More travel apps use AI to watch bookings for price drops

In short: More travel services are using AI to track booked flights and hotels for price drops and then alert you or help you rebook.

What's going on

A growing set of travel apps and services now keeps an eye on prices even after you have already booked a flight or hotel. If the price later falls, the service can notify you, or in some cases guide you through changing the reservation to get the lower price.

These tools usually work in two main ways. Some try to predict whether prices will go up or down soon, and then tell you when to buy. Others focus on what happens after you book, and monitor your specific reservation for price drops, like a price tracker you might use for a TV or a pair of shoes.

To do this, some services ask you to connect your email so they can find your booking confirmation automatically. After that, they check prices regularly and compare the latest price with what you paid, or with a target price you set. When they spot a cheaper option, they either send an alert or help you rebook, often using free cancellation rules when they are available.

Hopper is one well-known example that offers price watching for flights and hotels. Newer services such as OneAir and Repriced AI also promote post-booking monitoring for flights and hotels.

What to watch

Not all “AI” price tools work the same way. Some use forecasting based on past prices, while others mostly follow simple rules that watch for price changes. Hotel tracking can also be less dependable than flight tracking because hotel prices are spread across many sites and systems, and the data is less consistent.

Source: NYTimes