How Trip Manta Tracks Flight Prices
Full transparency on how we monitor airfare, trigger alerts, and what our data covers — including honest limitations.
The Short Version
Trip Manta checks the price of every tracked flight every hour. When we detect a price drop that exceeds your alert threshold (default: $5), we send you an email within minutes. We store every price check so you can see the full price history for your tracked flights.
Every Hour
Price check frequency
< 5 min
Alert delivery time
Every Check
Stored in price history
How Price Monitoring Works
Hourly Automated Checks
Every hour, on the hour, our system queries current flight prices for every actively tracked trip. This is not a sample or estimate — we look up the actual price of the specific flight and fare class you are tracking.
Pro subscribers get hourly checks. Free users get daily checks (once per day at a fixed time). The rest of the system works identically for both tiers.
What We Check
For each tracked trip, we search for the same route, date, fare class, and passenger count you originally searched for. If you are tracking a specific flight (by airline and flight number), we look for that exact flight. If you are using filter-based tracking, we apply your saved filter criteria (preferred airlines, max stops, departure time windows) and find the best matching fare.
Price History Storage
Every price check is recorded in your trip's price history, whether the price went up, down, or stayed the same. This gives you a complete timeline of how the fare has changed since you started tracking. The price history chart on your tracked flights page shows every data point we have collected.
Why Hourly Checks Matter
Most flight price trackers check once or twice per day. That sounds reasonable until you look at how airline pricing actually works.
How Airline Pricing Works
Airlines use dynamic pricing systems that adjust fares based on demand, time to departure, competitor pricing, and seat inventory. These adjustments can happen multiple times per day. A fare that drops by $80 at 2 PM might be back up by 6 PM if seats start selling at the lower price.
With daily checks, a tracker might check at 8 AM and again the next day at 8 AM — completely missing a price drop that happened at 2 PM and reversed by 6 PM. With hourly checks, there is a much higher chance of catching short-lived drops.
What Our Data Shows
Across our tracked routes, we regularly observe price drops that last fewer than 12 hours. On volatile routes (such as popular leisure destinations or routes with heavy competition), price swings of $30 to $100+ within a single day are not uncommon.
Hourly checks do not guarantee you will catch every drop — a fare could change and revert within the same hour — but they significantly increase the odds compared to checking once or twice per day.
How Price Drop Alerts Work
When We Send an Alert
We send you an email when the current price drops below the price we last alerted you about (or your original tracked price, if no alert has been sent yet) by at least your alert threshold. The default threshold is $5, which you can customize per trip.
This means you will not get an alert for every tiny fluctuation — only when the price genuinely moves lower than what you have already been told about.
Alert Cooldown
To avoid spamming your inbox, we enforce a 24-hour cooldown between non-critical alerts. If we already sent you an alert within the last 24 hours, we will wait — unless the price drops even lower than the last alert, in which case we send immediately.
In other words: if a price keeps dropping, you will hear from us right away. If it drops, bounces back, and drops again to a similar level, we will wait until the cooldown passes.
What the Alert Email Contains
- The current price and how much it dropped
- Flight details (airline, flight number, dates, route)
- A mini price history chart showing recent trends
- A direct link to view the full price history on Trip Manta
Snooze and Customization
You can snooze alerts on any trip if you do not want to hear about it for a while. When snoozed, we only send an alert if the price drops significantly below the last alerted price — based on your configured threshold. You can also adjust the dollar threshold per trip, so a $200 domestic flight and a $2,000 international flight can have different sensitivity levels.
What Our Data Covers
Routes
Any route searchable on Google Flights — domestic US, international, one-way, and round-trip. We track 500+ popular routes with historical pricing data and support tracking on any route a user searches for.
Fare Classes
Economy (with or without basic economy), premium economy, business, and first class. You choose the fare class when you start tracking, and we monitor that specific class.
Airlines
All airlines available through Google Flights results. We do not limit to specific carriers — if it shows up in search results for your route and fare class, we can track it.
Route Price Intelligence
For our published route pages, we collect aggregate pricing data every 15 minutes across multiple future dates. This powers the price behavior insights (price ranges, volatility, cheapest months) shown on each route page.
How to Read Price History
Every tracked flight has a price history chart showing every price check since tracking started. Here is how to use it effectively:
Flat Lines
A flat price over many hours means the airline has not adjusted fares on this route recently. This is common on low-demand routes or when departure is far out. It does not mean the price will not change — it means it has not yet.
Sudden Drops
A sharp drop followed by a quick recovery is a short-lived fare sale or inventory adjustment. These are the drops that daily-check trackers miss. If you see one in your history, that is a moment when an hourly alert would have saved you money.
Gradual Upward Trend
Prices generally trend upward as departure approaches, especially in the last 2-3 weeks. If you see this pattern, booking sooner is usually better. Occasional drops within an upward trend still happen — that is what alerts are for.
High Volatility
Large swings in both directions mean multiple airlines are competing on this route or demand is fluctuating. Volatile routes benefit the most from hourly tracking because there are more opportunities to catch a low point.
Limitations and Caveats
We believe in being upfront about what Trip Manta can and cannot do.
Prices can change between checks
Even with hourly checks, a fare could drop and revert within the same hour. We catch more drops than daily trackers, but we do not guarantee catching every one.
Prices are not guaranteed bookable
The price we show is what was available at the time of our check. By the time you click through to book, the price may have changed. Airline pricing is real-time and inventory-dependent — seats at a given price can sell out.
We track specific flights, not all options
When you track a specific flight, we monitor that flight's price. A cheaper option on a different airline or at a different time may exist. Filter-based tracking addresses this by monitoring a range of options matching your criteria.
Historical data depends on tracking duration
We can only show price history from the moment you start tracking. We do not have retroactive data for flights you were not tracking. Our route-level aggregate data goes back further, but individual trip histories start when you do.
We do not book flights for you
Trip Manta is a monitoring and alert service. We tell you when to buy, but you book directly with the airline or your preferred booking site. We do not take a commission or markup on flights.
Tracking stops after departure
Once your departure date passes, tracking automatically deactivates. There is no point in monitoring a flight that has already departed.
Data and Privacy
Your tracked flights and price history are private to your account. We use row-level security in our database, meaning your data is only accessible when authenticated with your credentials.
We do not sell your search data or tracking history. The aggregate route pricing data shown on our public route pages is anonymized and computed from market-wide price checks, not from individual user tracking data.
Alert emails are sent via Amazon SES. You can unsubscribe from alerts on any individual trip or snooze notifications. See our terms of service for full details.
Learn More
How It Works
See how to save money by tracking flights before and after booking.
Best Flight Price Trackers
How Trip Manta compares to Google Flights, Hopper, Kayak, and others.
Flight Price Tracker
Track any flight and get hourly price monitoring with email alerts.
About Trip Manta
Why this was built and the story behind the name.
Price Drop Report
How often flight prices drop, how long drops last, and which routes are most volatile.
Should You Wait?
A data-driven framework for deciding whether to book now or wait for a price drop.
Check Frequency Guide
How often should you check flight prices? A data-driven answer on optimal monitoring frequency.