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Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

blog.jonlu.ca

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Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#71

Why is there no interface that allows searching for flights without specifying exact dates? All I want to do is fly from A to B to A. Maybe stay a week, maybe two. I'm flexible - it doesnt have to be exactly N days starting on the M'th. Even services that "allegedly" advertise they have that, still require manually clicking every day combination. I'd fly more often if it was easy . The few times I tried, it would be…

Google Flights will render a whole calendar of prices.

[deleted]

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#72

Why is there no interface that allows searching for flights without specifying exact dates? All I want to do is fly from A to B to A. Maybe stay a week, maybe two. I'm flexible - it doesnt have to be exactly N days starting on the M'th. Even services that "allegedly" advertise they have that, still require manually clicking every day combination. I'd fly more often if it was easy . The few times I tried, it would be…

Have you seen a site that does that really well, UX-wise?

I'd assume it's two reasons: first that it's hard to get the UX right. There are going to wind up being so many combinations of possibilities that I'm not sure how you'd even sort them in a meaningful way. (E.g. it's unlikely price from lowest to highest will be the most meaningful, the lowest price alone might wind up having 100 different date combinations, so figuring out how to present the options in a meaningful way might just be something we haven't figured out yet.)

But second, it might just be too computationally expensive. You see how slow sites already are just for searching a single date, because there are so many possible combinations of connections to consider, and so many fare rules to calculate prices out of. Now a 2-week range for both start and end results in taking almost 200 times longer. It just might not be feasible, or worth the programming effort. I remember a blog post a long time ago from Kayak (I think?) talking about the insane effort that was required to cache flight fares just so show simple fare comparisons across a few days... and it only worked for the flights that were more commonly searched for.

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#73
post #4

Off-topic but related: https://scottscheapflights.com is _amazing_. The Premium sub is worth every penny...my wife and I will be doing a ton more overseas travel in 2019 purely because of the deals this site finds.

I got into churning airline miles then manufactured spending (generating spend on credit card to earn miles) and now have over 10 million miles. I also heard one of the biggest groups of manufactured spend are developers within Google. I belong to a private slack with over 80 folks doing this as a hobby so we can do first class/business class international travel and hotel stays for free. If anyone is into it as as w…

Churner, curious for more. Email's in my profile. Thanks!

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#74
post #4

Off-topic but related: https://scottscheapflights.com is _amazing_. The Premium sub is worth every penny...my wife and I will be doing a ton more overseas travel in 2019 purely because of the deals this site finds.

I got into churning airline miles then manufactured spending (generating spend on credit card to earn miles) and now have over 10 million miles. I also heard one of the biggest groups of manufactured spend are developers within Google. I belong to a private slack with over 80 folks doing this as a hobby so we can do first class/business class international travel and hotel stays for free. If anyone is into it as as w…

Super interested in joining this Slack - steve at stevedomin dot com. Thanks!

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#75

Why is there no interface that allows searching for flights without specifying exact dates? All I want to do is fly from A to B to A. Maybe stay a week, maybe two. I'm flexible - it doesnt have to be exactly N days starting on the M'th. Even services that "allegedly" advertise they have that, still require manually clicking every day combination. I'd fly more often if it was easy . The few times I tried, it would be…

kiwi.com allows searching for time of stay, e. g. between 2-10 days, but not providing any exact dates.

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#76

Why is there no interface that allows searching for flights without specifying exact dates? All I want to do is fly from A to B to A. Maybe stay a week, maybe two. I'm flexible - it doesnt have to be exactly N days starting on the M'th. Even services that "allegedly" advertise they have that, still require manually clicking every day combination. I'd fly more often if it was easy . The few times I tried, it would be…

Maybe https://adioso.com is close to what you want. I found it recently but I have not tried it yet

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#77
post #4

Off-topic but related: https://scottscheapflights.com is _amazing_. The Premium sub is worth every penny...my wife and I will be doing a ton more overseas travel in 2019 purely because of the deals this site finds.

I got into churning airline miles then manufactured spending (generating spend on credit card to earn miles) and now have over 10 million miles. I also heard one of the biggest groups of manufactured spend are developers within Google. I belong to a private slack with over 80 folks doing this as a hobby so we can do first class/business class international travel and hotel stays for free. If anyone is into it as as w…

I'd be very interested in this to pass on to my wife - she's been playing this game for a long time now. My e-mail's in my profile.

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#78
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the purpose of making a flight reservation without payment?

Many airlines require you to have an onward flight out of a country before they will let you fly into it. This allows you to fulfill the technical requirement without having to pay for a plane ticket you aren't planning to use.

Why do airlines allow unpaid reservations? That seems ripe for Denial of Service attack on their booking plans.

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#79

Why is there no interface that allows searching for flights without specifying exact dates? All I want to do is fly from A to B to A. Maybe stay a week, maybe two. I'm flexible - it doesnt have to be exactly N days starting on the M'th. Even services that "allegedly" advertise they have that, still require manually clicking every day combination. I'd fly more often if it was easy . The few times I tried, it would be…

Have you seen a site that does that really well, UX-wise? I'd assume it's two reasons: first that it's hard to get the UX right. There are going to wind up being so many combinations of possibilities that I'm not sure how you'd even sort them in a meaningful way. (E.g. it's unlikely price from lowest to highest will be the most meaningful, the lowest price alone might wind up having 100 different date combinations, s…

I've seen a few airlines have grids where the outbound and return flights are shown on each access, which I think is great. I'm thinking of Air New Zealand as the last airline I saw it so maybe it benefits from a smaller network as you say.

Re: Ryanair, Hamiltonian Cycles, and using graph theory to find cheap flights

#80

Hacking PNR https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7964-where_in_the_world_is_carme... at time of the talk (2 years ago) used/discussed these sites: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/ to get detailed fare rules & restrictions https://www.expertflyer.com & https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/seat-alerts/id533533342 https://www.checkmytrip.com/ allows entering name & booking-reference and gives all detail https://www.viewtrip.com/ https…

What is the purpose of making a flight reservation without payment?

Slightly tangential, but in fact all flight reservations through a travel agency are initially made without payment. The entire process is quite complex, due to compatibility with processes and systems that were built in the 70s... The flow is to create the booking (and hence receive a record locator or PNR), and then to attach a form of payment. If the payment matches the cost, it is then possible to request ticketing, at which point a ticket number will be generated, which is the "real" confirmation
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