Fly to 6 Continents in Style • Hacker News Board

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#31

Post by todsul » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:07 PM UTC

volandovengo wrote: post #20

Great stuff Todd! Is there any way to ensure that the best experts bid on the flights submitted. Seems like a few people really are crafty with their details!

Hi there, really it comes down to the size of the finder's fee. For a trip that will cost a lot regardless, it's worth submitting a large fee to attract the best experts. We have almost 1000 experts, and the ones who win these RTW contests aren't necessarily the ones that can help you. Some people know certains countries or airlines better that others.

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#32

Post by qq66 » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:13 PM UTC

brk wrote: post #26

todsul wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 months traveling the world, having to eat "meals"... sounds terrible! :)

Well, it is for almost anyone with a halfway decent/steady job. What I'm saying is that it's kind of impractical for a lot people. I would expect a "contest" like this to have a winning result that was a little more practical from a total travel time perspective, or at the very least have 2 winning options, one for "Total trip time of 2 weeks or less" (granted this might have to be 3 or even 4 weeks if you're going t…

The contest had a specific set of rules and a 4-month itinerary was permissible within these rules. The point wasn't to create an itinerary that would be advisable for a particular individual, it was to demonstrate that FlightFox is a good tool for finding rock bottom prices, so any set of fair rules would work.

If you were actually making an itinerary for someone, you'd probably have even more pressing questions than trip duration, such as "Where would you like to go?" Do you even want to go 6 continents? :)

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#33

Post by todsul » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:19 PM UTC

brk wrote: post #29

todsul wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi brk, This was an in-house contest to test the skills of our experts. You can absolutely put up a similar contest to receive similar results. Love the idea about being able to book other flyers' itineraries. We're in a heavy product dev phase, so I'll share it with the team. Yes, in one sense we are bragging what real travel experts can do. The premise of Flightfox is, especially for high-value trips, you should le…

OK, thanks for the explanation. So, how exactly would I use the site for my benefit (honest question from someone who books about 50-70K flight miles per year)?

If you visit the homepage, there's a "Get Started" button. The next page is a form asking for your trip details. Once you complete the form and pay the finder's fee, experts start competing to build you the best itinerary. You can communicate with the experts during the process to specify preferences. Clearly it works best with higher-value itineraries.

A more high level explanation is that Flightfox is a marketplace for freelance travel agents (and flight experts). We're bringing human travel experts online with a new crowdsourced model. Because customers pay a fixed fee upfront, we hope to remove the dependence on commissions. With diminishing commissions on flights, it's difficult to find agents who'll take the time to find you the best flights. That's what we're aiming to fix.

For frequent flyers like yourself, we're currently building out features to also earn/spend miles. I'm not sure if you do mileage runs or book award flights, but this is where we could become much more interesting for you.

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#34

Post by _delirium » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:19 PM UTC

brk wrote: post #30

todsul wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here are some of the details of the business class itinerary for $3,630. Keep in mind that a similar itinerary from the same expert came in at $2569. That itinerary didn't win because we couldn't verify it online. The expert suggested it required a quick phone call. Los Angeles LAX to Sydney SYD Sydney SYD to Bangkok BKK Bangkok BKK to XXX XXX to XXX XXX to Cairo CAI Cairo CAI to London LHR London LHR to XXX XXX…

So who are these "experts"? Travel agents? What is the motivation to them to keep certain details secret?

Not sure if it applies to this particular one, but there are a lot of pricing quirks in international, multi-airline itineraries that one can exploit: airline fare rules are fairly complex lists of requirements/exclusion/combination/stopover rules etc., and the combinatorial complexity and ancient IT infrastructure it's all coded in sometimes produces results the airlines might not have intended had they realized it. Particularly lucrative combinations tend to get shut down once airlines notice them, so there's sort of an ethos of not talking about them openly in public. One exploit that was going around for a while, for example, was that certain combinations of cities/airlines would result in the fuel surcharge not showing up on a fare like you'd expect it to ("fuel dumping"); you could sometimes purposely add weird legs to make that situation come about, but weren't supposed to publicly post such a leg if you found one, lest it go away.

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#35

Post by todsul » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:24 PM UTC

tayl0r wrote: post #8

I really want to submit my upcoming trip to FlightFox but I'm not sure of the best time to do it and there also isn't a date range that is wide enough for what I want. I want to travel anytime in late October or November (5 week window vs the 6 day window the site allows). I have 2 adults and 1 lap infant. I am going one-way from Berlin, Germany to Orlando, Florida. When would be the best time to submit this trip? Is…

Hi tayl0r, yes, you can mention your extra flexibility in the description section of your contest. We're working on better handling flexibility, such as in your case around dates/times.

The best time to submit is sooner rather than later since, for the most part, fares go up, not down. 1200E is a fairly good price. However, if you want absolute rock bottom prices, make sure you say that in your contest and our experts will really go to work.

As you can imagine, not everyone wants the lowest price, especially traveling with an infant. But I highly recommend you give Flightfox a go and see how our experts can help you.

The great thing is it's often just $20 or $30, which is not a lot compared to the price of your trip. At worst, we can refund your fee, but more likely, you'll see how the experts work and may save a couple of hundred dollars.

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#36

Post by jlarocco » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:25 PM UTC

brk wrote: post #26

todsul wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 months traveling the world, having to eat "meals"... sounds terrible! :)

Well, it is for almost anyone with a halfway decent/steady job. What I'm saying is that it's kind of impractical for a lot people. I would expect a "contest" like this to have a winning result that was a little more practical from a total travel time perspective, or at the very least have 2 winning options, one for "Total trip time of 2 weeks or less" (granted this might have to be 3 or even 4 weeks if you're going t…

Yeah, I was interested until I found that part.

I think for most people, if they could afford 4 months off work then they wouldn't be too concerned about finding the cheapest possible flights.

It's still interesting in a theoretical way, but far less useful than the headline makes it sound.

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#37

Post by samstave » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:33 PM UTC

In October of 2000 I took a 5 month sebattical trip to backpack through SE Asia. The ticket was called a pan pacific ticket, it allowed for up to (I think 7) stops. You just called and scheduled the flight you wanted when you wanted it. It had no set itinerary, and the ticket cost $2,300.

I went from SFO to HK, and then hopped all around Tom Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and was planned to go to Sydney for the last stop, but had to come back early.

I spent five months total, most of the trip was in hostels and beach bungalows, I stayed in a hotel in hong long and spent nearly $3,000 there over two weeks.

I spent over a month on Koh Phangan in Thailand, at Haad Yao beach - all my meals, drinks and bungalow for that month, as well as all the meals and drinks for a girlfriend from germany who stayed with me a week: $250.

I'd love to do this again, but now I have kids and it will be until they are in their teens before I can take them on a similar trip.

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#38

Post by tayl0r » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:34 PM UTC

brk wrote: post #26

todsul wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 months traveling the world, having to eat "meals"... sounds terrible! :)

Well, it is for almost anyone with a halfway decent/steady job. What I'm saying is that it's kind of impractical for a lot people. I would expect a "contest" like this to have a winning result that was a little more practical from a total travel time perspective, or at the very least have 2 winning options, one for "Total trip time of 2 weeks or less" (granted this might have to be 3 or even 4 weeks if you're going t…

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to take an around the world trip in just 2 weeks. You'd end up spending the majority of your time on planes and barely being able to enjoy each stop.

Doesn't sound like very much fun to me.

For people who would actually book an around the world trip, 4 months is probably a much more realistic duration.

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#39

Post by todsul » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:37 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #34

brk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who are these "experts"? Travel agents? What is the motivation to them to keep certain details secret?

Not sure if it applies to this particular one, but there are a lot of pricing quirks in international, multi-airline itineraries that one can exploit: airline fare rules are fairly complex lists of requirements/exclusion/combination/stopover rules etc., and the combinatorial complexity and ancient IT infrastructure it's all coded in sometimes produces results the airlines might not have intended had they realized it.…

Hi _delerium, just for the record, these RTW itineraries do not contain fuel dumps. The prices have mostly come about from intelligent routing, which you rightly suggest is the work of humans better recognizing efficient combinations than websites using existing rigid algorithms and limited data sets.

We built Flightfox after living across 6 continents and learning this for ourselves. Often we'd save thousands just by spending a few hours on routing. Like most people who travel wide when they're young, the costs of flights became a primary expense. But even after we'd traveled for a while, it didn't get easier because for the most part, local knowledge is what makes the difference. Always traveling somewhere new meant we were always starting from scratch. Then it hit us... crowdsourcing.

Re: Fly to 6 Continents in Style

#40

Post by mcrider » Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 8:37 PM UTC

brk wrote: post #26

todsul wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 months traveling the world, having to eat "meals"... sounds terrible! :)

Well, it is for almost anyone with a halfway decent/steady job. What I'm saying is that it's kind of impractical for a lot people. I would expect a "contest" like this to have a winning result that was a little more practical from a total travel time perspective, or at the very least have 2 winning options, one for "Total trip time of 2 weeks or less" (granted this might have to be 3 or even 4 weeks if you're going t…

I can see this working out better for remote workers (like so many of us are). I don't know about other people, but I can pretty easily bring myself down to part time and work on the road -- on planes, in coffee shops around the world, etc. Enough so I can still enjoy the travels and yet make some income while I'm doing it.