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Google Flights will now tell you when fares will increase

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

#161

Post by bkor »

OxO4 wrote: post #131
komali2 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

SkyScanner is often either cheaper or more accurate than Google Flights.

Accurate: Google Flights often leaves out the mandatory "additionals" such as booking fee/credit card free, etc.

Cheaper: SkyScanner has more third party companies offering flights. This depends on which language/country you've set SkyScanner to. Try setting it to the country you're departing from. Flying from Amsterdam? Set it to Dutch! Suggest to try it now, sometimes difference is surprising. Though check out if that third party is trustworthy.

I often do e.g. a long trip (+flight) and then various short trips / flights after that. I book the first one early when on discount. The short ones much later.

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

#162

Post by squeaky-clean »

eddmc wrote: post #160
squeaky-clean wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does each airline have their own way of exporting this data? Is there a single entity that aggregates from all of them? I work with a lot of smaller airlines, and from my experience I can tell you no. Many of them can't even tell you their actual route list or flight schedule or pricing logic. They typically buy a booking engine solution from just a few major players (Sabre, Amadeus, TravelPort) who do have central…

What is your specific use case? I used to work managing API's for one of the GDS companies For screen scraping, there are a number of companies that do this already for multiple carriers. I'd suggest making use of one of these rather than reinventing the wheel. Example: http://xmldocs.travelfusion.com

My project definitely isn't applicable because it requires caching prices, I don't remember why we were declined access for our other teams/products though. I would have to ask them, as it's been a while.

About screen scraping, I guess it depends on how quick you are at writing scraping scripts (and if you find it fun). I could probably write one faster than I could register for that API. You're also adding a layer between you and the prices. You don't know how long Travelfusion has cached these prices for, while it's simple to write a script that opens the real booking engine to get correct prices. I typically only run mine when I'm ready to purchase a ticket, but don't know which dates, rather than running it constantly to find deals.

And if I were doing anything more than a few routes on a few carriers, I definitely would use a real API instead of reinventing the wheel. In this case I just think it's kinda fun.

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

#163

Post by [deleted] »

stevesearer wrote: post #14
icebraining wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite is http://adioso.com , it's even cleaner than Google Flights and it has "Anytime" as a choice for date of departure.

I prefer Kayak Explore for flexible itineraries since it basically just shows you the best price everywhere and you can filter by price, time of year, flight length: https://www.kayak.com/explore/ EDIT: And here's a ridiculous itinerary it found for reference: $286, LAX Oslo Round Trip, December 2 - 6, Norwegian Airlines: https://www.kayak.com/flights/LAX-OSL/2016-12-02/2016-12-06/

[deleted]

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

#164

Post by TaylorGood »

stevesearer wrote: post #14
icebraining wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite is http://adioso.com , it's even cleaner than Google Flights and it has "Anytime" as a choice for date of departure.

I prefer Kayak Explore for flexible itineraries since it basically just shows you the best price everywhere and you can filter by price, time of year, flight length: https://www.kayak.com/explore/ EDIT: And here's a ridiculous itinerary it found for reference: $286, LAX Oslo Round Trip, December 2 - 6, Norwegian Airlines: https://www.kayak.com/flights/LAX-OSL/2016-12-02/2016-12-06/

SO good; thank you. Will start visiting random places.. thinking the formula is AirBNB + friends + random interests (tennis/spin) and long walks at the very least.

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

#165

Post by flashman »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #153
flashman wrote: post #147

I have time series data from over a thousand gas stations. How can I forecast the price of gas?

If that is all you have then you can't. (Unless you want to try seasonal forecasting, which seems like a bad idea in this case)

This is the average price from my city, which moves in cycles: https://www.accc.gov.au/sites/default/files/fuelwatch/sydney...

The baseline price is also related to the wholesale price of fuel, which is publically available.

It seems like it should be possible to forecast prices.

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

#166

Post by geverett »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #52
karakal wrote: post #23

I'm curious, how does one gain access to flight schedules/fares? Is this something that anyone can get their hands on and create a service (complexity aside), or do you need some sort of license that costs thousands of dollars? Does each airline have their own way of exporting this data? Is there a single entity that aggregates from all of them? How does the actual data look like? (Is it a dump every X hours, or some…

> Does each airline have their own way of exporting this data? Is there a single entity that aggregates from all of them? I work with a lot of smaller airlines, and from my experience I can tell you no. Many of them can't even tell you their actual route list or flight schedule or pricing logic. They typically buy a booking engine solution from just a few major players (Sabre, Amadeus, TravelPort) who do have central…

We built Hitlist (hitlistapp.com) to make this accessible to laypeople - I used to do the same thing you mention, scraping specific routes I knew I was going to fly. It's far from perfect but makes it easier to browse lots of date/destination options at a time.

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

#167

Post by geverett »

cbr wrote: post #109
Quinner wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google hooks into the systems that want Southwest to pay, it's not directly making that decision.

Even then, though, I'd still be very surprised if Google would respond to an offer of seat availability data from Southwest with "sorry, we won't let people search it unless you pay us".

Google works with a few airlines that don't pay them anything. However, Southwest (probably rightly) thinks that if people get used to finding Southwest fares on Google, they'll visit Southwest.com less frequently, increasing Southwest's reliance on Google in the long term. I'm nearly certain Southwest has sent a specific cease and desist to Google to NOT include its fares in results.

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

#168

Post by geverett »

icebraining wrote: post #7
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…

My favourite is http://adioso.com , it's even cleaner than Google Flights and it has "Anytime" as a choice for date of departure.

Hitlist (hitlistapp.com) is also designed specifically with flexibility in mind - we don't have every single route on every day, but we let you set an alert with whatever criteria you have in mind - from 'SFO to London on these days +/- 3 days' to 'a beach in southern Europe for 7-10 days between January 8th and 31st' - and can ping you when fares that match come up.

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

#169

Post by cbr »

geverett wrote: post #167
cbr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even then, though, I'd still be very surprised if Google would respond to an offer of seat availability data from Southwest with "sorry, we won't let people search it unless you pay us".

Google works with a few airlines that don't pay them anything. However, Southwest (probably rightly) thinks that if people get used to finding Southwest fares on Google, they'll visit Southwest.com less frequently, increasing Southwest's reliance on Google in the long term. I'm nearly certain Southwest has sent a specific cease and desist to Google to NOT include its fares in results.

Yes, Southwest asking Google not to include their fares in results seems likely to me.

(This thread started with me arguing that "it costs money to be there" was not the reason Southwest flight prices aren't in Google.)

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