Decide what's actually worth paying more for on a trip, not just the cheapest option
The cheapest flight and the cheapest hotel aren't always the cheapest trip.
- Use it for
- Anyone booking travel who keeps defaulting to lowest price without checking the tradeoff.
Defaulting to the cheapest flight and cheapest lodging treats every dollar saved as equally good, which ignores that some savings cost you real trip quality (a 6am flight with two layovers eats a full vacation day recovering) while others cost nothing meaningful (a slightly less central hotel with a 10-minute longer walk). The useful question isn't "what's cheapest," it's "where does spending more actually buy something I'd notice."
This prompt runs that tradeoff analysis explicitly, tailored to your actual trip and priorities, instead of generic travel-hack advice.
When not to use this
If budget is the hard constraint and there's genuinely no flexibility, this analysis doesn't help — book the cheapest option and move on. This is for when you have some flexibility and want to spend it well, not just minimize total cost.
Did this work?
You can name specifically where spending more is worth it and where it isn't for this particular trip — not a blanket "always splurge on location" rule that ignores your actual situation.
Tested on claude-opus-5. Evidence status is draft; it moves to battle-tested only on recorded runs, never by hand.