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

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

#171

Post by kobeya »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #165
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...

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

Southwest never will. It is against their values and how they differentiate themselves.

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

#172

Post by adventured »

jmarbach wrote: post #72

Disclosure: I built a competing tool for finding cheap flights, https://concorde.io . I think the secret of Scott's success is his incredible writing ability. Finding the cheap flights is the easy part. Communicating with users in a way that consistently wins over their hearts and minds takes a high level of consideration and creativity. This writing ability combined with his co-founder's understanding and applicatio…

Suggestion for your site. I'd change the front page header text that says: "Discover cheap flights with Concorde."

It's not the text I disagree with it, it's how you're using it. You've made it so that you have to mouse over that text to make it react (segments change color) and figure out that each section may be clickable (how do I know where they go, if I'm an average user and don't necessarily know to look at the url hover at the bottom of the browser?).

Why is it an issue? It's extraordinarily bad usability, because there's nothing above the fold on your site that says: sign up. Not anywhere. There's a weird text in the upper right that says "Discover" that is changing colors, but gives no indication that it links to /sign-up. From a logical usability stand point, why would the "Discover" text be the /sign-up link, as opposed to just having a "Sign up | Login" segment.

You're trying too hard to be clever / creative, you're over-doing it and it's a bad usability outcome.

At the top, I'd keep the large text that is making a clear statement. Then place two or so lines of descriptive text below it, with blatant links to signing up etc. Or some variation on this. You have plenty of room to work with up in the header area.

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

#173

Post by Thrymr »

xadhominemx wrote: post #163
ghostly_s wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You really don't see how being called out on the loudspeaker could be insulting even if the ticket buyer was fully aware of the service difference (which they may not be)?

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

#174

Post by joemi »

stillhere wrote: post #132
bkidwell wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I'm just going to post the same response I used in the IndieHackers comment section for someone with a similar concern. Here's what I said: "Our subscribers are too important to us to ever sell their information to someone else. We never have and never will sell users information like that. Our only source of income is subscriptions and occasional advertisements in the free emails. Ruining our reputation to make…

"ever have and never will" Except you do.

You're confusing the email subscription terms with the giveaways terms. "ever have an never will" refers to the email subscription. You have to specifically sign up separately for giveaways, and they have different terms and conditions from the email subscription.

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

#175

Post by downandout »

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!).

The funny thing is that not everyone may even know that they are on a "basic economy" fare and may not raise their hand - not out of a desire to cheat the system, but because somebody else booked their travel (corporate travel department, family member, etc.). That, in addition to the people that just don't want to be called out as cheap, will yield very few people voluntarily disclosing this on a crowded plane.

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

#176

Post by dreamrider »

dmalvarado wrote: post #145
downandout wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add-on fees have gotten out of control, both in the hotel and airline space. There is a race to the bottom for having the lowest price to show on booking sites. This is a form of SEO for airlines and hotels. I am not familiar with any airlines that charge for carry-ons, but for example I know that many hotels in downtown Las Vegas have mandatory "resort fees" that on many nights actually exceed the nightly rate shown…

Resort fees drive me crazy. It's one thing to charge for add-ons if you're taking a flight, because they're technically optional and there is a way to avoid them. But resort fees are mandatory. There's no way to opt of using the gym or the pool or whatever it is that they're charging for. That they are somehow not included in the list price defies logic.

And the worst of this is in Vegas. You wouldn't use any of their amenities and there they are collecting resort fee from you and then you end up spending another shit load of money gambling.

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

#177

Post by izacus »

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.

How do you "vote with your wallet" when your flight to see your family (or destination) is operated by a single airline and you have no choice?

Do you ever use brain when you repeat this religious mantra?

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

#178

Post by xadhominemx »

Thrymr wrote: post #173
xadhominemx wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You really don't see how being called out on the loudspeaker could be insulting even if the ticket buyer was fully aware of the service difference (which they may not be)?

Is it insulting when you have to sit in the normal seat pitch economy seat when the row in front of you paid more and received more knee space?

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

#179

Post by izacus »

joelrunyon wrote: post #140
ghostly_s wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consumer, the relevant word in that sentence is not "sell". The point is my email is being given to someone else, to do whatever they feel with it. Why would I care what in what form the original business is compensated?

Well in that case, by signing up for the giveaway, you're consenting to "giving" your email address to ALL of those companies that are sponsoring it. So in that case, you should have a nice little talk with yourself about whether the trip you want to win is worth 5 new services having your email address. Either way, the person making that call is YOU, not SCF (or any of the other companies participating).

Can you show me exact notification on the website where he consented to sharing the email address?

And you REALLY believe that using a search on a site suddenly is enough for your private data to be just given to any shady exploitative company on the planet? You really want to live in a world where you're badgered constantly and without pause by ads, scammers and phishers just because you want to use the internet?

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

#180

Post by akg_67 »

morgante wrote: post #70
smaili wrote: post #39

I hate to be the one to ask, but how much moat does this actually have? Couldn't Kayak literally just add a subscribe or alert me later input and have their massive infrastructure automate this very thing?

Kayak does have alert notifications. The thing is that if you're looking for a very specific destination, you'll almost never get the best deals. Flight deals work best for people who are very flexible about destination and timing.

Second this. Some of my friends and I use Scott's emails to discover cheap fares to any destination. We typically don't have any specific destination in mind.

When one of us sees Scott's email with attractive deal, we check Google flights for appropriate dates (typically 7-10 days trip) and ping each other to see who is interested in that trip and dates. Then we just book flights typically within 2-6 hours of receiving email. Afterward we research the destination, decide rest of the itinerary for the trip, and book AirBnBs.

We call it travel easter egg hunting.

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