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

121–127 of 127 posts

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

#121

Post by rjd »

cwp wrote: post #103
rjd wrote: post #28

I've been doing this for years. After I noticed most places are cheap to get to but flights are expensive back. I noticed the same business model was in place from the other direction. So just fake the country of origin and you get cheap to and back. The other one is clear your cookies before booking. Places create fake demand by disappearing the cheap flights on you if you shopping around. If you clear your cookies…

So you book two one-way tickets? AFAICT, that's usually not cheaper.

Yeah thats right, quite often to holiday destinations they run specials like flights to Croatia $200, but you try and get a flight back $600. They recoup the costs on the return flight you need to take.

But if you're in Croatia you can get flights to London $200 etc... geofenced deals marketing deals to try and coerce people into taking holidays.

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

#122

Post by rjd »

homersapien wrote: post #112
cwp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you book two one-way tickets? AFAICT, that's usually not cheaper.

No, he changes his country of origin to C then books a round trip from A to B. It is sometimes cheaper that way.

That actual works as well, don't book anything from South Africa I found out as I was booking my mates flights. You could knock several hundred off by going through an Australian or UK proxy. I believe from memory it was the same agency as well. Just changing the domain brought up vastly different prices on the same flights.

But no as I mentioned above lots of holiday destinations have cheap tickets inbound, but out bound are expensive. I first noticed it travelling from London to Croatia.

It was like $200 flight to Split, but the flight home was double or triple. I hopped on a proxy, and found I could get the reverse deal from Split to London. $200 to London, $600 back home to split. So I started gaming the system.

The agencies are hedging on the fact you have to take the return flight. So they coerce you into the cheap flight to location X, but claw the money back with the return flight which I guess the vast majority of people have to take.

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

#124

Post by thoughtpalette »

goatforce5 wrote: post #119
dclowd9901 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, definitely appropriate abbreviation for the airplane nuts at Hacker News. It's an interesting TIL, but for future reference, @WildUtah, I'd wager less than 1% of the population knows anything about airline designations.

They're on every boarding pass anyone has ever handled, and there are screens full of them on the Departure/Arrival boards at every airport. Airline codes aren't that obscure...

I wouldn't say they're common knowledge either. Sure, when ones traveling they may notice their abbreviation, but beyond a glance, it's not of much import to most.

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

#126

Post by coin »

goatforce5 wrote: post #119
dclowd9901 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, definitely appropriate abbreviation for the airplane nuts at Hacker News. It's an interesting TIL, but for future reference, @WildUtah, I'd wager less than 1% of the population knows anything about airline designations.

They're on every boarding pass anyone has ever handled, and there are screens full of them on the Departure/Arrival boards at every airport. Airline codes aren't that obscure...

Maybe overseas, but I've never seen IATA airlines codes used on an arrival/departure board in the US. Is the US we just spell out the airline, there are plenty of pixels.
Post reply on HN