The travel prompt

I was sitting at the airport, boarding pass in hand, when I realized I probably overpaid for my flight. So I decided to test something.

I'd always searched for flights the same way everyone else did — Expedia, Google Flights, whatever came up first. But I'd started to notice two problems with that approach.

Those sites were never really working for me. They were optimizing for their own revenue, not my wallet. And they had no idea what I actually needed — just a search bar and a handful of filters.

I opened Claude, pasted in one prompt, filled in my travel details, and let it search.

It went through the major booking platforms, compared prices across all of them, and found me a ticket that was $340 cheaper than what I'd almost bought without thinking twice.

One prompt. That was the whole thing.

I want you to find me the best possible deal on a flight. Before you start searching, ask me every question you need to build the full picture — my departure city, destination, ideal dates, how flexible I am on dates and airports, whether I care about stops or travel time, my budget if I have one, what device I'm booking on, and anything else that would help you find a better price. Once you have everything, go find the cheapest option across every platform and angle you can think of. I want a ranked list of the best options with exactly how to book each one.

Just make sure web search is turned on in Claude before you run it — that's what lets it pull live prices.

I hadn't thought to use Claude for something this practical before that day. Now it's the first place I check before booking anything.