Hitlist adds push notifications so you never miss bargain flights again

Histlist, the app that sniffs out airfare bargains which we wrote about last year, has gotten a major update to help you find dream holiday destinations at dream prices.

The iOS and Android apps — which are produced by New York-based startup Trip Common — now sport an entirely new (and equally as beautiful) interface. Part of that change is the introduction of push notifications, which alert you to red-hot deals for flights to the cities listed on your ‘Hitlist’.

“Trying to predict when airfares will be cheap based on past data is flawed at best,” Trip Common co-founder Gillian Morris told me in an interview. Morris cites Microsoft’s recent etirement of Farecast, a product it bought for over $100 million in 2009, as evidence of that.

“Price predictors are wrong nearly as often as they’re right, which leads to frustrated consumers. What we do is monitor market pricing in real time and when we find something we think is particularly appealing, we send a notification. For trips that are more than a month out, waiting for an alert saves you around 20 percent of the ticket price,” she further explained.

As was the case before, you add destinations to your Hitlist and the service will alert you when there are good deals to fly there, alerts come via email and now also push notifications. You can choose between three levels of deals — ‘good,’ ‘great’ and ‘spectacular’ — and now you can also look up specific cities from inside the app, as well as perusing your friends’ Hitlists and exploring deals to cities at random.

I’ve kept the app on my phone since installing it last year because I believe it has the potential to offer something different. That said, owing mainly to my schedule, I haven’t actually booked any trips via Hitlist. The new push notifications will really put my credit and me to the test.

➤ Hitlist: iOS | Android

Also read: This website is a guide to the best cities for digital nomads and perpetual travelers

Headline image via Mario Antonio Pena Zapatería / Flickr