Earlier quoted context omitted.
Southwest doesn't give out its pricing information at all. Which is why hipmunk didn't have it.
Not very consumer friendly.
Transfarency
Hipmunk Says Goodbye
231–240 of 347 posts
Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "It’s also obviously illegal" I'm not sure it's as obvious as the author assumes. In the shopping sector, there's a concept of 'minimum advertised price' that every online store respects, which is set by manufacturers under the same carrot-stick arrangement (i.e. it's the price the manufacturer believes would drive the value of the entire market sector down if it were common, shopping aggregators aren't allowed to…
> if sale below M.A.P. drops the bottom out of a market and kills an industry, the product can disappear from common production and the consumer doesn't benefit in the long run Is there an example of this happening anywhere in recent history? I ask because it seems absurd to me that there is an industry so fragile that retailers taking a bit less profit would lead to sudden, total collapse. (And doubly absurd this mi…
Huh? Airlines have a long history of self destruction through price wars. When I was in college, I would fly southwest to catch baseball games in Baltimore, for less than $100.
Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye
#233This is a long time coming: for more context, Hipmunk was acquired by Concur back in 2016 for $58MM [1] as the flights meta-search business was just getting tougher and tougher As someone who's dabbled in flights bookings (BookWithMatrix) and now am working on a travel startup (Wanderlog, https://wanderlog.com , a Google Docs/Trips for travel planning), flights are just not that profitable. In North America, you'd be…
Huh, Wanderlog looks a hell of a lot like what I've been playing with for the past few weeks, after unexpectedly gaining much free time just before Christmas, and failing to find something similar for my own use!
I'd definitely be dropping you a line if a) I was anywhere near North America and b) a Javascript guy...
Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye
#234Hipmunk was simply the best. Very clean interface, no frills, quite thorough (except southwest), best presentation, easy to sort/evaluate ... A cute chipmunk. Looking at the three alternatives from all the other comments (google, matrix and skyscanner), they seem 5 or so years behind the times.
Southwest doesn't give out its pricing information at all. Which is why hipmunk didn't have it.
It does to certain business travel platforms (search for "swabiz"), and I believe they're expanding that exposure through their integration with Amadeus. Whether they plan it make it available on consumer sites eventually, I don't know.
Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google Flights is faster than Kayak was.
Faster at populating the date grid? Or just a snappier UI in general?
Google Flights immediately populates the date grid with price estimates after you pick a date. I have yet to see a competitor that has this feature.
Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye
#236Damn, I've been a Hipmunk user since the very start. Probably 50 different flights through them. Can anybody recommend a replacement, particularly the sort-by-price, sort-by-agony, and the visual UI?
I would have paid a 2-5% HipMunk fee to not have to go to all of the individual websites..
Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye
#237I'll miss Hipmunk. My career as a video producer started by creating an animation explaining their service back in late 2010. At that time, Alexis Ohanian was their marketing principal and he introduced me to many YC startups in need of similar videos. Soon after, I got to meet him, Adam Goldstein, and Ashton Kuther in person at SxSw 2011. Super nice people. Fond memories!
Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe but in this case, a lower barrier to entry wouldn't have helped but regulation would have.
How would you lower the barrier to entry into something like Facebook or Amazon? Or Google trips for that matter? Or in this example, Hipmunk?
Require federation. And prohibit dropping interoperability.
Remember that golden era when XMPP was federated across Facebook, Google Talk, AOL, etc. It wasn't perfect but did give users more options.
Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye
#239Damn, I've been a Hipmunk user since the very start. Probably 50 different flights through them. Can anybody recommend a replacement, particularly the sort-by-price, sort-by-agony, and the visual UI? I would have paid a 2-5% HipMunk fee to not have to go to all of the individual websites..
I've been using google flights after Hipmunk started losing carriers.
Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye
#240There's a number of comments about how hipmunk declined or didn't have good prices. It reminded me of a recent Matthew Stoller piece ( https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-wave-of-terror-in-ame... ) : "Similarly, I spoke on a panel a few months ago in Congress on airlines, and Adam Goldstein, the former CEO of flight travel booking site Hipmunk, talked as well. I used to love Hipmunk, but it’s terrible now and I do…
I tried Hipmunk once because I loved the site's personality, but it wasn't able to find any flights on Delta to Atlanta (Delta's primary hub). As much as I liked the site, the inability to find such a basic route made me lose confidence in it from the start :(
I tried delta.com but it wasn't able to find some international flights on their own alliance airlines. I called them about this and they confirmed this is done deliberately when booking using points. This made me lose confidence in delta.com and I went back to using Skyscanner.
(Yes it's basically a scam that their "partner" airline flights are hidden when buying with points.)