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Airfare is up more than 20% over last year, and finding ways to save when you need to fly can be tough. The obvious answer is to use your points and miles, but that’s not always possible — you may be out of points or unable to find the right award redemption for your trip.
So how can you save when paying cash for airfare? It can be frustrating to see a high fare and not be sure if you should purchase it. Will it go down? Or will it go up?
Enter Junova, the AI-powered platform that tracks your flight price and ensures you get the difference back if the price drops. Here’s what you need to know about the service and why you should be using it.
What is Junova?
Junova makes saving money on flights simple and automated. The service tracks flight price changesto secure you a refund as flight credit or cash if your flight’s price drops after you purchase it.
How Junova Works
Instead of you monitoring price drops on your own, Junova uses AI to track your flights daily and automatically gets you savings when the price drops.
First, you book your flight as you normally would, paying cash for your trip with an eligible U.S.-based carrier. Then you create an account with Junova and connect your email address. You can have Junova automatically check your flight bookings, or forward your flight confirmations to tickets@junova.ai.
Junova then tracks your flight 24/7 to see if the price changes up until your departure. If the price drops, Junova secures a refund in the form of airline credit or cash for the difference.
Flights and Carriers Eligible for Junova
Although Junova is working to expand the airlines it supports, for now, the service works with United, Delta, American, Alaska, and Southwest on both international and domestic itineraries.
Junova doesn’t support flights booked with points or miles at the moment. The platform has announced that they’re working on it, and we’ll be waiting and ready for when it happens.
Note that Junova doesn’t work with basic economy bookings (yet another reason to avoid booking basic economy fares) or with online travel agencies, so you must book, at minimum, a standard economy cash fare directly with the airline in order to benefit from using the service.
How Much Does Junova Cost?
You can set up an account with Junova entirely for free, though you have to connect a payment method. There aren’t any upfront costs for using the platform — you aren’t charged until Junova finds a price drop and secures your flight credit.
Junova charges a 20% success fee on the airfare savings it gets for you. You don’t have to pay for a subscription. There aren’t any initial costs or surprise fees.
Is Junova Worth It?
Using Junova is definitely worth it, especially because you don’t pay anything until the carrier finds you savings on your flight. Plus, your referral credits are applied first, so you may not even be charged for awhile, depending on how much you’re able to save.
And when it comes to how much you could save, it varies based on which flights you’ve booked and how many flights you’ve booked. Frequent travelers who pay in cash for their tickets can save hundreds, even thousands of dollars, while the occasional leisure traveler might save anywhere from $50 to $100 on any given flight.
Junova’s homepage shows your savings history, a leaderboard of top savers, and a box with the latest savings, so you can get an idea of how much other users are saving with the service.
Once you set up your account, you don’t have to do any work to get savings, except maybe forwarding your flight confirmations, though you can set that up automatically if you choose.
You don’t have to track your flight or keep up with pricing; the service does it for you. Because Junova handles all the work, you can save real money without having to track anything at all or set up alerts, especially if you’re a frequent flyer who pays for flights in cash. Getting something for doing nothing makes this service well worth it.
My Experience Using Junova
Although most of my travel is booked using points and miles (or I’m flying Iberia, which isn’t covered by Junova, at least not yet), I have a few cash bookings with American Airlines coming up, so I decided to test out Junova for myself.
I signed up for an account, connected my email, and added my referral code. I put 2 flights into Junova’s system, and within 30 minutes, Junova emailed me to tell me I’d gotten $65 worth of flight credit back on an American flight between Tucson (TUS) and Montego Bay (MBJ) with a stop in Dallas Forth Worth (DFW).
The best part? Because I had $25 from the referral code, I didn’t even pay for my first use of the service. I was only charged $13 (20% of $65), and I have credit left over for my next time. I have another flight in the Junova system between Madrid (MAD) and Chicago (ORD), so I’ll be sitting tight to see if that drops.
Since Junova monitors flights up until departure, I could get additional credit for the flight I already got credit for, since it’s still not for another 6 months. The nice part is that I don’t have to think about it at all. If Junova finds savings, they’ll notify me, so I can close that tab in my brain for now.
I hope Junova will continue to expand into both international carriers and points-and-miles bookings. The service will remain an essential part of my travel booking experience whenever I book paid tickets with U.S. carriers.
Final Thoughts
In a time when things seem more and more expensive, including airfare, having an opportunity to get money or flight credit back is amazing. And the fact that Junova only charges a fee if the platform successfully saves you money is user-friendly, and I’m pleased I didn’t have to do any additional work to realize my savings.
If you tend to book flights with cash, even occasionally, sign up for Junova. Once you connect your email and set up automated travel itinerary forwarding, you won’t have to do any more legwork except book travel with the flight credits you get.