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The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

flightfox.com

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Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#71

Post by mseebach »

todsul wrote: post #53
mseebach wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geography nitpick: The airport in Istanbul is actually east of the Bosporus, making it Asia.

Hey mseebach, We had a few issues in the beginning defining these border countries and decided to allow Istanbul as Europe, but will definitely group it for Asia in future. We had a handful of difficult decisions, but luckily the winning entry visited all continents without contention. Guam was the tough one for us. Would you say Oceania?

For the winning intinerary, it's a moot point as both Europe and Asia are represented at different stops.

Istanbul Atatürk (TAV) airport is Europe, Sabiha Gökçen (SAW) is in Asia. The border is the straight of Bosporus.

Continents are a rather vague concept[1]. Any definition is going to be arbitrary. For the purposes of your contest, I think the spirit would be to have gone to the continents "proper", i.e. I wouldn't count Guam at all, but say the continents are the mainlands of: NA, SA, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, Antarctica. I'd be inclined to allow New Zealand as part of Australia as the only exception.

1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34

Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#72

Post by ajays »

I am curious about the scalability of such an endeavor. If you have to verify the fares by hand, you need a certain minimum amount of return before it becomes worth it.

For example: I live in SFO. I might want to fly down to Vegas for the weekend, any weekend from now till (say) September, for $150rt. How much overhead would you charge to make it worth your while?

Also: how do you settle disputes? Say I get an itinerary from the contest (supposedly verified by you), and it doesn't work for me. Now what do I do?

And finally (apologize for too many questions): what about travel documents? Apparently, even if you're transitioning through LHR, you need a British visa if you're not from a certain blessed list of countries. What if I don't have a visa, but you end up sending me through London?

Please don't get me wrong: I like the idea. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how it can be scaled.....

Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#73

Post by [deleted] »

todsul wrote: post #57
kapkapkap wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people most of us are curious to see the detailed results but I don't think more than a few people would be willing to shell out any $. Perhaps consider opening up the detailed results for this contest as a one-time-thing? I think that the interest+publicity you will receive (in addition to already being #1 on HN) would greatly out-weigh the few hundred bucks that you might get from a handful of people who'd…

Love the idea; we'll definitely give it some thought, especially how the experts can profit from these fees well after they post the flight option. Aside: we really didn't expect this post to get to the top of HN. Our intern was running around the apartment saying, "I told you we should have planned better."

[deleted]

Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#74

Post by 3JPLW »

todsul wrote: post #40

Here are the winning flight details: This is a 6-Continent RTW itinerary for $1,730. We personally verified that it's a valid itinerary, and at the time of checking, all flights could be booked. JFK 18-Oct-2012 GEO 18-Oct-2012 Delta (New York, US to Georgetown, Guyana) GEO 25-Oct-2012 JFK 25-Oct-2012 Delta (Georgetown, Guyana to New York, US) JFK 14-Nov-2012 TXL 15-Nov-2012 Air Berlin (New York, US to Berlin, Germany…

Because I was curious, here are the days of the week that the expert used for the travel:

  Sunday:    1
  Monday:    1
  Tuesday:   5
  Wednesday: 1
  Thursday:  3
  Friday:    1
  Saturday:  0
One other dimension of purchasing tickets is when they are bought. Prices fluctuate; do you have any thoughts on incorporating expert advice on waiting for a last minute fare or otherwise optimizing the purchase date?

Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#75

Post by starpilot »

todsul wrote: post #40

Here are the winning flight details: This is a 6-Continent RTW itinerary for $1,730. We personally verified that it's a valid itinerary, and at the time of checking, all flights could be booked. JFK 18-Oct-2012 GEO 18-Oct-2012 Delta (New York, US to Georgetown, Guyana) GEO 25-Oct-2012 JFK 25-Oct-2012 Delta (Georgetown, Guyana to New York, US) JFK 14-Nov-2012 TXL 15-Nov-2012 Air Berlin (New York, US to Berlin, Germany…

$1,730 for six continents‽ My roundtrip ticket from Los Angeles to Kathmandu, Nepal was $1,800!

Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#76

Post by martindale »

There doesn't appear to be a way to register without creating a contest. As someone who'd doesn't have any trip plans right now (and doesn't want to clutter your database with fake data), I'd like to know if there's a simple registration page? I tried just /register to no avail.

Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#77

Post by toomuchtodo »

todsul wrote: post #58
skeletonjelly wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of interest, how hard is it to get data feeds? Do you have to pay or is cost based on referrals? Do you have to enter an agreement? Understand if you can't answer.

List price (for minimum monthly spend) is in the 10s of thousands, but of course everyone does deals to reduce fees at this level. The problem is that those data feeds don't hold the key to the best flights. We're trying to leverage the stuff that won't be in data feeds for at least a decade (likely forever).

So coming up with your own data feed from human-generated/sourced data? ;)

Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#78

Post by lukeholder »

damian2000 wrote: post #60
todsul wrote: post #40

Here are the winning flight details: This is a 6-Continent RTW itinerary for $1,730. We personally verified that it's a valid itinerary, and at the time of checking, all flights could be booked. JFK 18-Oct-2012 GEO 18-Oct-2012 Delta (New York, US to Georgetown, Guyana) GEO 25-Oct-2012 JFK 25-Oct-2012 Delta (Georgetown, Guyana to New York, US) JFK 14-Nov-2012 TXL 15-Nov-2012 Air Berlin (New York, US to Berlin, Germany…

Its fascinating that some of these destinations seem initially to be way off the beaten track, e.g. Kiev, Perth, Agadir. Never thought they would feature on any cheapest RTW itinerary.

Perth is not off the beaten track. It's the San Fran of Australia!

Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#79

Post by lusr »

todsul wrote: post #40

Here are the winning flight details: This is a 6-Continent RTW itinerary for $1,730. We personally verified that it's a valid itinerary, and at the time of checking, all flights could be booked. JFK 18-Oct-2012 GEO 18-Oct-2012 Delta (New York, US to Georgetown, Guyana) GEO 25-Oct-2012 JFK 25-Oct-2012 Delta (Georgetown, Guyana to New York, US) JFK 14-Nov-2012 TXL 15-Nov-2012 Air Berlin (New York, US to Berlin, Germany…

Very cool site. I'd love to send friends a link to your site and have the itinerary information visible right there on the site -- otherwise you're expecting me to send non-technical people a link into HackerNews to see the details. I know already that will absolutely confuse them and turn them off from the site.

Consider opening up flight itineraries to the public for certain contests if you're trying to gain as much as possible from this sort of public exposure? (Even if that means paying the original contest creator back their $500, that's nothing given the future business you'll generate. Right now this link simply can't spread until more information is visible.)

Re: The Cheapest Route to 6 Continents

#80

Post by robbiep »

taligent wrote: post #61
damian2000 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its fascinating that some of these destinations seem initially to be way off the beaten track, e.g. Kiev, Perth, Agadir. Never thought they would feature on any cheapest RTW itinerary.

Perth is the cheapest way to visit Australia if you are already in the Asia region.

that depends. Cheapest to get there? Because a cup of coffee there will set you back more than in sydney these days
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