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Hipmunk Says Goodbye

hipmunk.com

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Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye

#241

Post by splonk »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #221

I used to use Hipmunk, but at this point, I’ve built up a lot of airline loyalty and often find booking directly with the carrier or through a credit card portal (if I’m using points) for personal travel gives me the best fare. All my business travel has to go through Concur anyway, so search tools like Hipmunk and Kayak don’t matter, no matter how nice the interface. When I didn’t fly all the time, I didn’t care abo…

> Hipmunk's parent company got a piece of my $60k in travel last year (most of that was work, maybe $2500 was personal), because that’s where your percentages can matter.

I think for corporate travel management, the fee structure is usually $X per transaction, rather than a percentage of the fare, although I can't speak to exactly how Concur charges, and it'll differ depending on the size of the customer. Average ticket prices for corporate airfare are likely considerably higher than for consumer, since that's where the majority of business class and refundable tickets are sold.

Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye

#242

Post by cutenewt »

mike_d wrote: post #171
mbesto wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flights are just not that profitable. Trivago, Kayak, etc would say otherwise. Yes margins are slim, but this is a classic case of why no UI/UX will ever trump mass distribution. OTAs are basically the walmart of the digital world.

> Trivago, Kayak, etc would say otherwise. Trivago is in the hotel business, which has better margins. Some sites like Expedia will actually take a loss on a flight if you book it with a hotel or rental car, which they make a profit on. Kayak (and the rest of the Priceline/Booking.com group) takes a much more advertising driven model. You'll notice the site has lots of pushes to sign you up for their various mailing…

It's odd to see so many commenters insist that there's money to be made in flight search, despite not having industry experience.

This comment nail it dead-on. Flights are a loss leader. It's the gateway to more profitable travel services like booking hotels, which ironically have shrinking margins over the last few years.

There's no need for an OTA middleman when a hotel can build a direct relationship with the customer (via loyalty programs).

Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye

#243

Post by wiggler00m »

seltzered_ wrote: post #57

There'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…

Can anyone explain the issue of hiding fares in more detail? Which fares? Where? When? Why?

Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye

#245

Post by gregmac »

johnhess wrote: post #51

This is a shame, and says more about the consolidation of the tech industry than Hipmunk's product. One of Hipmunk's founders spoke to a course that I was in about their experience as a founder and how they were running their business. A few weeks later, a well known founder of another travel search company visited the class and said outright that if Hipmunk did have any success, that they would copy those features a…

They did? Who copied their features (particularly the awesome visualization)?

Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye

#246

Post by wrkronmiller »

Jasper_ wrote: post #216
wpietri wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The industry of mobile apps and games has seen rates go unsustainably low, often to 99c or free, causing them to make up the difference with in-app purchases, ad networks, tracking, and lots and lots of psychological tricks. Nobody can dare simply sell a game on the iOS or Google Play store for $5 or $10 anymore, because there's far more "free" ones out there. This has turned lots of people off of these storefronts.…

I wonder how much these in-app-purchase tactics would be mitigated by Apple/Google listing the median per-person spend for each app: e.e “Free (with average $5.00 in-app fees)”

Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye

#247

Post by dnautics »

munificent wrote: post #183
devcpp wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh hell no. More lawyers to find more loopholes. How about addressing the root cause: the lack of competition? The way to do this is lower the barrier to entry, which is made of 100% over-regulation. You can involve all the antitrust you want, as long as you don't lower the barrier to entry you're just lying to yourself and adding more useless middlemen.

If you remove regulations, businesses will raise barriers to entry. Businesses don't like to compete. Competition is a zero-sum game that they might lose. Instead, they prefer to form cartels and turn it into a non-zero sum game where they all win (and consumers all lose). World history clearly shows that lack of regulation inexorably leads to trusts, cartels, price fixing, price dumping, and all sorts of other anti-…

But what is the minimum size for a business to "get so big they have taken over control of regulation"? I have seen very small companies (like, think size of one) deftly manipulate state- and federal- level regulations to their advantage.

Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye

#248

Post by sbierwagen »

205guy wrote: post #226
wpietri wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This exact scenario happened in Hawaii, a small regional market for local (inter-island) flights. There were 2 airlines (Hawaiian and Aloha) competing on price and service, but it was essentially a duopoly with moderate and almost identical prices. Then both started expanding their routes to the mainland US, got overextended when the next downturn hit and declared bankruptcy one after the other (they kept flying at t…

I do not see how this is an example of what GP was speculating about. Flights between Hawaiian islands still exist, they just cost more now. What GP seemed to be gesturing at is price competition killing an entire market segment, and nobody moving in afterwards to occupy it again.

Re: Hipmunk Says Goodbye

#249

Post by mmhsieh »

So what's the new Hipmunk? Most other sites - Orbitz, Travelocity, etc. - are pretty terrible. HM got more crashy over the last year but even with that, still better than the alternatives.
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