Hipmunk (YC S10) Acquired by Concur

Hipmunk has been an excellent flight search tool, the best I have found as of a few years ago. Shockingly better than most of the rest of them back when it started, in terms of being able to understand and choose among numerous choices.

Unfortunately, that was then and this is now. Several of the airlines have dropped out of participating in flight comparison sites, and those that do apparently pay staggeringly little per referral. This is greatly eroded the usefulness of Hipmunk and similar sites, and taken away the motivation for anyone to pressure airlines to participate. Why bother when the most you can win is a tiny sliver?

I wish there is a way to simply pay a little money to get a comprehensive high quality comparison of all available flights from all airlines. I don't want AI, I don't want a travel agent to do it for me. I most definitely don't want to visit multiple airline websites and try to manually compare the offerings. I just want to see all of the different ways to get from point A to point B, in a well engineered graphical representation, all at once so I can quickly and effectively choose the best fit. I would love if there was a way to simply pay some dollars to do so.

Re: Hipmunk (YC S10) Acquired by Concur

#5

Post by rebelidealist » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 10:57 PM UTC

kylecordes wrote: post #4

Hipmunk has been an excellent flight search tool, the best I have found as of a few years ago. Shockingly better than most of the rest of them back when it started, in terms of being able to understand and choose among numerous choices. Unfortunately, that was then and this is now. Several of the airlines have dropped out of participating in flight comparison sites, and those that do apparently pay staggeringly littl…

What is the best flight search these days?

Re: Hipmunk (YC S10) Acquired by Concur

#6

Post by tswartz » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 10:58 PM UTC

kylecordes wrote: post #4

Hipmunk has been an excellent flight search tool, the best I have found as of a few years ago. Shockingly better than most of the rest of them back when it started, in terms of being able to understand and choose among numerous choices. Unfortunately, that was then and this is now. Several of the airlines have dropped out of participating in flight comparison sites, and those that do apparently pay staggeringly littl…

I really enjoy using Hipmunk too.

More recently, I've begun using Google Flights in more of an "explorer" capacity. Enter my starting city and travel dates. Then I use their map to see how much it is to fly to different places in the world. Perfect when I don't have a plan

https://www.google.com/flights/

Re: Hipmunk (YC S10) Acquired by Concur

#7

Post by joelrunyon » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 10:59 PM UTC

rebelidealist wrote: post #5

kylecordes wrote: post #4

Hipmunk has been an excellent flight search tool, the best I have found as of a few years ago. Shockingly better than most of the rest of them back when it started, in terms of being able to understand and choose among numerous choices. Unfortunately, that was then and this is now. Several of the airlines have dropped out of participating in flight comparison sites, and those that do apparently pay staggeringly littl…

What is the best flight search these days?

Google flights or matrix.itasoftware.com (you can't book here though)

Re: Hipmunk (YC S10) Acquired by Concur

#8

Post by raldi » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 11:01 PM UTC

kylecordes wrote: post #4

Hipmunk has been an excellent flight search tool, the best I have found as of a few years ago. Shockingly better than most of the rest of them back when it started, in terms of being able to understand and choose among numerous choices. Unfortunately, that was then and this is now. Several of the airlines have dropped out of participating in flight comparison sites, and those that do apparently pay staggeringly littl…

If you have a Bloomberg terminal, there's a function like this that's been around for decades. If I remember correctly (I haven't had access to one since 2007) it might have been FLTS or maybe just FLY.

You plug in your cities and dates, and you get an 80x25 screen with the raw data in an easy-to-read (once you're used to it) tabular view.

Of course, that only works if by "some dollars" you meant like $25,000/year. :)

Re: Hipmunk (YC S10) Acquired by Concur

#9

Post by nilkn » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 11:04 PM UTC

Hipmunk and Google Flights are my two go-to tools these days for beginning the search for flight tickets. I use Hipmunk when I know where I want to go and when, and I use Google Flights when I know I want to take a trip, but I'm flexible about both when and where.

Re: Hipmunk (YC S10) Acquired by Concur

#10

Post by hentrep » Tue, Sep 13, 2016, 11:24 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #9

Hipmunk and Google Flights are my two go-to tools these days for beginning the search for flight tickets. I use Hipmunk when I know where I want to go and when, and I use Google Flights when I know I want to take a trip, but I'm flexible about both when and where.

I haven't used Google Flights -- will check it out -- but have taken a similar approach with Skyscanner.com. Basically, if I want to filter a trip based on price without regard to location or travel date. Really fun to play with!