Hipmunk wants to take its so-called agony-relieving flight search service to markets beyond the US, so has opted for Amadeus to help it out.
The decision to use Amadeus and its Meta Pricer, Master Pricer and Web Services tools, is primarily to give users the ability to search for international carriers and fares, as well as allow Hipmunk to launch in markets outside of North America.
Whether this counts as one of the "major announcements" promised when Hipmunk secured a $15 million funding round earlier this month is unclear, but the San Francisco-based startup's "go big or go home" strategy means that it has felt the need to supplement its existing search and fare technology with additional systems.
Hipmunk used Google-run ITA Software's QPX system for its initial, domestic route-focused flight search engine, but it says partnering with Amadeus (no great friend of Google these days) will allow it to carry out its "important next step in serving our users and growing our business".
Hipmunk will continue to use QPX for some of its search technology and has reiterated that it is a "multi-year, long-term" agreement.
The announcement is the second time in the space of a week that Amadeus has secured a contract with a US metasearch engine to work alongside ITA's QPX.
Spain-based Amadeus last week unveiled an enhanced agreement with Hipmunk rival Kayak - a move which was actually signed in January this year and has coincided with Kayak using ITA to far lesser degree (61% to 39%) for its search queries over the past six months.