This Easy-to-use Online Tool Can Help You Seriously Save on Flights

This money-saving tip on airfare may as well be an early present to travelers ahead of the holiday season.

TravelArrow, a Google Chrome extension, is an easy-to-use tool that allows travelers to convert their Google Flights search onto Skyscanner, Kayak, and Expedia to help find the cheapest flight options across the internet. But here's the real differentiator — it converts flight searches onto Southwest Airlines too, which is the only airline that doesn't display fares on third-party websites. 

"My goal with TravelArrow was to help as many people as I could to utilize these savings hacks and access incredible deals," TravelArrow' cofounder, Jaideep Patil, shared with Travel + Leisure. "I'm building TravelArrow to be the all-in-one solution for unlocking better flight and hotel deals."

Patil started his TravelArrow journey as a college student to help him find deals and help those around him.

"Since I was always on a budget, I learned every travel tip out there to save money on flights and hotels," he said. "Everything from maximizing points and miles to finding hidden airline deals, to understanding discounted opaque hotel deals and how to redeem them."

To make the most of the tool, which currently has over 30,000 downloads, Patil encourages users to watch TravelArrow's tutorial.

Next, check out three of its most popular features, including Beat Google Flights Prices, which allows users to access hidden fares that don't appear on Google Flights, Priceline and Hotwire Hidden Deal Reveal.

"We've helped thousands of people score luxury hotels for up to 60% off with this feature," Patil said. "Priceline has something called 'express deals', which are hotels that [the site] discounts up to 60% off the retail price, but the catch is they don't reveal the exact hotel name till after you book. So they anonymize the name in order to receive the discount. TravelArrow is able to predict the exact hotel name with 99% accuracy, so travelers can redeem these incredible discounts with certainty." This same feature, Patil said, also works on Hotwire's 'hot rates'. 

Additionally, there's its Hotel Price Comparison where "TravelArrow will automatically compare more than 50 travel sites and display the cheapest price for the same dates and hotel," Patil explained. "This way, users don't have to manually compare multiple sites themselves."

(Currently, this feature only pops up when users search on Booking.com or Expedia, but the team is actively rolling it out to more major hotel and travel sites.)

And one more fantastic feature to mention is its in-house TravelArrow Miles. The program allows users to earn miles anytime they shop online at stores like Sephora or Walmart, meaning people can double-dip on credit card points and miles all in one. 

See more about the extension and test it for yourself here.