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Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

techcrunch.com

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Re: Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

#131

Post by OxO4 »

komali2 wrote: post #119
forgotpwtomain wrote: post #2

I almost never use anything other google flights when searching for a ticket. The UI is just so much better and easier to use than the ridiculous bloated crap that most travel sites are (especially when they are trying to shove car-rental and hotel deals in your face). The one drawback is sometimes they are missing local / smaller airlines from their list of flights (which can be a major price difference from the maj…

I always use SkyScanner - similar UI with options for "find the cheapest flight in a month," but usually way cheaper prices. Also includes Southwest, which Google Flights is missing, if I remember correctly. https://www.skyscanner.com/

Whenever I compared prices, SkyScanner hasn't been cheaper than Google Flights for me (domestic flights in the US and flights to Europe) and their website is much, much slower than Google Flights. Do you remember what kind of flights were cheaper?

Re: Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

#133

Post by largote »

dice wrote: post #49
forgotpwtomain wrote: post #2

I almost never use anything other google flights when searching for a ticket. The UI is just so much better and easier to use than the ridiculous bloated crap that most travel sites are (especially when they are trying to shove car-rental and hotel deals in your face). The one drawback is sometimes they are missing local / smaller airlines from their list of flights (which can be a major price difference from the maj…

>I almost never use anything other google flights when searching for a ticket. The UI is just so much better and easier to use than the ridiculous bloated crap that most travel sites are Funny, I was just thinking of how dissapointing the Google UI was: it took me three clicks and two page loads to see where and for how long a layover was. Have you tried Hipmunk[0]? Their interface for flight listings is the best I'v…

Hipmunk's UI is amazing if you know what you're looking at.

Re: Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

#134

Post by notahacker »

morgante wrote: post #91
dmbaggett wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fares and rules come from ATPCO ( http://atpco.net ). Flights come from OAG ( http://www.oag.com ). Seat availability requires data directly from the carrier, usually via a live query to the carrier's reservation system. The GDS companies get this data from these sources and then in turn provide (crappy) APIs for customers to use to query it. In general, if you're doing bookings you can get small amounts of the data…

This is what I love about HN. Someone asks a good technical question and literally one of the most qualified people in the world answers it.

I love the fact that literally one of the most qualified people in the world answers it and my first response is hmmm... hasn't OAG been replaced by Innovata as a schedules provider by now?

Re: Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

#135

Post by patja »

I wish the time horizon on this matched the time horizon on which tickets are available. It seems to be about a month short when I compare to directly shopping for flights on airline websites.

Granted that shouldn't matter quite as much for the "when will fares increase" question, since they have to have a baseline to evaluate the increase magnitude, but it sure matters simply for the "I'm planning to fly in for a popular event a year from now and I know tickets are being snapped up so I want to compare fares for flights as soon as they become orderable" scenario.

Re: Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

#136

Post by ekianjo »

dmbaggett wrote: post #84
dudurocha wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for Crash Bandicoot. How did you go from games to developing airlines reservation and fares software?

I knew two awesome people through the MIT AI Lab, one of whom co-founded Naughty Dog, and the other of whom co-founded ITA Software. :)

Awesome connections!

Re: Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

#137

Post by dzhiurgis »

jmarbach wrote: post #21
lmkg wrote: post #4

Bing Travel had predictions for fare fluctuations for air tickets back in 2009. It was pretty awesome back when I flied a lot, but they apparently killed the feature in 2014. Now Google's bringing it back, two years later. I don't understand the future sometimes. ¯\(°_o)/¯

Similarly, the article mentions that Google Flights is now more closely competing with Hopper, a mobile app for finding flights. Hopper already offers this price prediction service, and it is powered by Sabre's price prediction API: https://developer.sabre.com/docs/read/rest_apis/air/intellig... Disclosure: I own another competing flight search tool, https://concorde.io

I can recommend Hopper, it did save my parents few hundred dollars.

I've waited out a week to get cheaper flights to from Japan to NZ.

Still was a rip-off though - one way cost more than a return layover flights to Eastern Europe.

Re: Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

#138

Post by ethbro »

chromeextdev wrote: post #130
dmbaggett wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never set foot on an airplane unless I absolutely have to. :)

Why is that exactly?

I'd imagine after staring at all the convoluted fare rules for a substantial amount of work time, anything to do with air travel becomes far less magical.

Re: Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

#140

Post by tssva »

jmarbach wrote: post #21
lmkg wrote: post #4

Bing Travel had predictions for fare fluctuations for air tickets back in 2009. It was pretty awesome back when I flied a lot, but they apparently killed the feature in 2014. Now Google's bringing it back, two years later. I don't understand the future sometimes. ¯\(°_o)/¯

Similarly, the article mentions that Google Flights is now more closely competing with Hopper, a mobile app for finding flights. Hopper already offers this price prediction service, and it is powered by Sabre's price prediction API: https://developer.sabre.com/docs/read/rest_apis/air/intellig... Disclosure: I own another competing flight search tool, https://concorde.io

My issue with Hopper, now I know it is a Sabre limitation, has always been that I can't get predictions based upon more fine grained criteria. For instance knowing that the lowest published fare for a particular departure and return date is going to rise or lower doesn't help me when I am only interested in flights that leave or return between specific times on those days. When I have used Hopper I have not found there is necessarily any strong correlation between shifts in the lowest published fare and other fares.

Even if assume the other fares and the lowest published fare do track there is still an issue. Hopper doesn't/can't track or predict seat availability, so when Hopper gives me a notification that I should continue to wait because prices should fall I can't have any faith that the number of seats I require will be available when they do. This is especially a problem for me because when I fly I am usually purchasing tickets for multiple people.

Given these limitations I find Hopper almost useless for my needs. I would love an app that would allow me to enter a departure date and time window, return date and time window and the number of passengers then provide feedback regarding both future price direction and seat availability. I'm not holding my breath.

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