How we rank results
This page explains in plain language how EventCoster orders the flights, hotels and events it shows you, and how we earn money from partner links.
Partner links and commissions
Some links to booking sites, such as Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Skyscanner and Aviasales, are partner (affiliate) links. A link to an event's ticket page can be one too. If you book through a partner link, the provider may pay us a commission. This does not change the price you pay; prices are set by the provider.
Commissions do not influence the order in which results are shown. The partner booking buttons always appear in the same fixed order.
Where prices come from
Flight and hotel offers come from third-party travel data providers, which decide which offers they return for a search. We then filter and order those offers as described below. All prices on EventCoster are estimates: they may be cached and may have changed by the time you book. The provider's price at the time of booking applies.
Flights
"Best" (the default) combines price, travel time and stops in one score: the price, plus 30 for each hour of travel time (0.50 per minute), plus 25 for each stop, counted in the currency of the price. The travel time is that of the outbound flight, or of the return flight when you are choosing a return. The lowest score comes first. When we pre-select a flight for you, we use this same score.
You can also sort by "Cheapest" (lowest price first) or by "Fastest" / "Shortest" (shortest travel time first). When you choose flights for an event trip, you can also sort by "Earliest" or "Latest" departure. If two flights are equal on the chosen criterion, the cheaper one comes first (when sorting by price, the shorter one).
On the flight search and trip planning pages, the "Best" order of the round-trip list uses your time-value slider (€15 per hour by default): each round trip is ranked by its price plus its total travel time multiplied by that value. At €0 per hour this is the same as "Cheapest"; a high value approaches "Shortest".
To keep the charts and the list readable on these pages, we hide flights that cost more than twice the typical (median) price or take more than twice the typical travel time and, when there are more than 8 options, those outside the best 8 by the time-value score. The cheapest flight, the fastest flight and the flight you selected are never hidden, and nothing is hidden when there are only a few options. You can show hidden flights at any time with the ⊘ button.
For an event's estimated total cost, we use the cheapest flight offer found; if prices are equal, the one with fewer stops.
Hotels
Hotel offers are sorted by the total price of your stay, lowest first. Our hotel data provider sends results in batches, and each batch is sorted this way. If a search finds more than 200 hotels, we keep the 200 closest to the event. When a hotel has several room offers, the cheapest one is shown first. On the maps, hotels are placed by location, not ranked.
For an event's estimated total cost, we use the cheapest hotel offer found.
Events
By default, the event list is sorted by price, lowest first. For this sort, an event's price is its cheapest ticket plus, where we have one, its cheapest hotel estimate; flights are not included. Events without price information yet appear at the top.
You can also sort by price from the highest (based on the most expensive ticket) or by start date, nearest or farthest first. The filters you set, such as category, dates or cost range, decide which events are shown. On the map, events are placed by location, not ranked.