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CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

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Re: CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

#11

Post by xb95 »

Flightfox is neat, but the thing that wasn't super clear and I found out later, after paying a finder's fee, is that you have to go through hoops to book your tickets.

This isn't just -- they put it together and you click a button and suddenly you have your tickets.

This is "now you have to spend hours on the phone, attempting to book these tickets, and you don't have enough information to really do it -- nor enough confidence to pull it off".

So I love Flightfox and I hope they succeed, but I'm hoping to save time -- and Flightfox definitely doesn't. It saves you money at the cost of adding a lot of extra time to your booking process, but that's not a tradeoff that is apparent from the start, IMO.

Re: CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

#13

Post by richiezc »

iag wrote: post #10
richiezc wrote: post #7

Interesting, may I ask how much did you pay out as the finders fee? I see lots of promise in these types of crowd sourced activities and I'd like to compare the cost to self described "experts" who do this type of trip planning as a side business. Also I'm curious did you consider a RTW ticket?

Finders fee was $500, but I added a few bonus prizes for fun you can read about it here: http://flightfox.com/contest/36810 Yes, I considered doing a RTW ticket. It was way more expensive ($20k min vs. $7500 cheapest itinerary from the experts). The price differences were astonishing.

Seems reasonable.

Flight hacks and getting the most out of my frequent flyer miles is somewhat of a hobby of mine, I'd bet there is a high correlation between flightfox experts and people on flyertalk.com

Re: CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

#14

Post by iag »

ttbmike wrote: post #12

Pretty interesting service! I'm always surprised that human experts can challenge algorithms in setting up travel itineraries. I wonder how much time an average expert spends putting these proposals together?

From my quick survey, it took them between 20-30 hours of work to build my itineraries for me.

So by a rough estimate, I saved hundreds of hours by running this contest rather than doing everything myself.

Pretty amazing stuff, I think I will make Tim Ferris proud.

Re: CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

#15

Post by laumac »

xb95 wrote: post #11

Flightfox is neat, but the thing that wasn't super clear and I found out later, after paying a finder's fee, is that you have to go through hoops to book your tickets. This isn't just -- they put it together and you click a button and suddenly you have your tickets. This is "now you have to spend hours on the phone, attempting to book these tickets, and you don't have enough information to really do it -- nor enough…

Thanks for the feedback, we're looking into booking options now so that you don't have spend time trying to book yourself.

For others it has been an easy process to book as we have some verified travel agents on board. Other times when your trip is super complex, you may have to book on different websites. We're definitely aware that it's a friction point though so we're trying to fix it asap.

Re: CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

#16

Post by laumac »

iag wrote: post #8
inspiredworlds wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey thats awesome! I've started following your journey via your LinkedIn blog. You also had a really good slide deck on China ecosystem. 29 country trip - that's epic. Its a great use case for Flightfox. My gut feeling at the moment is that its better for more complicated trips - multi-hop or where there is some kind of complexity like carrying a surfboard or if you have several kids, etc... Nice work Lauren & Todd -…

Yep that is correct. For simple trips you can just use Kayak, but as soon as you start to deal with multi-hop, points purchase and all sort of crazy tricks, you need a service like FlightFox.

Also anything that's not your normal trip. I.e. travelling with pets or surfboards, help using frequent flyer miles, help getting frequent flyer status, or just going to a new country that you've never been before.

Re: CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

#17

Post by MichaelGG »

The thing that bothers me here is the same as with 99Designs. You pay an award fee but that only goes to the winner, right?

After using 99Designs a couple of times, I'm happy with the results, but probably won't use such a system again; it just feels a bit exploitative. I know, people elect to enroll in the system and compete so it's "fair" that way, but it just feels sorta icky to know I had X people spending so much time on my project and they get no compensation at all.

Maybe on FlightFox trips are usually shorter, easier, and less money, so it's not as bad - is that the case?

Re: CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

#18

Post by xb95 »

laumac wrote: post #15
xb95 wrote: post #11

Flightfox is neat, but the thing that wasn't super clear and I found out later, after paying a finder's fee, is that you have to go through hoops to book your tickets. This isn't just -- they put it together and you click a button and suddenly you have your tickets. This is "now you have to spend hours on the phone, attempting to book these tickets, and you don't have enough information to really do it -- nor enough…

Thanks for the feedback, we're looking into booking options now so that you don't have spend time trying to book yourself. For others it has been an easy process to book as we have some verified travel agents on board. Other times when your trip is super complex, you may have to book on different websites. We're definitely aware that it's a friction point though so we're trying to fix it asap.

I wasn't aware of/able to find the travel agents, so I paid the finder's fee but never actually booked tickets. It was too intimidating for me and I was too worried about ending up with half of the tickets and the other half becoming unavailable and ending up holding expensive partials.

Anyway, I'd be happy to pay for someone to handle it -- I'd even pay going rates -- but the whole process of me having to take the itinerary to someone else (that I have to find via Yelp or some other vehicle) or spend time on the phone with a couple of airlines is just too much for me. I'm super busy, and my expertise lies in tech -- not travel. :(

Re: CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

#19

Post by xb95 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #17

The thing that bothers me here is the same as with 99Designs. You pay an award fee but that only goes to the winner, right? After using 99Designs a couple of times, I'm happy with the results, but probably won't use such a system again; it just feels a bit exploitative. I know, people elect to enroll in the system and compete so it's "fair" that way, but it just feels sorta icky to know I had X people spending so muc…

In my case on Flightfox, the person was clearly just using some software. The time investment was probably minutes.

The value for me is that this person knows all of the rules -- cheap legs, good days to fly, how to get X or Y, fare codes, etc. Plus they have the underlying software that powers ticket searching, they don't have to use ridiculously terrible web portals like us normal folk.

In my case, Flightfox took what was a simple round trip "I am flying to Sydney for a conference" for $2400 and turned it into:

* Fly to Sydney * Return via Manila, stop for a week * Return via Hong Kong, stop for a few days * Return to San Francisco

They teased out my layovers into full-fledged stops, and brought the total cost down to $2100. They found a way to get way more value out of this trip than I would have otherwise.

Of course -- then they gave me a pile of fare codes and letters and said "call the airline, good luck!" I haven't actually booked the tickets. :(

Re: CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip

#20

Post by tlrobinson »

Is there a more complete service, like a travel agent, to help book an entire trip? e.x. I want to go to a beach in country A, B, or C, on X dates, I prefer Y type of hotel/resort, my budget is $Z, what are my options?

So far I've been using a combination of TripAdvisor, Hipmunk, etc, but it's still really painful.

I looked into using an old school travel agent, but it seems like they work on commission from the hotel, which doesn't really align incentives. I like Flightfox's model where the fee is simply based on complexity.

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