Where Flight Search Engines Fail
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Where Flight Search Engines Fail
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Re: Where Flight Search Engines Fail
#2Up
Re: Where Flight Search Engines Fail
#3Very interesting and very promising.
The stress and anxiety that accompanies flight ticket search, if price is a big factor, is usually so high, that I often wish I could pay a small fee to somebody reliable online who I could trust to get me the cheapest ticket that fits the combination of my parameters, and spend that time and stress on more important things.
Re: Where Flight Search Engines Fail
#4Sounds exactly the same as FlightFox
Re: Where Flight Search Engines Fail
#5Sounds exactly the same as FlightFox
Almost exactly but not as good. FlightFox doesn't make you link to the ceiling price, so you can pick a price you don't want to go over and then you don't pay if they can't help you. While Flystein makes you prove your price with a link, which isn't all that easy considering that many rates can't be deeplinked.
Re: Where Flight Search Engines Fail
#6Each flight search engine optimize for something slightly different so it is important to know what that is to help you get what you're looking for.
My personal favorite flight search is Kayak's Explore map [1] which simply shows all of the possible destinations and the best prices to each. The itineraries it comes up with are of varying lengths and for various times of years, but there are some pretty incredible deals you'd never find by searching random dates.
I recently found a $38 ticket round trip SFO to Chicago and there are routinely sub $400 tickets LAX to various airports around Scandinavia. The best deal I've ever seen was $354 RT LAX to Tel Aviv.
Re: Where Flight Search Engines Fail
#7Combining competing airlines' flights is rarely done, but is actually not as impossible to do programmatically as the article suggests. This is exactly what we do at https://skypicker.com and it really works wonders — we are regularly seeing combinations that are 90% cheaper than alternatives on other sites.
Re: Where Flight Search Engines Fail
#8Sounds exactly the same as FlightFox
Yeah, I didn't realize until I tried it that it is going to people rather than an algorithm.
I tried FlightFox twice, and both times the CEO Lauren (who is fantastic at customer service) refunded my fee because I was able to find better flights cheaper than the 'experts'.
I just don't see how any of this works as a real business model, but something must be working because FlightFox is still at it years later.
Re: Where Flight Search Engines Fail
#9Sounds exactly the same as FlightFox
Almost exactly but not as good. FlightFox doesn't make you link to the ceiling price, so you can pick a price you don't want to go over and then you don't pay if they can't help you. While Flystein makes you prove your price with a link, which isn't all that easy considering that many rates can't be deeplinked.
At Flystein we ask a link OR a screenshot in case of Beat My Price so there is no problem here. Also you could just specify some realistic budget in the text description with Build My Trip option and you are very welcome to try our services :) Cheers!
Re: Where Flight Search Engines Fail
#10Combining competing airlines' flights is rarely done, but is actually not as impossible to do programmatically as the article suggests. This is exactly what we do at https://skypicker.com and it really works wonders — we are regularly seeing combinations that are 90% cheaper than alternatives on other sites.
Skypicker looks like a promising tool. At Flystein we use multiple internal and 3d party tools as there is no silver bullet which covers everything, plus there is nothing so far which could completely replace a human brain and common sense :)