Fair bear hopper
Hopper

Travel app
Hopper,which tells you when to book your flight to
maximize savings, has rolled out a new feature to help you avoid
getting smacked with hidden fees.

The basic premise of Hopper is that you set up what days
you want to fly, and then Hopper sends you push notifications
telling you how prices are changing, and recommending when you
should buy. Then you can buy your flight directly in the
app.

It’s been my
go-to travel app for over a year, and I recently used it to
book a one-way flight from San Francisco to New York for only
$131.60 — cheap!

But my main gripe with Hopper has been that it’s not always
clear which tickets are going to have potential fees associated
with them. Now Hopper is trying to change that with a new
feature, which will give you “an 
overview of
all the restrictions and fees related to cancellations, changes,
carry-on baggage, checked baggage, and seat selection.”

And as airlines continue to cut the base fares on flights
by adding in sneaky fees, this will likely become more useful
over time.

In conjunction with the new feature, Hopper also released a
new report on the state of fees in the airline industry. Here’s a
few of the things Hopper found: 

  • Big re-booking fees. “Cancellations
    are almost never allowed (99%) for domestic trips, but tickets
    can almost always (98.8%) be changed for a fee, which will cost
    you $287 on average.”
  • You’ll pay extra for bags. “Bags are no longer
    included and it’ll cost an average of $25 to bring one piece of
    luggage, or $59 for two pieces. As more airlines roll out basic
    fares, you’ll be expected to pay for your carry-on too.
    Frontier and Spirit both charge an average of $35 for
    carry-ons.”
  • International is a bit less crazy. “About
    two-thirds of international flights included at least one free
    bag, so that a trip with one piece of luggage adds only $9 with
    two pieces coming it at $55.”
  • But still. “About 10% of [international]
    itineraries offering cancellation for a fee which will cost you
    about $300. And, almost all (97.5%) international itineraries
    offer changes for about $250.”

Download the app on
iTunes or
Google Play.