Montréal-based travel technology company Hopper is set to power travel rewards at Canada’s largest bank.
Hopper, through its business-to-business (B2B) subsidiary Hopper Technology Solutions (HTS), announced on Monday that it had signed a long-term deal with the Royal Bank of Canada to deliver new capabilities for the bank’s Avion Rewards Travel program, which previously had a partnership with the US company Expedia. According to The Globe and Mail, the deal could give Hopper an annual revenue boost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Dakota Smith,
“The interesting part comes next as we move towards launch.”
Hopper
In a LinkedIn post, Hopper president and co-founder Dakota Smith thanked his team and RBC’s leaders for spearheading the initiative, which had been “in motion” for a while.
“Lots of work left to do but the interesting part comes next as we move towards launch and to providing real value to RBC customers and Canadian travellers,” Smith said.
RBC is looking to grow Avion, already the largest among loyalty programs at Canadian banks, and benefit from Hopper’s reach of travel booking options. The updated Avion Rewards Travel booking platform will let members use Avion points to book flights, accommodations, car rentals, and activities. Avion members will also be able to buy Hopper’s insurance-like products for travel flexibility, such as flight rebookings and access to refunds.
Hopper got its start in 2007 as a consumer-facing app with an algorithm that predicted the best times to book flights. During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, it shifted its approach to sell its travel technology and data to enterprise customers, such as financial institutions and airlines.
B2B partnerships now drive more than 90 percent of Hopper’s revenue, which now reportedly exceeds $500 million USD annually. Though RBC is the first Canadian bank, Hopper has more than 20 partnerships, including American financial services giant Capital One and Australia’s largest bank, CommBank.
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The deal comes shortly after a significant shakeup in Hopper and Capital One’s business relationship. Capital One, which is also an investor, brought the travel platform that Hopper ran for it in-house, along with some of Hopper’s employees. Hopper said that it will now provide its software APIs, including for FinTech and lodging features, to support the Capital One Travel program—an evolution that “reflects both the success and maturity of the partnership,” according to a Hopper spokesperson.
Travel news publication Skift reported this month that Capital One is making a “payout” to acquire the software, team, licences, servicing contracts, and supplier relationships from Hopper that power Capital One Travel. Hopper has not confirmed exactly how many of its employees left for Capital One, but numbers ranging from “dozens” to 150 have been reported. Smith told The Globe and Mail that he expects revenue from the updated partnership to grow this year compared to 2025.
The positive revenue outlook “is in part due to the fact that HTS will now focus on delivering its core capabilities through our APIs, including our fintech and lodging APIs, to support Capital One Travel and its cardholders,” a Hopper spokesperson told BetaKit today.
As part of Hopper’s shift to focus on enterprise customers and push towards profitability, the firm has made multiple rounds of layoffs since 2023, saying that restructuring would allow it to invest in growth areas. Smith told BetaKit this month that it reached positive earnings before income, taxes, depreciation, and amortization over the past six months and is no longer shedding employees. Hopper currently has 400 core staff, it said.
With files from Josh Scott.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Yassine Khalfalli.