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Get away with Google Flights

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Re: Get away with Google Flights

#31

Post by solve »

"cheaper isn’t always better"

BS. Non-business flights are the most price-sensitive type of product there could possibly be.

Near 100% of people only apply a few very basic filters, e.g. no 12-hour layovers, doesn't depart at 5am, and then choose the cheapest. It's not some sophisticated "balance" that needs some advanced machine learning or personalization to accomplish. It's a few obvious filters that are the same for practically everyone.

I'd love to see partial dependance plots for each of the obvious filtering factors, vs how often people chose that flight. That's the best way to do this type of analysis.

Not to mention that many times the cheapest flight listed on these travel sites isn't actually available when you try to book it. Wonder how that may have skewed Google's analysis.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#33

Post by dheera »

Awesome. I can never understand what antiquated database and UI the other flight reservation websites are using. Simple database queries take 10+ seconds, and then you have to click N more times to get the taxes included.

Why can't I query for

    SELECT * FROM tickets WHERE sqrt((destination_latitude-desired_latitude)^2 - (destination_longitude-desired_longitude)^2)
with proper geoindexing and sharding this query should take no more than a fraction of a second, yet airline websites want me to use some stupidly-designed UI that can't implement above query, takes 10+ seconds to return results, and doesn't include the taxes and fees. Thus I need to often manually enter every destination within 5000km and every date combination and manually waste half a day to find the cheapest ticket to "anywhere interesting".

Furthermore often times changing the language and country of the website changes ticket prices; a well-designed, globally-consistent database should not allow this to happen.

I hope that Google will disrupt and reengineer this ancient system.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#36

Post by drzaiusapelord »

dheera wrote: post #33

Awesome. I can never understand what antiquated database and UI the other flight reservation websites are using. Simple database queries take 10+ seconds, and then you have to click N more times to get the taxes included. Why can't I query for SELECT * FROM tickets WHERE sqrt((destination_latitude-desired_latitude)^2 - (destination_longitude-desired_longitude)^2) with proper geoindexing and sharding this query should…

For the same reason I can't just renew a domain at Network Solutions without going through eight different pages trying to upsell me things (and often defaulting to checking on those services).

Expedia, Orbitz, etc make money via nag screens and upsells. They have no incentive to make the experience positive or easy. Google seems to.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#38

Post by dheera »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #36
dheera wrote: post #33

Awesome. I can never understand what antiquated database and UI the other flight reservation websites are using. Simple database queries take 10+ seconds, and then you have to click N more times to get the taxes included. Why can't I query for SELECT * FROM tickets WHERE sqrt((destination_latitude-desired_latitude)^2 - (destination_longitude-desired_longitude)^2) with proper geoindexing and sharding this query should…

For the same reason I can't just renew a domain at Network Solutions without going through eight different pages trying to upsell me things (and often defaulting to checking on those services). Expedia, Orbitz, etc make money via nag screens and upsells. They have no incentive to make the experience positive or easy. Google seems to.

I switched to Namecheap; they sell stuff but are not annoying about it.

Google Domains also looks promising but I'm waiting for them to not be in beta lest they decide to scrap the product. Google would win me over if they offered free SSL certificates. In fact I think they should go ahead and disrupt the SSL industry by doing that too. Nobody should have to pay for a silly cryptographic signature. That would disrupt NS and all the others who try to upsell stuff.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#39

Post by analyst74 »

radiorental wrote: post #32

Don't know where they're getting their data from. Boston-dublin in Oct is over $1300 on google flight with Aerlingus Same flight directly on the airline's website is $940. Good luck with that, Google.

Last time I tried it in 2014 for international flights, Google Flight also seems to be a few hundred dollars more expensive than other travel sites.

Re: Get away with Google Flights

#40

Post by aembleton »

radiorental wrote: post #32

Don't know where they're getting their data from. Boston-dublin in Oct is over $1300 on google flight with Aerlingus Same flight directly on the airline's website is $940. Good luck with that, Google.

How does SkyScannner compare for that flight: http://www.skyscanner.net/

I've always found them to be good.

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