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Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

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Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#51

Post by kenrose »

duxup wrote: post #47

"70% of corporate travel is booked without any tool or agency" That always bothered me. We used this middle man agency ... there was no savings, I still just booked it myself for the most part. I just had to use their crappy site. I did not understand the point of that, but man it was policy.

At my previous company, I was once told the reason was integration with their accounting systems and enforcement / guidance around travel policy. e.g., don’t spend more than $X / night at a hotel in a certain city.

Definitely seemed like these middleman agencies were a solution to a problem faced by the finance team.

Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#52

Post by tejasmanohar »

11235813213455 wrote: post #50

Can it take into account climate changes as well? And reduce/optimize travels, favor train, ..

Yes. We have "customer personas" that we bucket companies into and allow custom rules on top of that... though we don't believe they're usually actually necessary.

Do you wanna use Carry at work? Happy to talk to you / employer.

Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#53

Post by duxup »

kenrose wrote: post #51
duxup wrote: post #47

"70% of corporate travel is booked without any tool or agency" That always bothered me. We used this middle man agency ... there was no savings, I still just booked it myself for the most part. I just had to use their crappy site. I did not understand the point of that, but man it was policy.

At my previous company, I was once told the reason was integration with their accounting systems and enforcement / guidance around travel policy. e.g., don’t spend more than $X / night at a hotel in a certain city. Definitely seemed like these middleman agencies were a solution to a problem faced by the finance team.

Yeah I suspect that was it.

Oddly, I don't think a lot of this stuff really accounts for the complexities in air travel.

Like I literally couldn't rent certain types of cars ... and the no cars.... all in the name of saving money.

But I could take a taxi everywhere for 150% of the cost of car rental (at least) because you still had to get from A to B.

The end result was "don't check that box!" but any other box was ok even if it did the same thing or worse.

Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#54

Post by kashishg »

adaorardor wrote: post #20
cptaj wrote: post #15

Here's a killer feature everyone wants: I want to put a date range and get the cheapest plane tickets. Big range, I want to find the cheapest time of the year to fly and plan my vacation. Nobody lets you do this.

Agree, this would be super useful! Have you tried Skyscanner's whole month feature? I believe they allow you to search for the cheapest tickets within a month and (if I remember right?) even within the year.

This one is the best by far, Google Flights 2nd place. Sometimes our agents even use the Skyscanner matrix for our users because it's so good.

Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#55

Post by inputcoffee »

duxup wrote: post #47

"70% of corporate travel is booked without any tool or agency" That always bothered me. We used this middle man agency ... there was no savings, I still just booked it myself for the most part. I just had to use their crappy site. I did not understand the point of that, but man it was policy.

Don't you think it was policy so they can capture the information and get reporting?

Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#56

Post by tejasmanohar »

Hi HN! We've been impressed with the response here. Y'all must love travel.

If you use Slack and want to get started using Carry for your team, we've created a temporary link while we're on the front page to go ahead and install Carry. Here's the flow:

- Go to https://carry.travel/hnpromo

- Select your team's workspace in the top right

- For "Post to", select "Slackbot" or anything (this step is annoying, sorry-- we'll fix)

- Click "Install" (You may have to ask an administrator depending on your settings)

- Send a _direct message_ to @Carry on Slack saying anything

If your team uses another platform or wants to get in touch, schedule a demo (under the request access button, https://carry.travel/) or email tejas [at] carry [dot] travel, and we'll be in touch.

Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#57

Post by kashishg »

sdinsn wrote: post #31
cptaj wrote: post #15

Here's a killer feature everyone wants: I want to put a date range and get the cheapest plane tickets. Big range, I want to find the cheapest time of the year to fly and plan my vacation. Nobody lets you do this.

Google Flights does this

Recently discovered that Google flights not only has a matrix when you're choosing dates, but also has an even better one after you've already chosen dates to view the price differences for +/- 5 days on both the departure and arrival.

Just click on "Date Grid" after you search for your query and it will give you a matrix. I can't believe I just found this!

Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#58

Post by tejasmanohar »

duxup wrote: post #53
kenrose wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my previous company, I was once told the reason was integration with their accounting systems and enforcement / guidance around travel policy. e.g., don’t spend more than $X / night at a hotel in a certain city. Definitely seemed like these middleman agencies were a solution to a problem faced by the finance team.

Yeah I suspect that was it. Oddly, I don't think a lot of this stuff really accounts for the complexities in air travel. Like I literally couldn't rent certain types of cars ... and the no cars.... all in the name of saving money. But I could take a taxi everywhere for 150% of the cost of car rental (at least) because you still had to get from A to B. The end result was "don't check that box!" but any other box was o…

Yeah, that's another big problem. Rules are complex, but most companies in the space are taking a simple approach by defining static rules rather than ones built on top of market conditions that humans can easily reason about (eg "this non stop flight is $500 more, is it worth it? it's the only reasonable way to be awake during tomorrow's meeting"). It's all very broken, and we're hoping to solve it

Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#59

Post by Rebelgecko »

duxup wrote: post #53
kenrose wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my previous company, I was once told the reason was integration with their accounting systems and enforcement / guidance around travel policy. e.g., don’t spend more than $X / night at a hotel in a certain city. Definitely seemed like these middleman agencies were a solution to a problem faced by the finance team.

Yeah I suspect that was it. Oddly, I don't think a lot of this stuff really accounts for the complexities in air travel. Like I literally couldn't rent certain types of cars ... and the no cars.... all in the name of saving money. But I could take a taxi everywhere for 150% of the cost of car rental (at least) because you still had to get from A to B. The end result was "don't check that box!" but any other box was o…

I recently had a fun experience with something called the "Fly America Act", a law which says that when the US government is paying for your travel you have to fly on a US flagged airline.

For my trip, the flight would've been about 6 hours (direct!) and cost $600 on a foreign airline. On the cheapest US carrier, the flight was about $850 and took 10 hours due to a layover. When you take hourly rates into account, it easily cost the government an extra $1000 for me to travel on the US airline.

I wish I could've taken the direct foreign flight and just sent United a check for $250. Would've been a win/win for everyone— the American airline gets its corporate welfare without any of the costs they incur when someone actually gets on their plane, and I wouldn't have had to waste 4 hours of my life each way sitting in an airport to satisfy a dumb law.

Re: Launch HN: Carry (YC S19) – We Book Travel for You on Slack

#60

Post by tekacs »

This reminds me of Magic (https://magic.gd) or Fin (now defunct, https://fin.com - a closer match, with a similar if broader mission).

Hopefully the narrower scope will allow you to escape the issues that Fin ran into, trying to bolster their team. :)

Magic has fixed pricing for some tasks, including travel booking I believe - so hopefully Carry is (or becomes) either less expensive or higher quality.

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