Hopper App

It’s a familiar struggle for anyone buying plane tickets: determining the best time to make the purchase. Travelers have to balance their purchasing timing with seat and route availability, and with so much conflicting research out there on when the best time to buy really is, it all becomes a massive headache.

The Hopper app has taken several steps to improve this dilemma. The free app is available on the Apple App Store as well as Google Play, and it shows both the best times to fly and buy from one airport to the next.

It works simply: Users choose their airports and their travel dates, using a calendar color coded to reveal the cheapest dates on which to fly. The app also tells you whether a non-stop flight or a flight with stops is cheaper. And finally, the app lets you save your trip and “watch” it to see whether prices will go down in the near future — by how much and in what time frame. The app tells you if the prices are predicted to rise by $150 in the next month, for example, and it directs you to buy now for the best fare.

Overall, it’s an extremely useful tool for travelers, helping cut through the nonsense that is plane ticket fares.