The End of “Best App” Hunting: How a $1,200 Mistake Taught Me the Only Flight Booking System You’ll Ever Need

Section 1: Introduction: My Costly Lesson in the South China Sea

The confirmation email glowed on my screen, a trophy of my travel-hacking prowess.

I had pieced together a dream trip to Southeast Asia—a multi-city tour involving three different airlines—for a price that seemed impossibly low.

I’d spent hours toggling between flight aggregators, finally pouncing on a deal offered by a third-party Online Travel Agency (OTA) I’d never heard of but which promised the lowest price by a significant margin.

I felt like I’d beaten the system.

In reality, the system was about to beat me, badly.

The first domino fell a month before departure.

An email, not from the OTA but from one of the airlines, announced a schedule change.

My flight from Singapore to Da Nang was now leaving three hours earlier.

This wasn’t an inconvenience; it was a catastrophe.

It made my connecting flight from Kuala Lumpur physically impossible to catch.

My confidence quickly curdled into panic.

I called the airline that had changed the flight.

The agent was polite but firm: because I had booked through a third party, they couldn’t touch the ticket.

I had to go back to the OTA.

This began a week-long descent into customer service hell.

The OTA’s support line was a labyrinth of automated menus and long holds, leading to agents who seemed to be reading from a script designed to deflect responsibility.

They insisted it was the airline’s problem to solve.

The airline insisted it was the OTA’s.

I was trapped in the exact scenario that haunts experienced travelers: a responsibility vacuum where both sides point fingers, leaving the customer stranded in the middle.¹

The trip was collapsing.

With no resolution in sight and the departure date looming, I was forced to make a gut-wrenching decision.

I bought a new, last-minute, full-fare ticket to salvage the second half of my vacation.

The cost of my “deal” had just gone up by $1,200.

The cheap price I had celebrated was an illusion, a mirage that evaporated the moment a single thing went wrong.

That expensive, painful lesson taught me that the greatest risk in travel isn’t overpaying by $50; it’s the total, systemic failure of support when your plans are disrupted.³

I realized I had been asking the wrong question.

The search for the “best air ticket booking app” was a fool’s errand.

I needed a new system entirely.

---

In a Nutshell: The Scout & Ambassador System

For those short on time, here is the core of the system I learned the hard way. Stop looking for one “best app.” Instead, build a two-part team:

• Your Scout: An intelligence agent whose only job is to survey the landscape and find the best flight options. This is the role for powerful metasearch engines like Google Flights and Skyscanner. You use them for information, not for booking.
• Your Ambassador: A trusted representative whose job is to secure the deal and protect your interests. For 99% of trips, your ambassador should be the airline itself. You take the intelligence from your Scout and book directly on the airline’s website.

This separation of roles is the key to maximizing savings while minimizing risk.

---

Section 2: The Illusion of Choice: Why Your Search for the “Best” Flight App is Doomed

My $1,200 mistake wasn’t just bad luck; it was a predictable outcome of a broken and intentionally confusing system.

Before you can find the right solution, you have to understand why the flight booking landscape feels so chaotic.

Your frustration isn’t a personal failing; it’s a feature of the industry’s design.

The digital storefront for air travel is split into two fundamentally different kinds of businesses, and we often confuse them as one and the same.

First, you have the Metasearch Engines, or aggregators.

Think of them as massive digital libraries.

Google Flights, Skyscanner, and Kayak are the titans in this space.⁴

Their job is not to sell you a ticket.

Their job is to scan hundreds of sources—airlines and OTAs alike—and show you what’s available and at what price.⁵

They are powerful, indispensable tools for gathering information.

Second, you have the Online Travel Agencies (OTAs).

These are the actual retailers.

Hopper, Expedia, Priceline, Agoda, and a seemingly infinite list of smaller players fall into this category.⁶

They are the ones who actually take your money and issue the ticket.

They are resellers, not just search engines.

The root of the problem, and the trap I fell into, is that the best search tools (the metasearch engines) will often present the lowest price from the most obscure and riskiest booking channels (the unknown OTAs).¹

You start your journey on a trusted, reliable platform like Google Flights, which gives you a sense of security.

You see a flight for $450 from the airline, but right next to it is a link to “CheapoAirTicketsRUs.biz” offering it for $410.

Your brain, conditioned to hunt for the lowest number, sees a bargain.

You click, and you are seamlessly passed from a high-trust environment to a low-trust one, often without even realizing the risk you’ve just assumed.⁹

This flawed user journey is compounded by deep, systemic issues within the travel industry:

• Crumbling Foundations: Much of the global airline reservation system runs on technology that is decades old. Back-end systems like SABRE, which originated in the 1960s, are still part of the plumbing.¹⁰ This legacy infrastructure is notoriously difficult to work with, leading to the glitches, slow response times, booking errors, and failed transactions that plague users.³ The slick, modern app on your phone is often just a pretty face painted on an ancient, creaking machine.
• Conflicting Incentives: The business model of many OTAs is built around attracting you with a rock-bottom “headline” price. This price is often achieved by unbundling every conceivable service or by defaulting to the most restrictive “basic economy” fares, with the real cost hidden until later in the checkout process.¹¹ Their goal is to win the click. Your goal is to have a smooth trip. These are not always aligned. In a crisis, their incentive is to minimize their own cost, which often means providing minimal customer support.¹³
• The UX Paradox: Ironically, some OTAs have far better user interfaces than the airlines themselves.¹⁰ This creates a dangerous illusion of quality. A beautiful, fast, and intuitive app can mask a non-existent or incompetent customer service department. You are seduced by the slick frontend, only to be abandoned by the hollow backend when trouble arises.

The search for a single “best app” is therefore destined to fail.

No single app has managed to perfect the art of comprehensive, unbiased search and provide the gold standard of risk-free booking and customer support.

The app that is best for finding a deal (Skyscanner) is not the same as the app that is best for predicting a price drop (Hopper), which is different again from the entity that is best for managing your booking when things go wrong (the airline).

Section 3: The Epiphany: Your Flight Booker Isn’t an App, It’s a Two-Part Team

Staring at the $1,200 charge on my credit card statement, I had my moment of clarity.

My entire strategy had been wrong.

I was trying to hire one person to do two completely different jobs, and that’s why it had failed so spectacularly.

Booking a flight isn’t a single task; it’s a mission with two distinct phases: intelligence gathering and diplomatic engagement.

This led me to develop a new mental model, which I call the “Scout & Ambassador” system.

Think of it like a critical diplomatic mission.

First, you need a Scout.

The Scout’s job is to be your intelligence agent.

They are a master of reconnaissance.

Their mission is to stealthily survey the entire landscape, gathering every piece of available data on routes, prices, airlines, and timings.

They analyze patterns, identify opportunities, and report back with a complete picture of the situation.

The Scout is an expert in information.

Crucially, the Scout has no authority to make deals or enter into agreements.

Their role is purely informational.

Once the Scout has delivered their intelligence, you dispatch your Ambassador.

The Ambassador’s job is to be your official representative.

They are a skilled diplomat.

Their mission is to take the intelligence gathered by the Scout and go directly to the service provider—the foreign power, in this analogy, is the airline—to formally secure the agreement.

The Ambassador establishes a direct, official relationship.

They speak the language, understand the protocols, and, most importantly, ensure that your rights and interests are protected under the terms of the agreement.

Their job is to create a secure, binding contract.

My catastrophic mistake was letting my Scout (the flight aggregator) hand off the mission to a random, unvetted, third-party “Ambassador” (the cheap OTA).

It was the equivalent of sending a stranger from the street to negotiate a treaty on my behalf simply because they promised they could do it for less.

When the terms of the treaty were violated (the flight schedule changed), my unqualified ambassador was useless, and the foreign power (the airline) refused to recognize them.

The new paradigm—the secret to safe and successful flight booking—is to consciously and deliberately separate these two roles.

You must use the best, most powerful tools in the world for the “Scout” phase.

Be aggressive and exhaustive in your search for information.

But when it comes time for the “Ambassador” phase—the actual booking—you must be conservative, deliberate, and risk-averse.

This mental model fundamentally changes the question.

It’s no longer, “Which app is best?” It is now a two-part strategic query: “Who is the best Scout for this mission?” and “Who is the most reliable Ambassador to secure the booking?” This shift transforms you from a passive price hunter, vulnerable to the system’s traps, into an active mission commander, in full control of the process.

Section 4: Pillar 1: Assembling Your Elite Scouting Team

Your first task is to recruit the world’s best intelligence agents.

These are your Scouts.

Their digital tools are the metasearch apps, and you should use them ruthlessly to find the perfect flight without committing to a purchase.

You don’t need just one; you need a team of specialists, each with a unique skill set.

The Data Scientist: Google Flights

Role: Google Flights is your master analyst.

It is the best Scout when you have a destination in mind and a rough timeframe.

It excels at dissecting data to find the optimal booking.

• Key Strengths & Analysis:

• Price Graph & Date Grid: This is Google’s superpower. It provides a simple, visual representation of price fluctuations over weeks or months, allowing you to instantly see that shifting your trip by two days could save you hundreds of dollars.⁵ It removes the tedious guesswork of trying different date combinations manually.
• Price History & Insights: This feature is like having an industry insider on your team. Google Flights analyzes historical data for your specific route and tells you if the current price is low, typical, or high.¹⁴ This context is invaluable for deciding whether to book or wait. It even provides predictive insights, warning you when a fare is likely to increase soon.¹⁶
• Powerful Price Tracking: The ability to “watch” a specific itinerary is a cornerstone of its utility. You can track prices for fixed dates or, if you’re flexible, “Any dates,” and Google will email you when the price changes significantly. This automates the monitoring process, so you don’t have to check back every day.⁵
• Clean and Fast Interface: Users consistently praise Google Flights for its speed and uncluttered, analytical interface. It presents vast amounts of information without feeling overwhelming, a stark contrast to many ad-heavy, confusing OTA sites.⁸

The Explorer: Skyscanner

Role: Skyscanner is your adventurous field agent.

It is the best Scout for missions of discovery, when you’re more flexible on destination and just want to find an amazing deal somewhere, anywhere.

• Key Strengths & Analysis:

• ‘Everywhere’ Search: This is Skyscanner’s legendary feature and its main differentiator. You can enter your home airport, select your dates (or “Whole month”), and set the destination to “Everywhere.” Skyscanner will then generate a list of countries and cities you can fly to, ranked from cheapest to most expensive.¹⁸ It’s the ultimate tool for budget-driven inspiration.
• ‘Whole Month’ & ‘Cheapest Month’ Views: Similar to Google’s tools but often presented more centrally to the user experience, this feature lets you see the cheapest days to fly across an entire month or find the absolute cheapest month of the year to travel to your destination.⁶
• Comprehensive Coverage: Skyscanner is often cited for its broad reach, particularly in Europe, where it frequently includes low-cost carriers that Google Flights might miss.⁶ This makes it an essential cross-checking tool.

The Futurist: Hopper

Role: Hopper is your specialized consultant, a “quant” who focuses on one thing: predicting the future.

It’s less of a broad search tool and more of a tactical advisor on when to execute the purchase.

• Key Strengths & Analysis:

• Price Prediction Algorithm: This is Hopper’s entire reason for being. After you search for a flight, its algorithm analyzes historical data and market trends to give you a direct recommendation: “book now” or “wait.” It claims up to 95% accuracy in its predictions.²³
• Color-Coded Calendar: Like the others, it uses a simple visual system to show cheap and expensive dates, but its interface is designed to be extremely simple and directive, pushing you toward its core “buy/wait” advice.²³
• A Note on its Dual Role: Hopper is also an OTA, meaning it can act as your Ambassador. This aspect will be analyzed in the next section. However, in the Scouting phase, its primary value comes from its predictive data, which you can use as another data point in your decision-making, regardless of where you ultimately book.

By using these three Scouts in concert, you can build a complete intelligence picture that is impossible to get from a single app.

Table: The Scouting Toolkit: Choosing Your Specialist

Feature	Google Flights	Skyscanner	Hopper
Best For	Data-driven search for known destinations	Inspiration and flexible, budget-driven travel	Timing your purchase with predictive analytics
Killer Feature	Price Graph & Historical Price Insights 5	‘Everywhere’ Search 19	Price Prediction Algorithm 23
Price Tracking	Excellent: Tracks specific routes or flexible dates with email alerts 16	Good: Tracks specific routes with email/app alerts 25	Excellent: Core feature with “buy/wait” notifications 24
User Interface	Clean, fast, and analytical	Visually driven and exploratory	Simple, colorful, and directive
Primary Use Case	Finding the optimal dates and price for a trip you’ve already decided on.	Discovering your next vacation spot based on the best available deals.	Deciding the exact moment to click “buy” for a flight you’ve already chosen.

Section 5: Pillar 2: Choosing Your Ambassador for a Secure Booking

You’ve completed the Scouting phase.

Your agents have returned with detailed intelligence on the best possible flight.

Now comes the most critical step: choosing the Ambassador who will finalize the booking.

This decision is not about price; it is a risk-management decision.

Your choice will determine whether you have a secure, direct line of communication in a crisis or whether you’re left exposed, as I was.

The Gold Standard: Booking Directly with the Airline

For the vast majority of trips, this is your only truly reliable Ambassador.

The overwhelming consensus from frequent travelers and travel experts is unequivocal: use the Scout tools to find the flight, then go directly to the airline’s website to book it.¹

The reasons for this are simple and powerful, and they all revolve around minimizing risk:

1. A Direct Contract: When you book with the airline, you establish a direct relationship. There is no middleman. If something goes wrong, there is a clear and unambiguous line of responsibility. The company that operates the flight is the same company that took your money and is contractually obligated to provide you with service.⁹
2. Simplified Support: This direct relationship eliminates the “blame-shifting” nightmare. When a flight is canceled, delayed, or changed, you deal with one entity: the airline. You can use their app, call their customer service, or speak to an agent at the airport. You will not be told to “contact the third party you booked with”.²
3. Total Control and Benefits: Booking direct gives you immediate access to manage your booking on the airline’s platform. This includes easier seat selection, meal requests, and adding baggage. Furthermore, it ensures you correctly earn frequent flyer miles and status credits, which can sometimes be complicated or disallowed with certain third-party fares.⁴
4. Timely Information: Airlines will notify their direct customers of schedule changes first, often via instant app notifications and email. When you book through an OTA, that information has to pass through a middleman, which can cause delays or get lost entirely, as many horror stories attest.²

The price on the airline’s website might occasionally be a few dollars more than on an obscure OTA.

You should not view this as an expense; you should view it as the best insurance policy you can buy.

The Calculated Risk: When and How to Use an OTA

There are very few situations where using an OTA as your Ambassador is advisable, but they do exist.

However, you must go into it with your eyes wide open, understanding that you are trading security for savings.

Before even considering an OTA, look for these red flags: an unfamiliar company name, a price that seems dramatically lower than all other options, or a complex itinerary that stitches together multiple, non-partner airlines on separate tickets.¹

These are signs of high-risk bookings.

An OTA might be a viable option under the following strict conditions:

1. The Trip is Simple: It is a non-stop, round-trip flight on a single airline. The fewer moving parts, the lower the chance of disruption.
2. Your Plans are Certain: You are 100% confident that your travel plans will not change. Most cheap OTA fares are highly inflexible.
3. The Savings are Substantial: The price difference should be significant enough to be worth the risk you are assuming. Saving $20 is not worth it. Saving $300 on an international flight might be, depending on your risk tolerance.²
4. The OTA is Reputable: Stick to the largest, most established players like Expedia or Booking.com. While they are not immune to the same structural problems, they have more robust systems and a brand reputation to protect compared to an unknown entity found at the bottom of a price list.⁴

The Insurance Policy: Is Hopper a New Kind of Ambassador?

Hopper represents a fascinating evolution in the OTA model.

It operates as an OTA but has built its business around selling financial products that are explicitly designed to mitigate the risks inherent in third-party bookings.²³

When you book with Hopper, you are offered add-ons like “Price Freeze,” “Cancel for Any Reason,” or “Flight Disruption Guarantee.” These are not free features; they are paid insurance products.

You are paying Hopper a premium to assume the financial risk of price changes, cancellations, or disruptions.

This creates a third strategic option for your Ambassador phase.

Instead of either avoiding risk (booking direct) or accepting risk (booking with a standard OTA), you can pay Hopper to hedge that risk on your behalf.

This can be a compelling choice for travelers who want the potential savings of an OTA but are willing to pay a fee for a safety Net. It is a fundamentally different value proposition and a model that directly acknowledges the anxieties that plague the modern traveler.

Section 6: The “Scout-to-Ambassador” Playbook: A Step-by-Step Guide

Theory is one thing; practice is another.

To show how the “Scout-to-Ambassador” system works in the real world, let me walk you through how I planned my next major trip after the Southeast Asia debacle: a two-week journey through several European cities.

The Success Story: A Flawless Trip to Europe

My goal was to visit Lisbon, Prague, and Rome.

My dates were flexible within the month of September.

My budget was a key consideration.

Step 1: The Scouting Phase (Intelligence Gathering)

I assembled my team of specialists.

• Initial Reconnaissance (Skyscanner): I started with Skyscanner’s ‘Everywhere’ search. I put in my home airport (Chicago) and selected “Cheapest month” to get a baseline. This confirmed that September was indeed a good-value month for flights to Europe. I then used the ‘Everywhere’ search for the specific month of September, which showed me that flying into Lisbon and out of Rome was one of the most cost-effective open-jaw options.¹⁹
• Data Analysis (Google Flights): With my entry and exit points identified, I moved to Google Flights. I used its Price Graph and Date Grid for a “Chicago to Lisbon, Rome to Chicago” multi-city search. The visual grid immediately showed me that leaving on a Tuesday and returning on a Wednesday two weeks later was nearly $200 cheaper than a weekend departure.⁵ I now had my exact dates.
• Final Verification & Timing (Hopper & Alerts): With the perfect itinerary identified—a combination of flights on Lufthansa and its partner Swiss Air—I set up price alerts on both Google Flights and Skyscanner.⁵ I also plugged the itinerary into Hopper. Hopper’s prediction advised me to “wait,” suggesting prices were likely to drop slightly in the next two weeks.²³ I trusted the data and waited. Ten days later, an email alert from Google Flights hit my inbox: the price had dropped by $85.

Step 2: The Ambassador Phase (Secure Booking)

The Scouts had done their job perfectly.

They found the ideal flights at a great price.

Now it was time to dispatch the Ambassador.

The Google Flights alert showed the new low price was available directly from Lufthansa and from a handful of OTAs, one of which was $30 cheaper.

The old me would have reflexively clicked the cheapest link.

The new me laughed and closed that browser tab.

I navigated directly to the Lufthansa website.

I entered the exact multi-city itinerary my Scouts had Found. There it was, for the exact price Google had alerted me to.

That $30 “premium” over the cheapest OTA was my peace of mind fee.

I booked the tickets, received an immediate confirmation email directly from the airline, and added the trip to my Lufthansa App. My booking was secure, my relationship was direct.

The Result: The trip was seamless.

A week before departure, Swiss Air adjusted the time of my Prague-to-Rome flight by 45 minutes.

I received an instant notification on my phone from the Lufthansa App. It was a minor change that required no action, but the communication was clear, direct, and immediate.

The contrast with the radio silence and finger-pointing of my Asian trip was stark.

I had not just bought a ticket; I had bought a well-managed, low-stress travel experience.

Section 7: Conclusion: From Anxious Hunter to Confident Traveler

For years, I was an anxious hunter in the digital wilderness of air travel, chasing the elusive ghost of the “best deal.” I believed the lowest number on the screen was the only metric that mattered.

That belief cost me time, sanity, and $1,200.

The journey from that frustrating failure to a state of calm confidence came from one fundamental shift: I stopped hunting for a mythical “best app” and started acting like a mission commander.

The secret to mastering modern travel booking is not in finding a single, perfect tool.

The secret is in implementing a superior process.

That process is the “Scout & Ambassador” system.

It acknowledges the reality of the market—that the tools for finding information are different and separate from the entities you should trust with your booking.

Embrace the power of your elite Scouting team.

Use the incredible analytical capabilities of Google Flights, the adventurous spirit of Skyscanner, and the predictive power of Hopper to gather flawless intelligence.

Let them compete to find you the perfect route at the perfect price.

But when the search is over and it’s time to book, be deliberate.

Choose your Ambassador with a focus on security, not just savings.

For 99 out of 100 trips, that Ambassador should be the airline itself.

This direct relationship is your shield against the chaos that can so easily derail a journey.

True travel mastery isn’t about shaving every last dollar off a fare.

It’s about understanding the system, managing risk, and making conscious choices.

It’s about buying not just a seat on a plane, but a journey with the priceless commodity of peace of mind.

Stop hunting.

Start commanding.

Works cited

1. is skyscanner legit : r/travel – Reddit, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/1ibouby/is_skyscanner_legit/
2. are booking.com flights trustworthy? : r/Bookingcom – Reddit, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/Bookingcom/comments/1e9izw6/are_bookingcom_flights_trustworthy/
3. Travel Apps Leave 37% of Users Unsatisfied When Facing Delays, Changes – Applause, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.applause.com/press-release/travel-apps-facing-delays/
4. The 12 Best Websites for Booking Flights at the Cheapest Prices [2025] – Upgraded Points, accessed August 14, 2025, https://upgradedpoints.com/travel/best-websites-for-booking-cheap-flights/
5. Find Cheap Flights Worldwide & Book Your Ticket – Google Flights, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.google.com/travel/flights?gl=US&hl=en-US
6. Skyscanner Flights Hotels Cars on the App Store – Apple, accessed August 14, 2025, https://apps.apple.com/us/app/skyscanner-flights-hotels-cars/id415458524
7. www.google.com, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.google.com/search?q=top+rated+flight+booking+apps+for+android+and+ios
8. Why so many people recommend Google Flights here? – Reddit, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/TravelHacks/comments/1e0rlhy/why_so_many_people_recommend_google_flights_here/
9. Best site for buying plane tickets? : r/TravelHacks – Reddit, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/TravelHacks/comments/1el4oqx/best_site_for_buying_plane_tickets/
10. Why are all flight booking website frontends so horrific? – Reddit, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/Frontend/comments/11vnmes/why_are_all_flight_booking_website_frontends_so/
11. Ticketing Troubles: Common Issues with Booking Systems and How to Resolve Them Quickly – tony stark, accessed August 14, 2025, https://cancellatinpolicy.hashnode.dev/ticketing-troubles-common-issues-with-booking-systems-and-how-to-resolve-them-quickly
12. What Works, What Sucks? : r/unitedairlines – Reddit, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1k0m34d/what_works_what_sucks/
13. Alleviate The Top 3 Travel Booking App Friction Points with SMS – Mitto, accessed August 14, 2025, https://mitto.ch/alleviate-the-top-3-travel-booking-app-friction-points-with-sms/
14. Google Flight Price Tracker: How to Use It for Budget-Friendly Travel in 2024 – Mayur Shinde, accessed August 14, 2025, https://mayurashinde.medium.com/google-flight-price-tracker-how-to-use-it-for-budget-friendly-travel-in-2024-d9899fb3d35b
15. How to find the best fares with Google Flights – Travel Help, accessed August 14, 2025, https://support.google.com/travel/answer/7664728?hl=en
16. Track flights & prices – Computer – Travel Help, accessed August 14, 2025, https://support.google.com/travel/answer/6235879?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop
17. Track and Compare Flight Prices – Google Flights, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.google.com/travel/flights/saves?gl=US&hl=en-US
18. Skyscanner Flights Hotels Cars – Apps on Google Play, accessed August 14, 2025, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.skyscanner.android.main
19. How to find flight deals on any airline – Skyscanner, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.skyscanner.com/tips-and-inspiration/deals/new-daily-cheapest-flights-deals
20. Skyscanner: Compare Cheap Flights & Book Airline Tickets to Everywhere, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.skyscanner.com/
21. Find the Best Flight Deals & Airfare Deals | Skyscanner, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.skyscanner.com/flights
22. Skyscanner’s Whole Month search for the cheapest flights, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.skyscanner.com/tips-and-inspiration/skyscanner-tips-and-tools-how-to-search-flight-prices-across-whole-month
23. Hopper: Flights, Hotels & Cars 4+ – App Store, accessed August 14, 2025, https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hopper-flights-hotels-cars/id904052407
24. Hopper | Book Hotels, Flights, Car Rentals & More, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.hopper.com/
25. Catch every flight deal with ‘Price Alerts’ and ‘Saved’ – Skyscanner, accessed August 14, 2025, https://www.skyscanner.com/tips-and-inspiration/always-get-best-airfare-available-skyscanner-price-alerts