It will soon be a new era for Capital One Travel — and a much-smaller Hopper. The trigger point will be when their deal closes shortly. Hopper will no longer power travel for its marquee B2B customer. And with a Capital One payout to Hopper, the credit card company will buy the tech infrastructure that Hopper used to operate the Capital One portal, and 150 former Hopper employees will begin receiving Capital One paychecks. Hopper will continue to exist, and Capital One will remain a major Hopper shareholder.
EDITOR’S PICKS
MakeMyTrip Eyes an IPO in India
by Peden Doma Bhutia
March 16, 2026
MakeMyTrip has long been seen as a likely candidate for an India listing, but the company had never explicitly said so. Its latest filing finally puts that possibility on record, signaling that India’s booming capital markets may soon attract one of the country’s biggest travel platforms back home.
Who Owns the Customer When OTA Clients Try to Rebook a Flight During the Iran War
by Dennis Schaal
March 13, 2026
Online travel agencies and suppliers have more flexible rebooking and refund policies during the Iran war than during the pandemic. But with the volume of customer support requests, customers sometimes don't get the assistance they deserve.
In a Crisis, Travel Companies Count on Humans — Not AI
by Adriana Lee
March 13, 2026
After Covid exposed how brittle travel's customer service infrastructure was, the industry pitched AI as the fix. Now, with the Middle East chaos, much of the tech that was supposed to help vanished from the narrative.
How Montreal Quietly Became the World’s Second Most Important Travel Tech Hub
by Rafat Ali
March 11, 2026
The travel industry’s most important ecosystem story may be Montreal, where aviation DNA, patient capital, and a single Expedia office accidentally created a $15 billion infrastructure layer that much of the industry now runs on.
SKIFT PODCAST NETWORK
Big shakeup in travel booking. In this clip, I explains why Capital One Travel is ending its long-running partnership with Hopper, and what happens next.
For Hopper, the stakes are high. After shifting away from its consumer focus toward B2B partnerships, losing a major partner like Capital One raises serious questions about what its next chapter looks like.
SKIFT RESEARCH | DATA
Market Performance
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