The best flight search and booking apps
Which are the best smart phone apps for finding and booking flights? Donald Strachan, our travel technology expert, offers advice
FAQ: which are the best smart phone apps for booking flights and checking airfares?
Donald Strachan, our travel technology expert, replies
Several leading meta-search services and online travel agents (OTAs) have smartphone apps. But which is the best for booking your next flight?
Several leading meta-search services and online travel agents (OTAs) have smartphone apps. But which is the best for booking your next flight?
I chose 20 routes from the UK to long- and short-haul destinations, a mix of the straightforward (London to Milan, Barcelona, San Francisco) and the slightly trickier – Manchester to Tokyo, Glasgow to Bangkok, London to Lima. I picked four sets of dates, ranging from a short June trip and an autumn half-term break to a 20-night August holiday. I searched for every route on eight leading free apps, using Android and Apple devices. As with my recent comparison of flight search engines, I set a maximum flight duration or number of plane changes I would tolerate for every route.
Overall, the meta-search apps performed best. The Skyscanner app (skyscanner.net; Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry) priced my basket of flights just under £100 (or around 1 percent) cheaper than Kayak (kayak.co.uk; Android, iOS, Windows, Kindle), closely followed by momondo (momondo.com; Android, iOS) and Tripadvisor's SeatGuru app (seatguru.com; Android, iOS). Skyscanner, Kayak and momondo apps are every bit as user-friendly as their main websites.
On every route, just a few pounds generally separated all the meta-search apps. Skyscanner, however, found a Manchester to New York flight £75 cheaper than anyone else. All meta-search services share one inconvenience: travellers are usually redirected to an OTA or airline website to make a booking.
Best among the agent apps was flight specialist CheapOair (cheapoair.co.uk; Android, iOS). My basket of flights cost only about 4 percent more than with momondo meta-search, and was £600 cheaper than using Expedia's slicker app (expedia.co.uk; Android, iOS, Windows). However, CheapOair's iOS app crashed three times during my test.
So, if price is the main concern, meta-search apps are the key downloads. Most also come with useful additional features. All three leading apps have filters that can reject flights with too many stops or that use inconvenient departure times, though momondo needs a slider to exclude flights that are too long to bear. Hipmunk's ranking of flights by “Agony” is best for instantly weighing cost against pain on indirect routes. Ideal if you have some flexibility, Skyscanner's app has day-by-day price-comparison charts to help you tinker with departure dates to save money. With momondo's interface, it is easy to quickly compare the cost implications of taking an early, late or quicker flight.
If you know your route is served by easyJet, it is also worth downloading their own free app (Android, iOS).
