Hopper wants to challenge Airbnb with short-term vacation rentals

Despite an already crowded market featuring big names like Airbnb and Vrbo, travel app Hopper is now expanding its services to include short-term home rentals.

Featuring more than two million properties spread across the world, Hopper Homes (which is available inside the Hopper app) should make it a bit easier to book airfare, car rentals and lodging (hotel or short-term) in a single place.

Hopper says users will be able to apply filters to help narrow down their options based on criteria like location, number of bedrooms, amenities and price. And over the next few months, the company says it will add support for some of its other booking features like Price Prediction and Cancel for Any Reason to the new service to help give its customers more flexibility over their travel plans.

That last part might end up being one of the biggest differentiators between Hopper Homes and its competitors. Other services such as Airbnb allow hosts to select from a range of cancellation policies including “flexible” plans that allow guests to cancel as late as 24 hours before check-in without penalty to “firm” plans that require guests to cancel at least 30 days before check-in.

By adding home rentals to its list of services, the company is hoping to attract a growing number of travelers who prefer staying in rental homes instead of hotels. Hopper claims Zoomers and millennials are especially keen, with more than four in 10 rental travelers being younger than 35.

Similar to its airfare and hotel bookings, Hopper also plans to integrate its Carrot Cash system in order to help customers save money, with credit earned from booking rentals homes able to be applied to other forms of travel.