Hipmunk Flight & Hotel Search (for iPad) Review

By PC Magazine

Updated: February 1, 2013

Flight and hotel search aggregator Hipmunk has an iPad app that could save you oodles of money on your next vacation. Don’t plan to book directly through the app, though.

(4 out of 5)

Pros

Great search for flight and hotel bookings
Excellent display of flight options
Easy to see layovers
Simple filters for flight duration, price, and departure and arrival times
Tabs let you search more than one trip at once
Interesting map views in hotel search
Hotel search includes Airbnb and HomeAway

Cons

Can’t book directly through Hipmunk (pushes to other sites)
No flexible date options
No detailed airport preference options

In a plentiful sea of flight and hotel search engines, Hipmunk stands out for having a few special features that make it easy to find a flight that will be comfortable for you, and accommodations that also fit your needs—even if you can’t find them in a standard hotel. Hipmunk’s iPad app, called Hipmunk Flight & Hotel Search (free), delivers the same great experience on the iPad. Visually, it works very well, showing color-coded flight options by carrier, making it easy to see layover locations and duration. The app even provides slider bars for narrowing down what time you want to travel. Its hotel search has a few additional neat visual features and, best of all, it includes listing from Airbnb and HomeAway in its results.

This search aggregator doesn’t quite tick all the boxes, though, and it’s important to note that it’s a search app, not a booking app. Hipmunk will send you off to an airline’s website or even Orbitz when you’re ready to put down your credit card details. It’s similar in that respect to

By William Fenton, PCMag