legged journey in one search and gave me combinations across different airlines.
Hopper just can’t search that in one go; I’d have to break it into pieces or rely on the airlines/OTAs. For backpackers or anyone doing round-the-world or multi-country trips, Google Flights or other multi-city search engines (Kayak, etc.) are indispensable.
Hopper might still help for each segment (and indeed, you could watch each segment price in Hopper), but it won’t give you a holistic multi-city booking.
Verdict for international: Google Flights’ flexibility and thoroughness make it a powerhouse for finding the cheapest international fares and building complex itineraries. Hopper keeps up surprisingly well on the simple round-trip searches and adds value by advising on when to pull the trigger on booking.
If you’re flexible and diligent, you could use Hopper to monitor multiple trip options (e.g., various date combinations to Europe) and possibly snag a great deal when a fare sale hits – the app will likely be pinging your phone excitedly. For sheer finding of low prices, though, I found Google Flights slightly more reliable internationally, simply because it searches wider by default (multiple airports, multi-city, etc.).
It’s also widely recommended by travel experts for international flight hunting. Still, using them in tandem isn’t overkill: I sometimes set a Google Flights alert and a Hopper watch for the same international route, just to double my chances of catching a price drop or anomaly fare.
Last-Minute Trips
I wanted to see if either tool offered an edge for procrastinators like me who occasionally decide on Thursday to get away for the weekend.
To simulate this, I looked up flights departing within 7 days, both domestic and international. For a domestic case: say it’s Monday and I want to fly on Friday somewhere fun and come back Sunday.
Google Flights has a handy Explore Map where I can literally zoom around and see prices for this weekend from my city. It’s great for inspiration – I saw, for instance, “New York to Miami – $450, New York to Denver – $600, New York to Nashville – $350” all on the map when I set the dates for the upcoming weekend.
That gave me a quick sense of what the cheapest last-minute destination could be. Hopper’s app doesn’t have an interactive map, but it does have a section for deals from your home airport.
On my Hopper home screen, I often see tiles like “Flights from New York City – deals for this weekend”. Tapping that showed me a list of current low fares for the next few weeks, some of which were indeed last-minute. One time, I saw a $120 one-way to San Francisco for the very next day – a fare that likely was a short-term sale or a mispricing.
These kinds of flash deals do appear, and Hopper tends to highlight them if you’re browsing. Google might have the data, but it relies on you to find it (via Explore or searching specific city pairs).
When it came to actually booking a last-minute flight, both platforms again showed the same baseline prices for mainstream carriers. For example, a next-day flight to Chicago was around $300 on both. Neither magically conjured a super cheap fare that the other missed.
If anything, speed and convenience become the deciding factor when time is short. Google’s quick interface on desktop meant I could find and click through to book on the airline site in maybe two minutes flat. Hopper on the phone took a bit longer to sift through results, and then I had to punch in traveler details on a small screen (though if you already have your profile set up in Hopper, it’s pretty fast).
One advantage of Hopper for last-minute situations is if you’re not 100% sure but want to lock something in, the Price Freeze feature can be a savior. Say I spotted a decent fare but needed a few hours to confirm plans with a friend – Hopper might let me hold it for a fee. For instance, it offered me to freeze a $300 fare for 24 hours for about $30.
That $30 isn’t applied to the ticket; it’s the cost of buying time. I didn’t end up needing it, but it’s a unique option Hopper provides (some airlines offer courtesy holds too, but it varies). Google Flights doesn’t have such a feature since you’re not booking through Google at all.
Traveler anecdotes on last-minute: Many will say it’s less about the tool and more about being flexible. A frequent traveler on Reddit mentioned using Google Flights and Kayak to get a general idea, then “refining and purchasing using Hopper app, Expedia, or directly with airlines – checking all 3” when time is short.
This shotgun approach makes sense: at the last minute, any slight advantage one platform might have could mean a lot, so people tend to double and triple-check. I do the same. I recall once trying to fly home for Christmas with less than a week’s notice – Google Flights helped me spot an itinerary connecting through an odd city that was cheaper, while Hopper alerted me to a JetBlue sale that I might have missed. In crunch time, Google’s comprehensive search + Hopper’s deal alerts were a helpful combo.
One thing to note: Hopper’s “Sense of Urgency.” The app sometimes pushes notifications like “Prices are rising – 5 others are watching this trip!” which can spur you to act. While this can be helpful motivation for a chronic overthinker like me, some users feel it’s too pushy.
If you’re in last-minute mode, though, a little push might be warranted because fares can literally change by the hour. Google is more neutral and won’t nag you; it leaves the decision entirely up to you.
Verdict for last-minute deals: Neither platform can perform miracles on last-minute pricing (let’s face it, airlines have us in a bind when we book late). But Google Flights’ Explore and quick filtering make it a great tool to survey the landscape of options very quickly – crucial when you’re scrambling to find any affordable seat.
Hopper’s strength is in possibly alerting you to a rare sale or giving you a creative way to hedge (like freezing a price for a short time). It’s worth noting that if you’re truly last-minute (like same-day travel), booking directly with airlines or using airline-specific apps might sometimes reveal special standby fares or last-second deals that aggregators don’t show.
For example, some airlines have “today’s fare” specials only on their site. But generally, I’d use Google Flights to quickly find a decent option, then Hopper to double-check if any flash deals or cash-back (Carrot Cash) offers could sweeten it.
In tight timing, I lean on Google simply because of the speed and clarity of presentation – I can’t afford an app crash or slow load when I need to book now. Google’s barebones approach actually helps here.
What Others Say
Throughout this journey, I also paid attention to the experiences of other travelers, because my story is just one data point. The traveler community has no shortage of opinions on Hopper vs. Google Flights, and they range from glowing praise to scathing critiques.
On the positive side for Hopper, many users love the savings they’ve achieved. One TripAdvisor user wrote, “I just used Hopper to book four airline tickets for my family to the UK, zero problems, AND I easily saved us about $1000. No joke.” Such success stories – a grand saved on a big family trip – are fuel for Hopper’s popularity. People also rave about the convenience of having an all-in-one app.
The App Store ratings reflect that casual user satisfaction: Hopper enjoys around 4.8 stars out of 5 on the Apple App Store, which is incredibly high. This suggests that for many, the app delivers on its promise of finding cheap fares and the user experience is pleasant enough to warrant 5-star reviews. “It’s like having a deal-savvy friend keeping an eye on things for you!” as one reviewer put it, highlighting how Hopper’s proactive alerts make them feel looked after.
However, when you step off the app stores and into broader review platforms, the story gets more complicated. On Trustpilot, where users often go to report problems, Hopper’s rating was hovering around 2 out of 5 in sentiment. Common complaints include: difficulty reaching customer service, issues with refunds or cancellations, and feeling misled by certain fees or policies.
For instance, Hopper’s customer support is primarily via in-app chat/email – no easy phone hotline – which, if you’re in a pinch, can be frustrating (this was even listed as a con in some reviews).
I found numerous comments like “Hopper travel protection is a HUGE SCAM… will never book another flight with this app”, often related to misunderstandings about insurance or refund processes. Some users also reported instances where Hopper showed a fare that wasn’t actually bookable (perhaps an API delay) and they felt the app wasted their time.
On the flip side, Google Flights doesn’t accumulate reviews in the same way because it’s not handling bookings or payments – so people don’t go to Trustpilot to review Google Flights often. Instead, its “reviews” are the word-of-mouth recommendations in forums and blogs.
And there, Google Flights is often lauded as the gold standard for flight search. On Reddit’s r/travel, for example, you’ll frequently see comments like “Google flights has always come up with cheaper, better options. Hopper is good if you have $300+ and a week of PTO lying around and can wait for deals.” – essentially saying Google is the go-to for most cases, while Hopper is a more niche tool for deal-hunters.
Some dissenters exist: a Redditor passionately wrote, “G flights is and always has been sh. It often misses loads of available flights… I do a mix of 3rd parties then cross-reference with the actual airline.”.
This highlights an important point: Google Flights, while excellent, isn’t perfect and might not list some obscure budget carriers or small OTAs that occasionally have a lower fare. For example, Google historically didn’t include certain regional budget airlines in Asia or Europe, though it has gotten better.
From the testimonials, a pattern emerges: use Google Flights for broad search and Hopper for specific savings strategies. A travel blogger summed it up as: “I tend to use Hopper alongside Google Flights, as the two combined offer the most practical and economical advantages”. This echoes my personal approach as well.
Customer Service & Booking Experience: One area Hopper is often criticized is post-booking support. If your Hopper-booked flight undergoes a schedule change or cancellation, you have to deal with Hopper’s support (acting as the agent), which some describe as “hard-to-reach”.
Google Flights avoids this snag entirely by handing you off to book directly with airlines (so your support is the airline’s customer service). Many travelers feel safer booking direct for this reason. In fact, even Hopper’s own reviewers and travel experts often advise: use Hopper (and Google) as research tools, then book directly with the airline.
That way you get the best of both worlds – the insight on when and what to book, and the assurance of dealing straight with the provider. I follow this rule unless Hopper is giving me some incentive (like a coupon or Carrot Cash) that makes it worthwhile to book through them.
It’s telling that Hopper’s Pros & Cons lists often look like this:
Pros: Great at finding deals, easy notifications, fun and simple interface.
Cons: Customer service issues, not on desktop, sometimes not the absolute lowest fare, and refunds via credit not cash.
For Google Flights, a Pros & Cons might read:
Pros: Comprehensive search, very fast, flexible dates and multi-city, useful price insights.
Cons: Can’t book in-app (you have to finish on another site), might overwhelm new users with options, and doesn’t proactively notify you unless you set up tracking (no mobile push notifications – just emails).
One more perspective: I noticed generational and usage differences in testimonials. Younger, mobile-first travelers often gush about Hopper’s app, while veteran flyers and travel hackers tend to swear by Google Flights (and old-school ITA Matrix searches).
Neither group is wrong – they just prioritize different things. If you grew up comfortable managing everything on a smartphone, Hopper feels natural. If you come from the era of detailed fare construction and using multiple tools, Google fits that mentality.
Pros and Cons Summary
To crystallize the comparison, here’s a quick rundown of the pros and cons of Hopper and Google Flights based on my experience and real user feedback:
Hopper – Pros:
- Mobile Convenience & Design: As an app, it’s easy to search for flights anywhere, anytime. The interface (color-coded calendar, friendly bunny tips) makes complex data accessible and even fun.
- Price Predictions & Alerts: Hopper actively tells you when to book or wait with claimed ~90% accuracy. It sends push notifications for price drops or deadlines, so you don’t have to keep checking manually.
- Deals and Innovative Features: You can watch trips, freeze prices, and sometimes snag extra discounts or Carrot Cash rewards on bookings. Frequent users might get app-only deals (like surprise $100 off promos) that you’d otherwise miss.
- All-in-One Booking: You can complete the purchase without leaving the app. Hopper also covers hotels, cars, etc., so it can be a one-stop-shop for trip planning.
- User Praise for Savings: Many travelers attest to real savings – e.g. “saved hundreds on a trip” – when Hopper’s advice worked out well. It’s ranked the #1 travel app in over 35 countries, indicating its popularity.
Hopper – Cons:
- No Desktop Option: If you prefer using a computer, Hopper will frustrate you. Complex searches (multi-city, etc.) are cumbersome or impossible on its app-only platform.
- Customer Service & Support: Reports of slow or unhelpful support are common. Changing or canceling bookings can be more headache through Hopper than if you booked directly with an airline.
- Potential for Higher or Inaccurate Fares: Occasionally, Hopper’s listed fare may lag and not be available, or include their commission. Some users found Hopper’s price was higher than booking direct in certain cases. Also, the “fare freeze” deposits and added insurance don’t apply to your ticket cost, so that’s extra money spent if used.
- Limited Filtering: Fewer ways to narrow results (can’t search multiple airports together, filter by alliance, etc.). It’s designed for the common use-case, but power users might feel constrained.
- Credits instead of Cash: If you get a refund or price guarantee payout from Hopper, it’s often in Carrot Cash (app credit), not money back to your card. That keeps you tied to the app for future use.
Google Flights – Pros:
- Speed and Breadth: It’s extremely fast and usually among the first to show new fares or changes. It covers hundreds of airlines and agencies (including many international ones), giving a comprehensive view of available flights.
- Flexible Search Power: Multi-city itineraries, one-ways, round-trips, multiple origin/destination airports, date flexibility, price graphs, filters galore – it has all the tools to customize your search and find the best deal for your specific needs.
- Transparency and No Booking Fees: Prices are shown with taxes/fees and it doesn’t add anything on top. Since you book externally, you usually get the same price as booking direct (no middleman mark-up).
- Price Tracking & Insights: You can subscribe to price alerts via email, and Google now provides historical price context (“prices are high/low vs usual”) and even the aforementioned price guarantee on some flights. These data-driven insights help you make informed decisions.
- Highly Trusted by Travelers: Many frequent travelers start their planning with Google Flights because it’s reliable. It’s often recommended in travel communities as the baseline for fare research, and it tends to “play well” with booking directly (seamless handoff to airline sites).
Google Flights – Cons:
- No Native Mobile App: On mobile you must use a web browser. While functional, it’s not as tailored an experience as Hopper’s app. No push notifications; only email alerts which you might overlook if you’re not checking email.
- No Direct Booking: For some, the extra step to click out and book elsewhere is a con (though for others it’s a pro). It’s not a one-tap purchase – you might need to re-enter passenger info on the airline’s site, etc. This also means juggling multiple websites if comparing options.
- Limited Customer Interaction: Since it’s just a search tool, you don’t get any customer support from Google Flights specifically. Any post-booking issues are on the airline or OTA you bought from – again, not necessarily a bad thing, but something to note (Google won’t help you if, say, you need to change a flight).
- Possibly Overwhelming: As mentioned, first-time users might be unsure how to leverage features like open-ended date searches, multi-city, or interpreting the price graphs. Hopper’s singular focus (“find the cheapest and tell me when to book”) is simpler for the less tech-savvy, whereas Google’s interface could intimidate some.
- Missing Niche Airlines or Fares: Google is broad, but not universal. A few low-cost carriers (like Southwest) or small regional airlines won’t show up. Also, occasionally an OTA might have an ultra-cheap promo fare that doesn’t get indexed by Google Flights – these cases are rare and often involve trade-offs (like sketchy agencies), but hardcore deal-hunters sometimes find slightly cheaper fares elsewhere. Google also generally doesn’t include mistake fares or special discounts that require membership (e.g., StudentUniverse, etc.).
In weighing these pros and cons, a pattern is clear: Google Flights excels as a search and discovery tool with a focus on breadth and data, whereas Hopper focuses on convenience and maximizing savings through timing and mobile engagement.
The Final Call: Which One Should You Use?
After all this exploration, I wish I could declare an absolute winner. But the truth is, Hopper and Google Flights serve slightly different purposes, and the “best” one depends on your travel style.
If forced to choose only one, I’d lean toward Google Flights as the all-around choice because it covers so much and puts the controls in the user’s hands. It’s universally applicable to almost any flight search problem. However, you’d miss out on the unique perks Hopper offers, especially if you enjoy the thrill of deal hunting and are willing to put in a bit of patience.
Safe travels and happy bargain hunting!