Frequently asked questions

Hopfare is a flight search engine that specializes in finding deals other sites miss. We compare every round-trip fare against split-ticket combinations — buying your outbound and return flights separately, sometimes on different airlines — to find the cheapest total price for your trip.

Yes, completely free. We never charge booking fees or service fees. We may earn a small referral commission from booking partners when you click through and book — but this never affects the prices you see or the order results appear in.

No. We are a search and comparison tool only. When you find a fare you want to book, you click through to the airline's website or a booking partner and complete the purchase there. Your booking is entirely between you and that provider.

When you click a 'Book' link and complete a purchase, the booking partner pays us a small referral fee. This is how most flight search engines work. The fee comes from the partner, not from you — you pay the same price you'd see going directly to that site.

A split-fare ticket means buying your outbound and return flights as two separate one-way tickets, potentially on different airlines, instead of a single round-trip booking. For example: flying out on Norse Atlantic and returning on British Airways. When the combined price of the two one-ways is cheaper than any round-trip option, we surface it as the recommended choice.

Industry estimates suggest that on a significant portion of routes, a split-ticket alternative is cheaper. Savings range from $20 on short domestic routes to over $300 on long-haul international routes. The savings tend to be largest on transatlantic and transpacific routes where budget carriers offer competitive one-way fares.

The main risk is missed connections. Because your outbound and return are separate bookings, the return airline has no obligation to rebook you if your outbound flight is delayed and you miss the return. We always display this disclaimer clearly. For trips with tight turnarounds or during weather-prone seasons, a traditional round-trip may be the safer choice even if it costs more.

Yes — each ticket earns miles separately with the airline you fly on. In some cases you may earn more miles because you're crediting to two different programs. However, you won't earn a single-booking bonus if your loyalty program offers those.

Each ticket is governed by the fare rules of that airline. You'd contact each airline separately for changes or cancellations. This is the same as any two separate bookings — the policies depend on the fare class you booked.

For major metro areas with multiple airports, we automatically check all of them and mix-and-match. For New York, we check JFK, LGA, and EWR. For London, LHR and LGW. For Paris, CDG and ORY. Sometimes the cheapest combination is flying into one airport and out of another — we surface this automatically.

Yes. Any result that uses different airports for outbound and return is clearly labeled so you know what you're booking before you click through.

Prices are fetched at search time and may be cached for short periods. Because airfares change constantly, we always recommend verifying the final price on the booking site before completing your purchase.

Airfares are live and can change in seconds. The price we show is accurate at the time of our last refresh, but by the time you click through, the fare may have changed — up or down. This is normal for all flight search engines, not just Hopfare.

We display the total price including all taxes and carrier fees where our data providers supply this information. The final price on the booking site is always the authoritative figure.

For some origin-destination pairs we don't yet have live fare data. We're expanding our coverage — in the meantime, clicking 'Explore' will take you to a search on the booking partner's site where you can see current fares.

No account is needed to search flights. Your home airport is saved locally in your browser so it persists between visits without requiring a login.

Enter your email in the alerts section and we'll notify you when prices drop on routes you're watching. Alerts are currently in early access — we're rolling them out gradually.