10 Best Cheap Airline Ticket Apps

When it comes to finding and booking a cheap flight, many of the best apps are on the web. On the mobile, we are seeing plethora of new cheap airline ticket apps.

The functionality of many of these are in par with their web counterpart, fast, and simple.

However, not all of these airline ticketing apps are same when it comes to functionality.

In this guide, we will dive into what makes each app stand out.

1. Cheep is a cheap airline ticket app and mistake fare finder

Cheep started out as an iOS app and later became available on the web. What makes Cheep unique is that it's scaled to search over 110,000 domestic fares per week.

Unlike many other subscription flight deal sites that publishes international flights, Cheep only focus on flying to other U.S. cities.

It doesn't just publish the cheapest fare it finds for a route and date. Instead, the fare to be consider a "good" deal is that various information about the flight are weighted in a matrix and scored.

One of these weighted metrics is the cost per mile, or CPM.

Any fare publish must be under 6 cents per mile which is the sweet spot for a fare to be consider a "good" deal.

The app also looks at other criteria of the fare such as baggage allowance and time a passenger is spent in the air relative to the best flight.

Additionally, Cheep's backend technology allows it to find and surface more mistake fares than any other site.

2. Kiwi is a Czech based flight booking service

Kiwi is in a class similar to Skiplagged. Kiwi searches for one-way tickets or each leg of a journey individually.

This means that when you purchase tickets, it will not be with the same airline and you'll be issued two tickets with separate boarding passes.

If you were to fly from San Francisco to Bangkok with a layover in Tapei, you may need to buy two separate tickets instead of one with an airline that is partners with an alliance.

Why would someone do this? By piece mailing together an itinerary across different airlines, you may discover it cheaper than booking a one-way or round-trip ticket.

Kiwi offers a guarantee that incase you miss your flight  due to delays, cancellations, or schedule changes, it offers you a peace of mind.

3. Priceline

Priceline started as a third-party booking website. Today, more than half of its booking is via the mobile app.

The Priceline app offers an exclusive feature, Express Deals. Priceline's feature hides the exact departure and arrival time until after they purchase the ticket. What consumers get is a general arrival or departure time such as late evening or early morning.

They claim this feature can save consumers as much as 50% on air fare.

4. Momondo

Momondo few years ago did a huge marketing push to capture the U.S. market attention.

Mondo is very similiar to other meta flight search such as Kayak, but it touts itself as more inferior because it partners with more online travel agencies that you may not have heard of.

Additionally Momondo offers a price guarantee that if after you book and you find some where else a cheaper price within 24 hours of booking, they will refund the price different of the fare.

5. Travelzoo

Travelzoo is an old school flight deals service that later brought the content from the web into the app. They promise to deliver cheap flights that you cannot find anywhere else.

Partly is that the deals they find are not available through a standard online travel agent as they manually find fares directly through last minute deals published by the airlines.

Additionally, they do private negotiations with the airlines that you'd get a better deal through Travelzoo than via the website or an online travel agent.

6. Rome2Rio

Started out a trip planner, Rome2rio now have over 186,000 app users world wide.

It searches all means of transportation including flights, train, bus, ferry, rideshare, or rental cars.

Over 5,0000 companies in more than 160 countries makes trip planning easy. By providing multiples modes of transportation, a shoe-string budget traveler may find a better deal than using traditional modes of travel.

7. Skyscanner

Skyscanner is a metasearch engine and travel agency based in Scotland and is owned by Trip.com group, the largest online travel agency In China. The site is available in 30 languages, used by 100 million people per month.

Started in 2004 by 3 information technology professionals, the 3 ski bums were frustrated of finding cheap flights to ski resorts to chase great powder in season.

Skyscanner became a travel app that was forced to be recon with  based on new features such as "Everywhere" destination, "Solo Travel", "Quick Getaways", and "Last Minute".

These unique features of a flight search app resonated with millennials who cherish experiences than owning home or steady job.

Skyscanner catered flight searches to very niche demographical groups from penny pinchers to digital nomads.

8. Hipmunk

Another meta search, Hipmunk is much like Skyscanner or Kayak. The unique feature this tool offered from the rest was the "Agony" feature.

That is, the cheapest fare returned doesn't mean you should book it. Instead, Hipmunk analyzes the agony of flying on the cheapest fare that the money saved may not be worth in the end.

9. Hopper

Hopper started out as web app and then focused all its energy on mobile only, cheap airline ticket app. Hopper really shines with the price prediction and calendar view.

Using advance A.I., it claims to have 95% accuracy up to a year advance of a travel date.

By analyzing if a fare is a good deal, it informs consumer whether or not to pull the trigger on a fare or wait for it come down on price.

According to Hopper, travelers using Hopper can save an average of $50 on flights and save as much as 40% off the normal fare.

10. Skiplagged

Skiplagged is an airfare search engine for cheap airline tickets, showing hidden-city ticketing trips in addition to what sites like Expedia, KAYAK, and Travelocity shows.

It is a powerful flight meta  search engine that looks for one-way ticket through "hidden" cities.

Airlines while they predominately transport passengers, they also transport commercial cargo to maximize their revenues.

In some instances, the airline will have a route where a plan takes passengers from point A to point C, with a layover in between at point B to deliver some goods.

Skiplagged locates such fares known as hidden cities which may offer a cheaper fare or fares you generally won't find anywhere else.

Skiplagged got a lot of press when United Airlines was not happy about this tool and took the developer to court and lost.