Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

josecasanova.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 127 posts

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#31

Post by rll »

blazespin wrote: post #27

I've often hacked Kayak by booking flights to other destinations with a stopover at the place I want to go. It's bizarre, but yes, they're sometimes cheaper. "opaque and manipulative" indeed.

That only works for one-ways or on the return portion. Once you miss a segment the rest of your ticket is canceled at that point, so be careful.

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#33

Post by eli »

TillE wrote: post #17
testaccount4 wrote: post #15

>(BTW, I use the VPN to mask my internet traffic… sorry NSA). >BTGuard > >mfw oh hackernews..

BTGuard is based in Canada and they have a strict policy of not keeping logs. What's your point?

Well, for one thing, you've taken your domestic internet traffic -- which has legal protections against many types of NSA intrusion -- and traded it for foreign traffic which has virtually no protection.

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#35

Post by saryant »

blazespin wrote: post #27

I've often hacked Kayak by booking flights to other destinations with a stopover at the place I want to go. It's bizarre, but yes, they're sometimes cheaper. "opaque and manipulative" indeed.

This is called hidden-city ticketing, it's not new.

Most airlines forbid it in their contract of carriage. There's also no guarantee that you'll keep your stopover city—you could get rerouted through another hub and would have no recourse.

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#36

Post by acjohnson55 »

joelrunyon wrote: post #13
alexhutcheson wrote: post #8

Does source IP address make a difference when searching fares on ITA Software's Matrix[1]? To my knowledge, ITA Software is where Kayak and many of the other booking sites get their data, so it's normally what I use when searching for flights. Since they don't actually sell tickets, I've always assumed I'm seeing "neutral" results, but now I'm curious. [1] http://matrix.itasoftware.com

Google bought out itasoftware so I'm not going to assume that it's completely neutral, but I have consistently seen the best deals come through that. I don't even bother using Kayak anymore as the "calendar" function on itasoftware is so much more useful for someone like me with a relatively flexible schedule on most of my trips. I can't confirm, but I assume from personal experience that kayak increases prices on fl…

I've had this anecdotal experience as well. How is this legal?

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#37

Post by notahacker »

alexhutcheson wrote: post #8

Does source IP address make a difference when searching fares on ITA Software's Matrix[1]? To my knowledge, ITA Software is where Kayak and many of the other booking sites get their data, so it's normally what I use when searching for flights. Since they don't actually sell tickets, I've always assumed I'm seeing "neutral" results, but now I'm curious. [1] http://matrix.itasoftware.com

ITA software might be "neutral", but it omits certain carriers that don't supply fare rules to it, excluding many low cost carriers, for instance. As such, I can beat it without trying very hard simply by going to direct to the websites of the likes of Ryanair or AirAsia if I know they're operating on a particular route, which is a shame, because I like their interface. Or, in this instance, Southwest.

Some of the travel sites using ITA's QPX API to drive their booking engine get prices from these other airlines via direct feeds or web scraping, but as pointed out here, they can be quite selective in what they're willing or able to show

It's still ludicrously easy to trip up the flight comparison services up with edge cases like the short domestic Yangon-Mandalay route, where ITA finds nothing, most booking engines offer ridiculously expensive flights connecting in China or Bangkok, whilst Innovata Quicktrip (which you should use when you're convinced there are direct flights the big sites aren't showing you) shows multiple direct flights a day with 6 different local airlines, provided you don't mind their clumsy twentieth century booking operations.

TLDR: Use Quicktrip (which doesn't give direct prices) to check if there are budget airlines or local airlines also flying on direct routes that the big search sites might not be showing, and try these unlisted airlines' websites direct if they seem more promising.

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#39

Post by kylec »

grecy wrote: post #38

Startup idea: A site that uses a bunch of VPNs in different countries to look for flights on the big search sites. Whichever is cheaper is presented as the one to buy. It could of course be extended beyond airline travel...

Be prepared to be blocked. Each search on a site like Kayak costs money, and if a bunch of searches are being done automatically it will lower the conversion rate, which meta-search sites and their partners watch closely and care deeply about.

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#40

Post by calbear81 »

jcutrell wrote: post #7

This sounds quite familiar to the manipulation Orbitz did in 2012 based on the user's reported operating system: http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/25/orbitz_displaying_...

That is incorrect and unfortunate that it left the wrong impression in user's minds. Orbitz did not price up hotels based on OS, they chose to change the list of options presented to users based on OS. This is no different than what we simply call "personalization". If a user found the Wynn on a Mac or a PC, they were the same exact price, all that was different was what position that hotel was in in the default sort order.
Post reply on HN