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Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

bonbook.co

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Re: Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

#31

Post by themagyar »

ipdashc wrote: post #29
danpalmer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> often waste a huge amount of time find the best flight Would you trust that this would book you the "best" flight? Every user has a different definition of "best" – cheapest, shortest, fewest stopovers, shortest stopovers, airline preference, lounge preference, seat preference, time of day preference... Personally I find Google Flights gives me the right amount of detail and I book flights I'm happy with.

Yeah, I'm kind of surprised by all the uniform praise in the comments - NOT saying it's not a cool tool, it's definitely very impressive and the author's done a nice job, but I could never really see myself using this. Mainly just because flights are super expensive, I can't see myself trusting a bot to make the best choice instead of spending 10 minutes of my own time to potentially save a lot of money. I guess it's…

Worth noting: if you don't specify a time of day in your search, you will see the cheapest flight on that day.

Bots can analyze several thousand flight options (which even the sim does) in a few seconds. So odds are it catches a deal someone might otherwise miss.

Also, because BonBook searches direct w/ airlines, it sees inventory not shared with Google (and regularly has better fares).

Re: Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

#33

Post by zacmps »

themagyar wrote: post #28
dankwizard wrote: post #25

Is this US only? Nothing is working for me in Australia

The email sim doesn't allow booking but should still work to demo functionality. And it's not geo-limited. What are you seeing?

For me the demo pulled up flights, but in USD, I'd need it to be localised to be useful.

Airlines also tend to present different prices for different locations/currencies so I doubt this would be as simple as a UI change (though that would still go a long way!).

Re: Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

#34

Post by matt3D »

themagyar wrote: post #17
dddw wrote: post #16

> No cheap carriers by design Why no love for the frugal ?

Different mindset. BonBook is targeted at travelers solving logistics problems who make lots of repeatable decisions and fly often (eg. need to be in X at Y). No saying what can be done with time.

While that's a good point, I think it would be wise for them to incorporate budget airlines if they are looking at the European market.

There are so many routes that are served exclusively by budget airlines.

Re: Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

#35

Post by themagyar »

drewrbaker wrote: post #32

Would love to be able to have this buy my the flight at an optimal purchase time. Like I say “LAX to JFK for Jan 10th to Jan 15th, between $400 and $600” and it will wait until that is seen and then buy for me. That would be a real new feature.

Calling it 'scheduled booking'. It's on the roadmap :)

Re: Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

#36

Post by ipdashc »

themagyar wrote: post #31
ipdashc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm kind of surprised by all the uniform praise in the comments - NOT saying it's not a cool tool, it's definitely very impressive and the author's done a nice job, but I could never really see myself using this. Mainly just because flights are super expensive, I can't see myself trusting a bot to make the best choice instead of spending 10 minutes of my own time to potentially save a lot of money. I guess it's…

Worth noting: if you don't specify a time of day in your search, you will see the cheapest flight on that day. Bots can analyze several thousand flight options (which even the sim does) in a few seconds. So odds are it catches a deal someone might otherwise miss. Also, because BonBook searches direct w/ airlines, it sees inventory not shared with Google (and regularly has better fares).

Interesting, the last one is pretty surprising. I kind of just assumed all airline booking systems (Expedia, Google Flights, Kayak, whatever) all used the same underlying service - maybe SABRE or something, but that's a total shot in the dark. Would love to hear what the difference is, assuming you're comfortable with sharing!

Re: Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

#37

Post by themagyar »

zacmps wrote: post #33
themagyar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The email sim doesn't allow booking but should still work to demo functionality. And it's not geo-limited. What are you seeing?

For me the demo pulled up flights, but in USD, I'd need it to be localised to be useful. Airlines also tend to present different prices for different locations/currencies so I doubt this would be as simple as a UI change (though that would still go a long way!).

Yes, the demo doesn't localize results. And Beta doesn't have currency support just yet but it's on the list.

Beyond the price differences, airlines also grant scoped 'ticketing authority' in jurisdictions (eg. can only sell these tickets in EU or US+Canada etc).

Re: Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

#38

Post by padolsey »

I imagine this is a much harder problem than meets the eye. Even for my own travel, there are like a dozen things I'm trying to optimize for. Time, money, seat, travel to/from airport (traffic, train cost, taxi pickup/dropoff ease), lounge quality, layover length or complexity vs cost calculus, loyalty program, airport navigation, airport amenities, flight hospitality quality etc. etc.

When an AI can take into account all these subtleties and work reliably then yeh, I'd give it a go. But for now I'm kinda ~ok with the time cost of finding a non-rubbish flight.

I guess this is where 'travel agents' once used to shine.

Also: I want to be _absolutely_ certain the flight was booked -- that nothing was dropped, that no weird API failed to callback, that no letter was dropped from my name, that no silly email parser thought I meant London, Ontario, Canada.

Ps. Cool demo!

Re: Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

#39

Post by themagyar »

ipdashc wrote: post #36
themagyar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting: if you don't specify a time of day in your search, you will see the cheapest flight on that day. Bots can analyze several thousand flight options (which even the sim does) in a few seconds. So odds are it catches a deal someone might otherwise miss. Also, because BonBook searches direct w/ airlines, it sees inventory not shared with Google (and regularly has better fares).

Interesting, the last one is pretty surprising. I kind of just assumed all airline booking systems (Expedia, Google Flights, Kayak, whatever) all used the same underlying service - maybe SABRE or something, but that's a total shot in the dark. Would love to hear what the difference is, assuming you're comfortable with sharing!

Can share a bit of background: (TLDR; airlines want to keep more profit so are witholding some fares.)

A system called GDS (Global Distribution System) was built in the 60s as a data transmission standard. Was used by airlines to publish fares (among other things). But it was complicated so aggregators (Sabre, Amadeus, Travelport) were born to ingest all this published data and make it easily searchable.

When travel went online in the late 90s, Online Travel Agents (OTAs) were using this data, and since then most new OTAs have too. (An example; Expedia's first patent minimized GDS searches per customer request, saving them $$).

But, because OTAs take a cut and airline margins are thin, IATA (group of airlines) came up with a new system called NDS (New Distrubution Standard) in mid 2010s. Since its an XML standard that anyone can consume direct, airlines have been trying to push everyone onto NDC by simply not publishing certain tickets via GDS, requiring OTAs to book X% of tickets via NDC and even removing inventory entirely.

Some examples: American trying to go full NDC recently but getting pushback and Turkish Airlines pulling out of Sabre.

Re: Show HN: Book and change flights with one email

#40

Post by themagyar »

padolsey wrote: post #38

I imagine this is a much harder problem than meets the eye. Even for my own travel, there are like a dozen things I'm trying to optimize for. Time, money, seat, travel to/from airport (traffic, train cost, taxi pickup/dropoff ease), lounge quality, layover length or complexity vs cost calculus, loyalty program, airport navigation, airport amenities, flight hospitality quality etc. etc. When an AI can take into accoun…

Thanks. Definitely more complicate than originally imagined.

A lot of this can be done automatically with time (eg, already built an auto-seat algo), but there is a reason the beta is focused on frequent fliers solving logistics problems and making repeatable decisions :) That said, think you'll be surprised by how well it optimizes already.

During beta onboarding, you make an account with all travel info (no need to parse this). Travelers also confirm their booking before purchase ("checkout" links to a page with all flight info in a lot more detail instead of 'access' link). And BonBook sends a confirmation email post-booking (required by federal regs).

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