Summer Travel Season Fuels Surprises in PYMNTS Global App Rankings

It’s summer vacation season, and there’s no shortage of options for consumers and businesses to plan, book and for pay for travel via mobile apps. The PYMNTS Travel Apps page offers a monthly ranking of smartphone Travel Apps, assessing them based on publicly available information and exclusive app usage data, helping users identify the top performers in the market. The ranking aims to provide precise insights into app performance, aiding stakeholders in making informed decisions.

There are some surprises in the top five, with sites like Booking.com continuing to hang on to their top score in the mid-70s. But a few sites that have achieved lower scores and lower notoriety in the index made some positive moves: FlightAware, HotelTonight and GetYourGuide.

FlightAware: It posted two points in our index for a new total score of 39. That modest rise might be a reaction to the flight delays and air traffic mishaps that have plagued the U.S. and other countries. For example, delays and cancellations were particularly intense in early May, with FlightAware citing 156 delays into or out of Newark and 99 cancellations as of about 10 a.m. ET on May 5 alone. FlightAware is a digital aviation company and operates the world’s largest flight tracking and data platform. With global connectivity to every segment of aviation, it provides over 10,000 aircraft operators and service providers, as well as over 13,000,000 passengers with global flight tracking solutions, predictive technology, analytics and decision-making tools. FlightAware receives data from air traffic control systems in over 45 countries, a network of ground stations in 195 countries, global space-based ADS-B, and datalink (satellite/VHF) via every major provider. Its Hyper Feed engine fuses thousands of real-time, global data sources with FlightAware’s proprietary AI models and algorithms.

HotelTonight: The rewards platform from this discount booking and payments app was behind another two-point rise to a total of 30. After a few years in the doldrums, HotelTonight announced in late March that travelers in the U.S. and the U.K. can now earn Airbnb credit when booking through HotelTonight. For each booked stay, users will earn 10% of the booking value in Airbnb credit.  After checkout, guests will be prompted to claim their credits by connecting to their Airbnb account. Future credits will be automatically added after each HotelTonight/Airbnb stay and are valid for one year from the stay’s completion. Frequent HotelTonight travelers can stack their Airbnb credits, making it easier to save up for future stays. This new offering is the latest addition to HotelTonight’s HT Perks program, where travelers receive exclusive discounts based on their spending history on HotelTonight. These extra offerings can be used immediately or saved for a later booking. Unlike other loyalty programs, HT Perks has no blackout dates and lets guests keep their status as they level up.

GetYourGuide: Another two-point gain here for a total of 67. GetYourGuide is a leading global online marketplace to discover and book experiences. Travelers can use GetYourGuide to find things to do in more than 12,000 cities, including tours from local experts, exclusive access to must-see attractions and “immersive bucket-list experiences” through its Originals by GetYourGuide offering. Based in France, GetYourGuide focuses its customers on specific experiences and tries to suggest high-end packages and destinations. For example, its recent push has been behind Ibiza, but it has also recently stepped up its efforts in the U.S.

“I’m here to tell you that we have come to the United States to stay and we are incredibly committed,” GetYourGuide CEO & Co-Founder Johannes Reck told a recent travel conference. “I personally believe that as someone who has gone through COVID himself with the business, that any major crisis is really the opportunity to leapfrog forward. When we went through COVID, the first thing that I asked the team was, “Let us imagine what the industry looks like on the other side of this crisis and let’s build the company that we want to be then.”