For the past two years, Hopper has been working to perfect the art of predicting the best time to book a flight.
I use Hopper frequently, and it’s helped me decide when to book every flight I’ve taken over the past year. And since you can start tracking trips up to a year in advance, it’s the perfect app for long-term planning.
Now, Hopper is bringing that prediction technology to another area of travel: hotels.
Starting Wednesday, you’ll now be able to book hotels through the app in the same way you book flights – you let Hopper know when and where you’d like to travel, and the app watches prices and advises the best time to book. Hopper says it can accurately predict the best time to book 95% of the time.
Here’s how it works:
Once you add your travel dates and destination into the app, Hopper will pull up a map view of the city you're traveling to.
You'll be able to see all the available hotels, which are color-coded like Hopper's flight booking calendar: green for cheap, all the way up to red for very expensive.
Just like with Hopper's flight section, you can tap "Watch this trip" to get alerts about price fluctuations over time.
If you tap one of the hotels, you'll be able to see some price information, like how it compares to other hotels nearby and whether Hopper thinks it's the best time to book.
Tapping on that hotel again will bring you to the hotel's page within the app.
Hopper selects each hotel individually, then sends out a team of photographers to capture photos and videos of the hotel, the rooms, and the surrounding area.
The results are Instagram-like "stories" about each hotel that you can tap through before booking.
Hopper says this helps give a better sense of how big the rooms actually are, what the amenities are like, and whether the hotel is well-kept.
If you like what you see, you can book a hotel room through the Hopper app.
Hopper will save your credit card info for flight and hotels, so it's one click to pay.
After booking, you'll be able to see all your upcoming travel — including travel dates and confirmation codes — in one place within the app.
The hotels portion of Hopper will only be available for iPhones running iOS 11 to start. To check out the new feature, set up a flight watch to New York City within the Hopper app.
The new hotels feature is rolling out in New York to start, but 10 other markets - including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami - will have it soon.
Hopper is free and available to download on the App Store and Google Play Store.