Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

indiehackers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 244 posts

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#161

Post by OkGoDoIt »

willstrafach wrote: post #157
buckhx wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

United charges for carry ons. I had to book a flight day of for a family emergency and it was super inconvenient. I couldn't even find a fare class on United with carry ons that wasn't outrageous. You also can't check in ahead of time because they inspect you to make sure you aren't sneaking any carry ons.

This does not sound correct at all. A personal item and carry on are always free on legacy carriers like United. Are you sure this was not checked baggage?

I wish that were true, but things are changing. United is trying to compete with budget airlines by introducing a new fare class called economy basic. https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/bas...

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#162

Post by Simon_says »

gleglegle wrote: post #109
jontas wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiny suggestion: I was looking at flights and it was not immediately clear to me that Santa Cruz referred to Bolivia and not California. It almost made me disregard it and not click. May want to put the country name on the homepage as well.

Santa Cruz, Bolivia (pop. 1,640,615) is much larger than Santa Cruz, CA (pop. 64,465).

The number of people in Santa Cruz, Bolivia who have set foot on an airplane is probably comparably to the number in Santa Cruz, CA.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#163

Post by xadhominemx »

ghostly_s wrote: post #153
joelrunyon wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spirit airlines. Also many airlines are rolling out "basic economy fares" that don't include food/drink/carry-on and compete with low-cost carriers, but run on normal flights. What used to be "normal economy" now requires an "upgrade" or "add-on" - ugh.

Flew United recently and just after boarding they made an announcement asking if anyone had purchased one of these "basic economy" fares, presumably so they could exclude them from the twelve cents worth of pretzel+soda service. What a ridiculous and insulting system (not to mention poorly-managed!).

I don't see how you can find it insulting. You pay less because you receive a lower level of service and that includes the pretzels.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#164

Post by frenchie14 »

willstrafach wrote: post #157
buckhx wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

United charges for carry ons. I had to book a flight day of for a family emergency and it was super inconvenient. I couldn't even find a fare class on United with carry ons that wasn't outrageous. You also can't check in ahead of time because they inspect you to make sure you aren't sneaking any carry ons.

This does not sound correct at all. A personal item and carry on are always free on legacy carriers like United. Are you sure this was not checked baggage?

Read very carefully:

https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/travel/Pages/BaggageCarry-O...

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#165

Post by toomuchtodo »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #160
zjaffee wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of when? I've taken a ton of flights on united and never had to pay a carry-on fee. I've seen such fees on airlines like spirit or fronteer, but never on a "non-discount" airline.

United is piloting a new program called "Basic Economy" for flights to Chicago and probably other cities, which effectively turns them into Spirit or Frontier Airlines. It's incredibly crappy. My guess is within a couple years all airlines will be doing this. https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/bas...

Hopefully Southwest never goes this route. They are my favorite carrier.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#166

Post by dragonwriter »

frenchie14 wrote: post #164
willstrafach wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not sound correct at all. A personal item and carry on are always free on legacy carriers like United. Are you sure this was not checked baggage?

Read very carefully: https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/travel/Pages/BaggageCarry-O...

Technically, they aren't charging for carry-ons, just disallowing them (for Econ Basic) and leaving checking (and paying the checked-bag fee) as the only option.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#167

Post by robocat »

bkidwell wrote: post #94
jwong_ wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've looked at what gets sent out, but the e-mails sent for the Giveaways are extremely spammy. I get that you probably added it somewhere in the giveaway text, but from a post somewhere, it was indicated the giveaways were more to garner attention, not as a profit-making venture. It turned me off completely when I started getting those. It gave me a negative impression on both Scott's Cheap Flights…

Yeah I hear you. I really appreciate the feedback as well. We only try to partner with high quality companies. For example this Tokyo one were running right now is with journy, ProductHunt, theSkimm, The Wirecutter, and Conde Nast Traveler. All legitimate companies. It's unfortunate that their emails are seen as spam because that's not good for anyone. We'll keep this in mind moving forward. Thank you again :-)

Perhaps make your user enter their email again... To make it clear they are subscribing and giving their email out?

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#168

Post by OkGoDoIt »

chrisballinger wrote: post #64

Something I've noticed that's lacking from most aggregators like Kayak and SkyScanner (my current fave), is the ability to increase the price of the ultra-budget carriers by adding their carry-on baggage fees and whatnot. I don't care about checked bag fees, but some of the carry-on fees are ridiculous ($60 per overhead item?). These budget carriers are cheating the system by looking like the cheapest option, when in…

I 100% percent agree with you.

But on a practical note, some advice for those traveling on these budget airlines: if you pack your carry-on in a backpack rather than a suitcase, every budget airline in Europe and the US that I have flown on will not give you a hard time about it. I personally use a very large backpack that holds at least as much as a carry-on suitcase, yet the fact that it is in backpack form means they count it as my personal item and don't give me a hard time. When I travel I usually have a smaller laptop bag inside a compartment in my backpack, once I get on the airplane I take that out and keep it with me as a personal item (so I can easily access it inflight) and I put my backpack overhead like I would a suitcase. I have successfully done this on Frontier, Allegiant, Spirit, and Ryan Air within the last year and have not had any issues.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#169

Post by yellow_postit »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #160
zjaffee wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of when? I've taken a ton of flights on united and never had to pay a carry-on fee. I've seen such fees on airlines like spirit or fronteer, but never on a "non-discount" airline.

United is piloting a new program called "Basic Economy" for flights to Chicago and probably other cities, which effectively turns them into Spirit or Frontier Airlines. It's incredibly crappy. My guess is within a couple years all airlines will be doing this. https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/bas...

Most fliers want the lowest price, full stop. They'll complain about it to no end but will still keep voting for it with their wallets.

Must be an interesting challenge separating out real user issues from the volume of complaints about the service people were advertised and agreed to up front.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#170

Post by dragonwriter »

yellow_postit wrote: post #169
OkGoDoIt wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

United is piloting a new program called "Basic Economy" for flights to Chicago and probably other cities, which effectively turns them into Spirit or Frontier Airlines. It's incredibly crappy. My guess is within a couple years all airlines will be doing this. https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/bas...

Most fliers want the lowest price, full stop. They'll complain about it to no end but will still keep voting for it with their wallets. Must be an interesting challenge separating out real user issues from the volume of complaints about the service people were advertised and agreed to up front.

> Most fliers want the lowest price, full stop

Is it that most fliers want that, or is that headline ticket price is the easiest thing to compare with existing tools, and what people can compare easily shapes their selection criteria?

Post reply on HN