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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

#11

Post by pgebhard »

MatthewB wrote: post #5
spez wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#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:)

Take a look at vroomvroomvroom.com. It's the site I always use for booking rental cars. Simple UI and no hidden fees.

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

#12

Post by bryanh »

I love Hipmunk, but I think they assume their superior interface warrants pretty radical price increases (anything over 5% is kind of ridiculous considering how easy it is to compare prices for the exact same flights with another competitor).

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it's never been worth it for me.

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

#13

Post by mathrawka »

I love the UI and use it pretty frequently, but I have never booked a flight through there site because they do not support flying with infants and children.

The prices for my most recent trip were the same for what I searched on Kayak actually, but it may be because that it was more short notice (2-3 weeks in the future).

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

#14

Post by purplefruit »

I was a relatively senior member at Expedia, and though there is an obvious bias, I think Hipmunk is a bit overrated. Here's why

(1) They don't own any relationships with suppliers. UI/UX matter, but any business owner will tell you that those relationships are where the money is. Hipmunk still has to give 50%+ of it's earnings away to those who own the relationships.

(2) Hipmunk's differentiating factor is its UI/UX, but frankly, I don't think it's all that amazing. Its structure and optimization are great for nerds like me who read hacker news, but try getting your parents (or people who spend big bucks booking travel) to use it. I have, and the resounding response is how difficult it is to use. Again, there is a market for their product, but I think it's designed by nerds for nerds

(3) 1 million flight + hotel searches a month is actually nothing with respect to the market, especially considering how much I see ads for hipmunk. Anyone can make a white-label travel site and pay for traffic.

I'm not trying to be a contrarian just to be an asshole. And Hipmunk might have great things in the pipeline, but for now, they're one of hundreds of travel sites in my opinion.

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

#15

Post by spez »

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.

Have an example? We should have the same fares as pretty much everyone else. There are some holes, but none in the US to my knowledge.

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

#16

Post by spez »

bryanh wrote: post #12

I love Hipmunk, but I think they assume their superior interface warrants pretty radical price increases (anything over 5% is kind of ridiculous considering how easy it is to compare prices for the exact same flights with another competitor). Maybe I'm missing something here, but it's never been worth it for me.

Price increases? We should have the same fares as everyone else online.

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

#17

Post by citricsquid »

purplefruit wrote: post #14

I was a relatively senior member at Expedia, and though there is an obvious bias, I think Hipmunk is a bit overrated. Here's why (1) They don't own any relationships with suppliers. UI/UX matter, but any business owner will tell you that those relationships are where the money is. Hipmunk still has to give 50%+ of it's earnings away to those who own the relationships. (2) Hipmunk's differentiating factor is its UI/UX…

They've posted here[1] and elsewhere they're focusing on point 1 a lot, they're trying to cut out the middle men.

[1] http://hackerne.ws/item?id=2914125

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

#18

Post by sterwill »

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.

In my case I always start with Hipmunk, find a schedule I like, then I check southwest.com and end up buying a similar flight at about 75% of the other airline price.

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

#19

Post by spez »

purplefruit wrote: post #14

I was a relatively senior member at Expedia, and though there is an obvious bias, I think Hipmunk is a bit overrated. Here's why (1) They don't own any relationships with suppliers. UI/UX matter, but any business owner will tell you that those relationships are where the money is. Hipmunk still has to give 50%+ of it's earnings away to those who own the relationships. (2) Hipmunk's differentiating factor is its UI/UX…

1) Not sure what you're basing this claim on, but it's false.

2) To each his own, I suppose, but I have conflicting anecdotal evidence. Hipmunk passes the "parents test" with all of our parents :) And as for "people who spend big bucks booking travel," I can point to the huge amount of email we receive from assistants who use us exclusively. Maybe we're not everything to everyone, but we're at least making some people very happy.

3) We do re-target quite a bit, and that's probably what you're seeing. Most of our growth has come organically, which again speaks to the fact that we actually do help people find planes / hotels in far less time than our competitors, including Expedia.

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

#20

Post by dasil003 »

purplefruit wrote: post #14

I was a relatively senior member at Expedia, and though there is an obvious bias, I think Hipmunk is a bit overrated. Here's why (1) They don't own any relationships with suppliers. UI/UX matter, but any business owner will tell you that those relationships are where the money is. Hipmunk still has to give 50%+ of it's earnings away to those who own the relationships. (2) Hipmunk's differentiating factor is its UI/UX…

You may be right about the relationships, and without that Hipmunk is vulnerable, but I think you're dead wrong about the UI.

The fact that old people don't "get" it just means they are used to the old UIs regardless of how crappy they are (a lot of them still call a travel agent due to sheer annoyance at the complexity of booking flights online). Most people do want the information that Hipmunk puts at your fingertips, and over time it will spread by word of mouth, and the younger generation who easily groks this type of UI will replace the aging population who hasn't grown up with deep data visualizations in their every day life.

Not every flight search is terrible on Orbitz/Expedia/Kayak, but I've done a few where all I could see was shit flights for pages and pages of results, and one search on Hipmunk yielded an obviously superior and amazing itinerary for $10 more.

Hipmunk may be weak on the pure business side, but they are one in a million on the UI side, and I predict that strength will take them places.

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