Searching for flights sucks, hard. Fixing it with a better ui is a great thing. But ultimately we're experiencing that pain in large part trying to get the best prices. I search for flights about twice a year. Usually between two not-a-hub destinations (currently dublin-tel aviv) so its even harder. Every time I have to do it, I wish that things have improved. They haven't.
Basically, I:
- Go to 3-4 engines or portals. Try to figure out all the airline flying that routes. See who flies where.
- Go to the airlines' sites directly, see if they prices are better (usually they are). Try to remember which airlines (RyanAir) never have fares listed on aggregators. Fill out captchas and tick on boxes to be let in.
- See what the prices are for the most expensive leg & try to put together my own route using two separately bought tickets.
- Try to think of some more exotic routes: change airports in London, fly through a Greek resort island, whatever.
- Call a travel agent to see if they can do better.
I might not get all the way down this list.When I do, I rarely see the same fare twice. When I lived in Australia the stakes were higher and I always went down the whole horrible list. I hate doing this. I'd pay good money to avoid it. But, for my use case UI crappiness isn't the issue(even though doing your grocery shopping on Ebay in 1998 would be a better experience). The problem is centralizing all the available fares onto one site.
Just as an experiment, I tried looking for a trip on hipmunk that I have booked for 10 days from now. Prices start arund $1000 per leg, about 250% higher than what I paid (coincidentally for the same flight).
Slight tangent: You can get these flights (dublin-tel aviv) for around $600-$900 round trip if you're reasonably early and flexible. Why does hipmunk even offer me a $7500 leg that takes 24hr and fly through Toronto? Shouldn't their agony detector realize that no sane person would want this? Isn't good UI also removing useless information? If they want to demonstrate how thorough they are (also important) aren't there easier ways?
I don't mean to be picking on hipmunk. They're obviously dedicated to good user experience and they do a great job of presenting the large amount of information one needs to process in order to book a flight. If any Hipmunk people are reading please take any snarkiness as a cry for help. I really do want a better experience booking flights I'm looking to you guys for them.
Just as an experiment, I tried looking for a trip on hipmunk that I have booked for 10 days from now. Prices start arund $1000 per leg, about 250% higher than what I paid (coincidentally for the same flight).
That's a terrible experiment, fares almost always go up as you get closer to the departure date. If you want to do that, check the same thing on the airline's own site.
In my experience hipmunk isn't more expensive than any other site. In fact, every site will quote you the same darn price for the same darn flight, because airline fares are a lot more formalized than most people seem to be assuming.
You're absolutely right on this! It's the biggest pain in travel: fluctuating prices. All OTA's (online travel agents) have the exact same price (excluding deals) so you're scrambling around searching a futile objective. 85/90% of us at the time of about to press 'book it' decide to check elsewhere; 42% of us spend 4 weeks hunting travel; 52% of us look at 4+ websites. It's a total pain. Which is why we created www.mytab.co - directly with this in mind. By saving travel cash &/or having friends contribute to your trip, you're now not focusing on the price at the time of booking because you're cash rich (it's like monopoly money) and a happier booking experience. AND since we run a gift card platform, we can negotiate exclusive deals on your behalf. For the first time ever, the customer will be empowered yet this is also amazing for the travel industry who can now stabilize their slow time/long lead bookings. We created myTab for people like you who never have a decent search/book experience :)
Basically, I:
- Go to 3-4 engines or portals. Try to figure out all the airline flying that routes. See who flies where.
- Go to the airlines' sites directly, see if they prices are better (usually they are). Try to remember which airlines (RyanAir) never have fares listed on aggregators. Fill out captchas and tick on boxes to be let in.
- See what the prices are for the most expensive leg & try to put together my own route using two separately bought tickets.
- Try to think of some more exotic routes: change airports in London, fly through a Greek resort island, whatever.
- Call a travel agent to see if they can do better.
I might not get all the way down this list.When I do, I rarely see the same fare twice. When I lived in Australia the stakes were higher and I always went down the whole horrible list. I hate doing this. I'd pay good money to avoid it. But, for my use case UI crappiness isn't the issue(even though doing your grocery shopping on Ebay in 1998 would be a better experience). The problem is centralizing all the available fares onto one site.