

Hitlist, a Smart Flight Finder That Saves You Money by Telling You When To Fly - geverett
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/07/hitlist-a-smarter-flight-finder-that-saves-you-money-by-telling-you-when-to-fly-exits-beta/
&#x27;Hitlist, meanwhile, hasn’t so much invented the concept rather than re-imagined it for the mobile age, with “lean-back” search in mind.&#x27;
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ignostic
Okay, so I thought I'd be able to use this as a web app and mobile app. Wrong,
and I think that's a mistake. For large purchase decisions I generally use my
computer rather than my phone.

I was interested, though, so I downloaded the app. The only option is to use
Facebook to login. They say they've done this in order to cut down on the time
it takes to launch the site, and will add an alternative later. Unfortunately
that's not good enough for me, and I won't be using Facebook to login.

It seems really odd to lock the app behind a login anyway. Why not open it up
and ALLOW (not force) people to log in? If you're trying to attract customers,
let them use it! Don't require them to download an app and create a login
before they even know if it's worth it.

Zillow does this well. You can use the search and see the value of the site
right away, but you don't have to log in unless you want to start favoriting
homes and saving searches. These features are useful and it makes sense to me.
This just seems like poor planning for launch.

~~~
geverett
Really good points. We're figuring this out as we go along and really didn't
anticipate the backlash against Facebook login. As for requiring login at all,
we do think personalization is key to the experience and that's the best way
to guarantee it. But the Zillow analogy is a good one and we've been working
on building out a browse option. This is only the first iteration!

~~~
rogerbinns
The problem with demanding a login / email address up front is that it has
value and is implicit permission to spam away. This is before someone has the
opportunity to see if the app/site is what they wanted in the first place. It
is a terrible way to start a relationship.

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duiker101
I don't understand, why is this an app and not a website? Also has some
interesting reviews with it's 2 stars average on Google Play. Users seem to
not like the fact that it requires facebook login, it's laggy and doesn't have
a great UI. Personally haven't tried.

~~~
geverett
Hey, this is one of the founders. App not a website for now for a variety of
reasons: 1\. Personalization is key to what we do and people are more
comfortable signing in to something on mobile 2\. The mobile use case
encourages us to keep the feature set small and useful - on web it's easy to
keep adding features 3\. Mobile still more of an open playing field at this
point I'm not sure all these reasons are the best reasons, but we had to build
some way and this is just a start. We'll definitely have a web component down
the line.

~~~
Mindstormy
Just wanted to say you guys need to focus on removing the facebook login
requirement before anyone in this community will take it serious.

~~~
dhackner
Just to give a difference of opinion, I don't think that this is necessarily
representative of the entire HN community. I for one maintain a FB account
almost exclusively for apps like this, so that I can reuse my social graph.

Disclaimer: I've done work in the past with one of the founders on a former
iteration of this product.

~~~
duiker101
Yours is not a bad idea, having a separate account, but I think that the
number of people that have one is definately a minority respect the people
that will just ditch the app because of it, worse, on mobile they will leave a
bad review.

------
kirse
Whenever I see tools like this, I have to point out Flightfox -
[http://www.flightfox.com](http://www.flightfox.com). If you're thinking of
booking a trip that could run on the expensive side, there's no doubt in my
mind that experts will do better than any single tool out there (or yourself)
ever could... you'll pay a small fee to run a contest, but you'll still likely
absorb that cost in savings.

Do yourself a favor and run a contest. Even better, spend some time trying to
find the lowest price you can, then pay the $40+ to watch a few experts
demolish your travel-planning skills.

Often times they'll find miles hacking / loopholes / etc. that only a human
could put together. The various experts behind that site are _ridiculously_
good at getting you deals. The more complex and "open" your trip, the more
space they have to save you money.

~~~
geverett
Have used and loved Flightfox, but it's more for elaborate itineraries. I
don't want to pay a $39 finders fee to let me know when there's a flight to
Miami for less than $200

~~~
smackfu
If you are travelling overseas, it doesn't take much to get to $800+ per
ticket, so for a couple, the finders fee is quickly irrelevant.

------
twrkit
FYI the app requires Facebook account.

from the app: "Q: Why is Facebook required?" "A: We haven't had time to build
an alternative yet"

~~~
allixsenos
The first version was built with Facebook login on purpose, because we offload
the social graph building to FB. Destinations are suggested based on where
your friends currently live, and where they've previously been or want to go
in the future.

It's not just about not bothering with user registration and passwords, it's
about using the data from FB to give users added value.

We are in the early stages of building a completely non-social experience,
including possibly a fully-logged out mode, which will use even more signals
to suggest destinations. We don't have an ETA to announce for this as of yet.

-Luka (Hitlist)

~~~
iandanforth
Ugh really? Travel for me is almost exclusively about _getting away from_ my
"social graph." If I'm taking a vacation it is hopefully no where near anyone
I know.

~~~
chrisabrams
Well said.

------
smackfu
I just don't get it. I have an upcoming vacation, where we are generally going
to Spain/Portugal, but don't care what city we start in, and our dates are
flexible. I thought this app might be useful for this case. So I plug in
Lisbon, Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, etc. And my Flights section just says "No
Deals" still. How do I get flights to show up? I'm pretty sure there are a few
flights to Europe from NYC.

(Also, you probably should take New Haven Tweed airport out of the list when
it's finding closest airports. Because that airport is no one's homebase,
given it only flies to Philadelphia.)

~~~
geverett
Noted on New Haven Tweed, good point, thanks.

We're still working on upping our coverage of all routes at all times, but for
now you'll only see something from NYC to Spain/Portugal if we find something
really out of the ordinary - for us, usually means 8 cents per mile or less.
For now, I'd recommend using Skyscanner.com and searching for flights from NYC
to Spain or NYC to Portugal. Also, I'm jealous, I wish I were going to
Spain/Portugal with you.

------
calbear81
If you're flexible, try Nowcation
([http://nowcation.com/](http://nowcation.com/)) built by a team of students
out of UMich or take a look at Kayak Explore
([http://www.kayak.com/explore](http://www.kayak.com/explore)). The only
downside is that it doesn't learn your preferences over time which will help
Hitlist find more esoteric destinations that you might not have normally
considered.

Maybe if they integrate Rome2Rio's API,they can offer more options since you
can combine airfare + local transit costs to even more destinations.

------
kyleblarson
Umm Farecast? [http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/17/microsoft-acquires-
farecast...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/17/microsoft-acquires-farecast-
for-115m/)

~~~
calbear81
Farecast predicts airfare price movement over the next 7 days for a set
itinerary (dates, origin/destination). This service tells you when you should
go on vacation, not when you should buy your airfare ticket.

Source: I was part of the Farecast team.

~~~
geverett
Hey, I'd love to ask you some questions - mind dropping me a line at
g@hitlistapp.com?

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hcarvalhoalves
The idea sounds good. I always thought why most travel/ticket sites don't have
a feature like that (the search _always_ assumes you have set date to leave
and return, there's no way to search, e.g., "all flights for the next 10 days,
sorted by price").

~~~
cwp
Try this:

[http://matrix.itasoftware.com/](http://matrix.itasoftware.com/)

It will let you do searches like "flights between <date> and a month later,
staying <n> to <m> nights"

You can also put in travel agent routing codes, which let you do stuff like
"flights on American Airlines, connecting through Atlanta" or "not connecting
though Chicago". Very handy.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
This is excellent, thanks a bunch.

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izzydata
Hypothetically speaking, if everyone that flies used this and only bought
tickets when it told them the prices were low, wouldn't that eventually swap
the prices of tickets since those prices fluctuate based on popularity?

And then even further after that people would continue to only buy tickets at
the swapped low prices and at the end of the line prices would all even out at
all times.

~~~
geverett
I long for a world where everyone uses this! But that's a ways off.
Regardless, I think there's a need for a much more efficient exchange where
airline tickets are concerned - that's part of why we're building this. Right
now many, many people want to travel, but the current search paradigm makes it
incredibly difficult to find the things relevant to them, so they never end up
traveling. Buying tickets isn't just a function of price, it's also having
time off work, having people to visit or travel with, and knowing enough about
a destination to want to go there.

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drakaal
Expedia and just about everybody else has a "flexible dates" option which will
let you do this already.

This isn't new by any stretch, the old as dirt
[http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/](http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/) will tell
you the cheapest days in the coming months for flights.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
I needed a service like this in the past, but this one doesn't seem to have
good coverage.

"Sorry, we don't feature fares for that departure city, but we've got tons of
other fares! Try another search."

I'm in the biggest city of the american continent.

~~~
glibgil
Why not just say that you are in São Paulo?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Paulo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Paulo)

~~~
aktau
Because some people might not realize São Paulo might be a big deal if he just
said the name. Of course, best would have been if he had mentioned both facts.

~~~
glibgil
It is just one fact in this case.

------
arasmussen
How is this better than Google flights? (Which shows you a calendar where each
day's box has in it the cheapest fare for that day.)

~~~
geverett
Still have to search for all the destinations that might appeal..

~~~
notahacker
Google Flight Search (and the ITA matrix that powers it) also lacks pricing
for some of the cheapest carriers, although I'm not sure how much better your
app is in that respect.

If I was building a "flexible destination" app I'd be particularly keen to
offer hotel bundles too, since they're higher margin and well suited to people
lazily looking for the cheapest vacation meeting basic criteria within a broad
time frame.

