Axel is the AI travel agent that finds you hidden deals on flights and hotels and works on your behalf to save you more. Tell Axel where you want to go and how you like to travel. He compares options across airlines and hotel suppliers, including private rates you won't see on public booking sites, and narrows them down to the ones that fit your plans.Axel makes booking incredible deals easy. You can even add checked bags and select seats when the airline allows. Axel's free Chrome extension also shows the Axel price alongside the same flight on Google Flights, making it easy to see what you could save.Axel Membership gives you access to deeper discounts on flights and hotels, plus unlimited repricing on eligible bookings. One membership covers your bookings. Member and nonmember prices appear side by side, so you can see the difference before joining. Membership costs $15 for your first month, then $10 per month, and renews monthly until canceled. Cancel anytime; your benefits continue through the period you've paid for.After you book, Axel watches for price drops and handles requests to recover additional savings on eligible flights. Those savings usually come as airline credit. Free accounts include one repricing; members get unlimited repricing on eligible bookings.You don't need a membership to search, book, or get support from Axel. Start with a free account and choose whether membership makes sense for your travel.AI assistants can use Axel too. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot can check Axel's live flight prices and hotel rates by following links on helloaxel.com, with no sign-in, account or API key, and give you a link to review and book.Axel (formerly Ascend Travel) is made by Gordian Software, Inc., founded in 2017 and backed by Y Combinator, Latitude, LocalGlobe, Kinnevik, DST Global, and AngelList. Based in Bellevue, Washington, the company is led by Stephen Grabowski, formerly of Skyscanner. For help with your trip, visit help.helloaxel.
Axel (helloaxel.com) has 64 customer reviews on Five Star Index, with an average rating of 4.2 out of 5.
Also known as
helloaxel.com
Website
helloaxel.com
Category
Activities & Tours
Location
Bellevue, Washington
Listed on Five Star Index
2026
About these reviews
Replies
The company replied to 92% of reviews.
Latest
Most recent review: October 2026.
Edits
Reviews are shown as their authors wrote them. The company can reply, but cannot edit them.
Score
This company cannot pay to remove reviews or change its score.
I find axel to be an excellent tool to book flights! They show you what you would be paying if you were to book directly with the airlines.
Response from AxelOct 23, 2026
Thank you very much! We hope to help you with your hotels as well next time :)
DA
DEBORAH A J.
Prices are awesome
Prices are awesome
Response from AxelOct 22, 2026
Thank you very much! We work hard to get you great prices. We look forward to saving you more money in the future.
PL
Pamela L.
I’m saving loads of money
I’m saving loads of money. Love this website. Booked many flights and hotels. It’s legit.
Response from AxelOct 16, 2026
Thank you for the kind words! We look forward to saving you even more :)
CC
Christian Calloway A.
I had a lot of changes but Axel handled it
I had a lot of changes and then had to make request for refunds because of my own fault and then of the airline who had a 12 hour delay. However, Axel rolled with the flow and was like having a travel agent standing right next to me making corrections for me. I love it.
Response from AxelOct 15, 2026
Hi Christian, travel plans change (and a 12-hour airline delay doesn’t help!), so we’re glad Axel could roll with it and handle the changes and refunds for you. “A travel agent standing right next to me” is exactly what we’re going for. I’ll share your kind words with the team. Thanks for booking with us!
KG
Krishna G.
Axel has incredibly low prices for…
Axel has incredibly low prices for flights. I don't even need to check anywhere else as the prices are insanely low. You're booking directly with the airline and so its super easy to do cancellations and refunds.
The ability to search in freeform agentic way is a big bonus and I don't think i can go back to regular filters/buttons anymore.
Keep up the good work. Excited to see where you go next.
Response from AxelOct 15, 2026
Providing the best possible prices is exactly what Axel strives to do. Happy to hear you enjoyed your experience and thank you for the kind words!
CA
Craig A.
Easy to use...quick…
Easy to use...quick confirmations...reliable source of flight fare information...
Response from AxelOct 14, 2026
Thanks, Craig. We're constantly working on Axel having more and more flight information accessible from anywhere you might need it.
CU
customer
Simply the best!
Simply the best!
Response from AxelOct 14, 2026
Thank you. We work really hard to deliver the best savings and booking experience we can. It means a lot when we get feedback like this.
CW
Customer with a R.
The reason I rated this 4 stars
The reason I rated this 4 stars, not 5 or 3, is that I had a relatively good experience doing this and am satisfied with the outcome. That said, certain aspects of the flow left me with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.
Let's go through my journey on this. I've used Axel twice, and both times I had issues for various reasons, but both were remedied with extreme efficiency, which is good.
Now, I load in Axel, look at it, and think, "Okay, it's another UI website redesign. Seems like it's relatively easy to understand. Here's where I book a new trip." I click the trip, and now I have a query related to a 10-day trip back to Chicago sometime covering Christmas.
I do that, and it looks up the flights and gives me some goofy timing. I will say, the first thing is, I was a bit disappointed because it's like, "Ooh, it's going to be $300 round trip," and I'm like, "Oh, yay, $300." I click the flight thing, and it's like, "Okay, it's going to be from 11 pm to 5 am." I'm like, "Okay, there's no way I'm doing that." That's suboptimal because, given the amount of sleep I'm going to lose, there's no way I'm going to do that flight.
Although I can see how the average person would do that, I was slightly let down because the next-tier flight was a bit higher in price. I'm like, "You know what? Not that bad. It's definitely cheaper." I click on it, and I do that. For some reason, my return flight option, the "Choose to return" flight, doesn't show up, and it takes me straight to the checkout page. I'm like, "Wait a second, what the heck is going on? I never selected my return flight."
Effectively, after that, I'm like, "Okay, what the heck is going on?" I just spam the backer, and something comes up. I don't know what set of actions I took, but I get back to the page where I select the first flight. I'm like, "Okay, maybe it's going to work this time." I select my flight there, and this time it works and selects the flight back.
The flight back had a pretty good time, so I wasn't really that mad about it. I click that, and I'm like, "Okay, it's pretty good, right?" I get to the checkout page, and color me a bit surprised: the flight costs $440, but you're actually paying $390. I'm like, "Okay, Axel, good job. I'm saving money."
Color me a bit surprised when I look at the little checkout screen and the price is $440. I'm like, "So what are we doing here, right?" Obviously, it's related to taxes, fees, and whatnot. I was a bit disappointed and a bit sad because it was a bunch of tiny hoodwinks. The tiny hoodwinks made me sad.
Obviously, I had a credit, and I appreciate you guys. Love the credit. The supply mat flight was only $100-something, and I'm going to go back to Axel in the future. I think it's just easy to buy flights. I genuinely have it done, and I trust you guys more than I know there's another new company from the F26 batch that came out called, I forgot, sort of the F. They're doing what you guys are doing, but for API, straight to API with Claude Code.
I will be honest: if those guys got it and got the same deal level as you, I would probably trust my boy Claude to do the flight. I don't know how much you guys are skimming on your side. Overall, that's why I said 4 out of 5 stars. I know I'm saving money because I know you guys work hard to save your users' money and save me money. Appreciate that a lot.
The post-checkout experience is great. I got a confirmed flight really easily, and I have no worries that I'm going to miss this flight or that it was not booked. I have supreme faith that it's done, so I feel confident about that and don't need to worry about it.
Anything else: I like the UI. There's one issue in the initial chat: I sent a message, and the loading animation stopped. The reply said, "I'm like, wait a second, did my chat message go through, or is it glitching?" I was tweaking out a little bit, so I ended up sending another message, and then it replied. I don't know if it was replying to the first message or the second message after that.
I love the UI and the design of it. It felt very nice to go through and was quite intuitive. That's about it: 4 stars.
Response from AxelOct 13, 2026
Thank you for the kind words regarding our design and deals. We will work to smooth out any of the rough edges you experienced, and continue to deliver a top notch travel booking experience.