You're Invited to Test My Flight Booking Engine • Hacker News Board

Re: You're Invited to Test My Flight Booking Engine

#11

Post by rutledjw » Fri, Apr 19, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

moftz wrote: post #8

rutledjw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you booked via credit card, protest. you have a 90-day window. You should get your cash back. Doesn't matter what the airline says. This is part of the agreement between Merchants - Banks - Visa/MC. You'll get that $ back, granted, you still have to buy a more expensive ticket. Still, it's something

I did do a chargeback with my venture card and thankfully got it all back. Luckily I found flights to an even better destination on Air Italy for cheaper than what Wow Air ended up being. The starting price for Wow Air was pretty cheap but after you pay for all the extras, it cost more than other flights that include all of those features.

Ha. The irony of the ultra-LCC carriers. #eyeroll

Re: You're Invited to Test My Flight Booking Engine

#12

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 19, 2019, 8:42 PM UTC

mandeepj wrote: post #10

moftz wrote: post #5

What would your application offer that Google Flights can't do? I have a pretty good experience using Google for researching and either booking or being linked to a booking site. I can bypass Priceline (and it's child companies) and get linked directly to the airline I need. Only times I have a bad experience is when the price on Google Flights doesn't match the actual price that the airline shows on their site but t…

> "Hey, this airline is going bankrupt" Ha ha. How many times have this happened so far?

[deleted]

Re: You're Invited to Test My Flight Booking Engine

#13

Post by quickthrower2 » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 3:00 AM UTC

"I can sell a rock on a Palo Alto street corner for $5,000". ...yeah maybe I could but I'm not a drug dealer.

Re: You're Invited to Test My Flight Booking Engine

#14

Post by gesman » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 3:11 AM UTC

moftz wrote: post #5

What would your application offer that Google Flights can't do? I have a pretty good experience using Google for researching and either booking or being linked to a booking site. I can bypass Priceline (and it's child companies) and get linked directly to the airline I need. Only times I have a bad experience is when the price on Google Flights doesn't match the actual price that the airline shows on their site but t…

I wonder the magic CostcoTravel does.

10 days trip to Italy, 4 stars hotel in Florence, business class flight in Air France including business class transfers both way $7700 - for 2 people - ALL above included.

Try to book this thing via Google or any other means

Re: You're Invited to Test My Flight Booking Engine

#15

Post by notoriousjpg » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 7:52 AM UTC

metanoia wrote: post #9

Out of interest: What's your data source for this? The GDSs have most things locked down unless you are a huge customer, and Google/ITA seems super expensive.

Yeah i'm curious too. Seems way too good to be true.

Re: You're Invited to Test My Flight Booking Engine

#16

Post by metanoia » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

gesman wrote: post #14

moftz wrote: post #5

What would your application offer that Google Flights can't do? I have a pretty good experience using Google for researching and either booking or being linked to a booking site. I can bypass Priceline (and it's child companies) and get linked directly to the airline I need. Only times I have a bad experience is when the price on Google Flights doesn't match the actual price that the airline shows on their site but t…

I wonder the magic CostcoTravel does. 10 days trip to Italy, 4 stars hotel in Florence, business class flight in Air France including business class transfers both way $7700 - for 2 people - ALL above included. Try to book this thing via Google or any other means

That's good old negotiation and group purchasing there. No fancy tech required, just a relatively performant CRUD app and integration into travel GDS (reservation) systems.

Re: You're Invited to Test My Flight Booking Engine

#17

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

moftz wrote: post #5

What would your application offer that Google Flights can't do? I have a pretty good experience using Google for researching and either booking or being linked to a booking site. I can bypass Priceline (and it's child companies) and get linked directly to the airline I need. Only times I have a bad experience is when the price on Google Flights doesn't match the actual price that the airline shows on their site but t…

[deleted]

Re: You're Invited to Test My Flight Booking Engine

#18

Post by metanoia » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

The distribution problem has been solved for many years - travel agents were disrupted in the first wave of the web. Hipmunk tried to create a friendlier UX than what Kayak, Expedia, et. al were trying to provide, but it wasn't a step change.

I think RouteHappy was the last travel startup that caught my attention. In fact, I was thinking of doing the same thing, but they beat me to it :) They brought visibility to data about the flights such as seat width, pitch, inflight entertainment/connectivity, inflight power, etc. that had been hiding in other places (SeatGuru, various travel review and business travel interest sites such as TPG).

But, they were acquired, which meant that they were more a feature than an independent distribution channel.

I'd love to see what this person is doing but as a viable business, based on current travel-agency-commission business models, I can't imagine anything that couldn't be copied by the big travel companies in an instant.

We need new business models here, or at least a strong incentive to go back to fee-for-service travel agents...