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1 year on, Hipmunk (YC S10) hits 1 million flight + hotel searches a month

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Re: 1 year on, Hipmunk (YC S10) hits 1 million flight + hotel searches a month

#2

Post by MatthewB »

I have used hipmunk a handful of times and it is dead simple to use.

I do have a few problems with it:

1. There have been a few times that I have found a flight only to click through to another online flight aggregator (orbitz etc) to find they don't have the rates specified on hipmunk. Very frustrating.

2. I hate, hate, hate dealing with other aggregators (again..orbitz etc). I don't know if they do this already or it is in their long-term plan, but Hipmunk would benefit from working directly with Airline companies. Apologies if they already do this and I didn't see it.

3. This is less of a problem and more of a request: rental cars! Please do for rental car search what you did for flight search. It took me hours to find a car to rent after searching through the usual suspect's websites (hertz, budget, avis). Their websites are beyond terrible. For example, I went to select the pickup location for a rental car (on Budget) and when I clicked the location, the page reloaded with zero error feedback. I assume there was a problem with my selection but how was I suppose to know what it is? I clicked all the options and it just kept reloading the page. Terrible.

Hipmunk is a great product tackling a hard problem. However, they have a lot of work to do. I will continue to use them and hopefully they will continue to improve. Great job so far.

Re: 1 year on, Hipmunk (YC S10) hits 1 million flight + hotel searches a month

#3

Post by dominostars »

MatthewB wrote: post #2

I have used hipmunk a handful of times and it is dead simple to use. I do have a few problems with it: 1. There have been a few times that I have found a flight only to click through to another online flight aggregator (orbitz etc) to find they don't have the rates specified on hipmunk. Very frustrating. 2. I hate, hate, hate dealing with other aggregators (again..orbitz etc). I don't know if they do this already or…

I can't agree with #2 enough, I've actually emailed support about it. The entire hipmunk experience feels ruined when I get forwarded to Orbitz.

Re: 1 year on, Hipmunk (YC S10) hits 1 million flight + hotel searches a month

#4

Post by spez »

MatthewB wrote: post #2

I have used hipmunk a handful of times and it is dead simple to use. I do have a few problems with it: 1. There have been a few times that I have found a flight only to click through to another online flight aggregator (orbitz etc) to find they don't have the rates specified on hipmunk. Very frustrating. 2. I hate, hate, hate dealing with other aggregators (again..orbitz etc). I don't know if they do this already or…

#1 We do our best to mitigate this. Unfortunately, it's also the nature of the business. Availability is constantly changing. What's really mindblowing is that Orbitz will often have flights in their own results that will error out. This isn't specific to Orbitz either, everyone has to deal with this.

#2 This is a big priority for us. We already have many direct deals, and more are on the way.

Re: 1 year on, Hipmunk (YC S10) hits 1 million flight + hotel searches a month

#5

Post by MatthewB »

spez wrote: post #4
MatthewB wrote: post #2

I have used hipmunk a handful of times and it is dead simple to use. I do have a few problems with it: 1. There have been a few times that I have found a flight only to click through to another online flight aggregator (orbitz etc) to find they don't have the rates specified on hipmunk. Very frustrating. 2. I hate, hate, hate dealing with other aggregators (again..orbitz etc). I don't know if they do this already or…

#1 We do our best to mitigate this. Unfortunately, it's also the nature of the business. Availability is constantly changing. What's really mindblowing is that Orbitz will often have flights in their own results that will error out. This isn't specific to Orbitz either, everyone has to deal with this. #2 This is a big priority for us. We already have many direct deals, and more are on the way.

How about #3? Maybe the lack of response to that means you're already working on it:)

Re: 1 year on, Hipmunk (YC S10) hits 1 million flight + hotel searches a month

#9

Post by saucerful »

shalmanese wrote: post #6

I want to love Hipmunk and I do a search on it every time I travel but Kayak has consistently returned flights that are $50 - $100 cheaper. I love the Hipmunk interface but not $100 worth.

Interesting-- before seeing your post I was already planning on asking how Hipmunk is better than Kayak, if at all...

EDIT: Okay, I tried Hipmunk for an upcoming flight.

Pros: It offers a 30 day window for a flexible date search as opposed just 7 days on Kayak. Pretty interface.

Cons: Far fewer search options. My fare was $150 cheaper on Kayak! (Chicago to Hawaii over New Years).

Re: 1 year on, Hipmunk (YC S10) hits 1 million flight + hotel searches a month

#10

Post by jsulak »

dominostars wrote: post #3
MatthewB wrote: post #2

I have used hipmunk a handful of times and it is dead simple to use. I do have a few problems with it: 1. There have been a few times that I have found a flight only to click through to another online flight aggregator (orbitz etc) to find they don't have the rates specified on hipmunk. Very frustrating. 2. I hate, hate, hate dealing with other aggregators (again..orbitz etc). I don't know if they do this already or…

I can't agree with #2 enough, I've actually emailed support about it. The entire hipmunk experience feels ruined when I get forwarded to Orbitz.

Agreed. In the past, I've used hipmunk to find a flight, and once I found myself forwarded to Orbitz, went to the airline's site and looked up the same flight manually.
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