

Crowd-Sourced Flight Search - todsul
http://flightfox.com

======
sivers
Brilliant! I'll be using this for some upcoming flights.

I daydreamed of something like this 2½ years ago. See <http://sivers.org/semi-
expert>

Thanks for making this come true.

~~~
todsul
Wow! Thanks Derek. Great post; exactly what we were thinking in building the
product. Lots of iterating to go to get it working seamlessly, but exciting
times ahead. Would love your feedback when you get around to using the
product.

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dsrguru
This is so useful. I noticed their flexibility options are the usual +/- n
days, but it would be more useful for me if there was an option to only + or -
but not both. For example, let's say you want to leave on the 7th, but the 8th
and 9th are doable, just less ideal because you'll have one or two days fewer
to spend at your destination. With the current system you'd have to choose the
8th and then say +/- 1, which screws you over if the finders try their hardest
to get the exact day you requested.

I just discovered you need to pay the finder's fee in advance. While this
might get more finders to use the site because they won't be afraid of their
efforts going to waste, this is going to deter a lot of customers who are
still shopping around and only want to fly if they can get a better rate than
they expected.

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hamidnazari
Part of me thinks if you made "starting contests" free for customers, you'd
get more traction. On the other hand the other part of me thinks that you've
already tried this approach, or at least thought about it. So, which part of
me is right?

Also two tiny notes about your front page:

1\. I, personally, get really pissed when I'm informed about fees of a service
in any step of the process other than the first one. So, I'd suggest show the
fees somewhere above the fold.

2\. This is more of a UX thing. In the "How it works" box, make the titles
clickable.

I love the idea. Simple, yet has a lot of potential. Will be start my own
contest someday soon.

Rock on.

~~~
todsul
Hi Hamid, (full disc: we've worked alongside Hamid, awesome coder).

1\. Good point about knowing about the fees upfront. Will update in our next
release. Somehow went missing after experimenting with pricing too often.

2\. They are clickable. Aren't they? Uh, oh... What OS/browser? _Opens Vbox_

Would love to iterate faster with more engineers. Any chance we can poach you
from setkick.com?

Thanks again.

~~~
scoot
_> They are clickable. Aren't they?_

Nope.

 _> Uh, oh... What OS/browser?_

Windows 7: Chrome 17, Firefox 10, Firefox 11, IE9

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drags
My first thought was: what's to stop someone from waiting for some responses
and then running over to Kayak to book once they know the best dates/airlines.

But it looks like they take the finder's fee upfront. It would be nice if
there were an option to only pay the finder's fee if someone significantly
beats the best price you were able to find.

Everyone does at least an _initial_ search to get an idea of price when
they're considering a trip, right? And presumably the experts have an idea of
the typical price on given routes and can decide whether the "price to beat"
is attainable?

~~~
todsul
Hi drags, co-founder here...

We tried your suggested method, but there were too many complications in
practice. Many people quoted fake prices and, of course, prices and
availability change regularly.

Most of all, we'd rather not create a competitive relationship with the
customer. The idea of the concept is to relieve you of all the time and stress
related to flight search (especially on more complex itineraries). So asking
you to first search yourself and post a price is somewhat contrary to our
vision.

We may revert to this method in future, because we're constantly testing, but
at this stage we think we have a reasonable balance between customer and
expert.

~~~
mistermann
I agree....I think there is more than enough incompetence and inefficiency in
this industry that you will have plenty of customers who won't think twice
about the fee, as long as you can ensure that they are getting a _competent_
person planning their flight, and the result will be the best that can be
done.

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bengl3rt
Have you considered allowing people to optimize for something other than cost?
I'd be very interested in paying people to find me mileage runs - that is,
itineraries that minimize the cost per mile.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequent-
flyer_program#Mileage_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequent-
flyer_program#Mileage_run)

~~~
todsul
Yes, absolutely. You could do that know, but we need to build our expert base
a little larger before we target this market specifically. Also, we need to
find a way to add these options without confusing the average person. We're
pretty obsessed with analytics and we've seen that even just minor details
confuse people and reduce conversions. Maybe a separate
menu/link/section/subdomain is needed.

~~~
bengl3rt
Cool! I am working on automated mileage run finding at mileagebrain.com -
hoping this will turn out to be complementary :)

~~~
todsul
Looking good. Definitely a need for a tool like yours. Let's keep in touch to
see if we can work together once we get settled.

~~~
bengl3rt
You should put an email address in your HN profile!

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mistermann
Extremely interesting.....a few questions that come to mind for me:

1\. Is it worthwhile using for simple flights? Ie: Toronto to las Vegas,
direct?

2\. Can it handle extremely complex (maybe even almost freeform) scenarios
beyond the displayed +\\- x days, such as: I have 14 days available (but would
settle for an 11 day trip), and I can take travel any time between these
dates, and I am willing to travel to a, b, or c - what are my options? (This
is getting into the realm of travel agent services....for which I would gladly
pay, assuming one might actually be able to find a competent one through this
site).

3\. Does the service tend to work much less well in Canada compared to the US?

4\. Is it conceivable that if this service is successful enough (market
penetration wise), that some of the optimizations used may start to disappear,
or affect pricing from airlines?

5\. Any plans of extending it to vacations (flight, hotel, all-inclusive)?

6\. You mention frequent flyer plans on the site - for a person who has no
clue, any (long term) plans for offering sign up for those types of things
integrated with your service?

7\. Are you running some customized search tools in house, or does each person
fulfilling contests just using their own secret tips and tricks?

Good luck on this, truly one of the most interesting initiatives I've heard of
in a very long time!

~~~
todsul
Hi mistermann,

1\. Depends on your expectations. If the absolute lowest price is found on
Kayak.com, then that's the price you'll get. We can't change that, but we can
save you lots of time by making sure that's the lowest price. Of course, we do
save a lot of people money on short trips, but the longer the better.

2\. Yes, absolutely. Just describe your requirements in the comments section
and make sure you work with the experts to keep them on the right track. This
is really where we can save the most for you.

3\. No, not at all. This is a global service. It works best when you're flying
to lesser know places because our experts may have local knowledge that helps
get better prices than you know.

4\. Only a very small percentage of winning flights use loopholes. But yes,
they can and do disappear. Luckily, because we're "human-powered" and because
these loopholes are discovered by humans, it's more likely you'll get access
to loophole savings on Flightfox.

5\. Yes, maybe, probably, not sure :)

6\. We need to reach critical mass to really leverage the power of frequent
flyer points. We'll get there soon :)

7\. At this stage, it's all human powered. We're only a few weeks old, so we
hope to evolve. Some of our experts claim to use custom software. There are
definitely lots of manual tricks and tips too.

All the best and thanks for the kind words.

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schappim
These guys are awesome. I used them to get a flight from SFO to SYD (return).
It's usually $1400 and they got it down to $900.

Cheers,

Marcus

~~~
marquis
What is the difference in price really going to be, for what option you
choose? I'm willing to through away $30 on a gamble of getting a cheaper
flight than I can usually find (and I consider myself pretty good at flight
finding), but they offer a higher-paid option and it's not clear what benefits
that will have.

~~~
todsul
Hi marquis, co-founder here...

Flightfox is still very much an MVP. We're changing pricing regularly,
including the associated copy. Essentially, you should choose a price based on
the value you expect. For a simple overseas flight on which you just want
peace of mind (that you're getting the best price), just go for the cheapest
option.

At the other extreme, we've had a group of 20 people flying overseas, so
paying $200 is not unreasonable in this case. We saved this customer over
$10,000. One of the experts achieved this using an agent who had consolidated
stock (discounted) directly with an airline. This price was unmatched online,
so it made sense for the contest holder to get experts working to this level.

Appreciate the feedback; we're so far finding it a little difficult to
articulate our variable pricing.

Some people just want to absolve themselves of the stress, some want the
absolute lowest price, some want general advice, and others want complicated
itineraries built using frequent flyer points. When we had all of those
options set at different prices, people just got confused. :)

We'll keep iterating and get there soon. Thanks.

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staunch
I'm thinking you should quickly rename it to Tripfox, TripBounty, or something
else. It seems like the real value here is replacing travel agents more
comprehensively than something like Kayak does.

Good luck!

~~~
todsul
Many thanks. You're spot on. And it's so obvious in hindsight, but alas.

We've already had a contest asking for accomm recommendations and it worked
surprisingly well. That person paid a $200 finder's fee and it was great to
see experts who'd been to the same places recounting their experiences in
detail and giving highly practical advice. Of course you can get this for free
elsewhere, but the whole package is worth paying for. This person saved a
fortune on the flights alone.

~~~
staunch
eBay turns people into Merchants.

Airbnb turns people into Hoteliers.

FlightFox turns people into Travel Agents.

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saucerful
Everyone here seems so satisfied, but to be honest I am still skeptical. It
would be nice in the "browse flights wanted" screen you showed some baseline
price for the requested flight (e.g. automated kayak search, though i'm
guessing that is in violation of their TOS. perhaps you can just have a link
to the query) so that potential customers could see some samples of the kind
of savings to expect.

~~~
todsul
Hi saucerful,

We used to do this, but there was too much contention around the base price.
Imagine if we showed a base price of $1000 and on your favourite search engine
you saw $950. This created an adversarial situation with our flyers.

Then we had the issue of a specific requirement in the comments (e.g. I'm
relocating to another country with my two pets). The experts would put up the
full cost of flying with the pets, but then our base price would undercut them
because no flight API handles pets.

Then we used virtual assistants to find the base prices considering the
comments, but of course they couldn't interpret the comments properly. E.g.
someone said they didn't want red-eye flights, but the VA didn't understand
what that meant and gave a red-eye price that was hundreds below the expert
prices.

Sorry for the long reply, but would love to hear any suggestions around this.
At the moment we're trying to create a better flyer-expert relationship.

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montitro
May I suggest adding more flexible options? I often find myself wanting to
plan a vacation but not knowing where or when I want to go - on traditional
travel sites, this is a problem, because everything has to be run through an
algorithm, but as a crowdsourcer, you might be able to get away with saying
'two week trip, sometime between August and November', and just give me good
options.

~~~
housewife
Hm, to do this though, you'd need to have a lot more qualifying questions. I
have been a travel agent for 10 years, and it is difficult to find the "right"
holiday for someone without a lot of information (ie budget, what they like to
do, where they have been/stayed before and what they liked/didn't like, etc).
That said, and even as a competitor, it is a really cool idea!

~~~
montitro
Mmm, that's true. Even if it was just a list of countries, though, I don't
think the flight info has to be more detailed than that; you're generally
going to be flying into a city anyways, so it's not like knowing that someone
likes hiking will help too much. I'd be happy to have someone find me a cheap
flight to somewhere-in-south-america-really-I-don't-care-where-or-when.

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ajays
This needs a little more automation (maybe a tie-in with
Expedia/Kayak/whatever) so that the flight can be booked and verified booked.

Here's my problem (going with one of the examples quoted, flying from Buenes
Aires to Toronto): one of the suggestions is to fly to Montreal and take a
bus. But what if I _don't_ want the hassle of going from airport to greyhound
to bus, only to be dropped into the middle of T'o in the middle of the night?
As it stands currently, I can get a refund only if I can find a cheaper
flight; but in many cases it's hard to beat the price of a shitty flight +
slumming it for 12 hours on the road. So you're SOL.

A better solution, IMHO, is to offer the option of booking right there. Then
you can also verify if the expert's suggested itinerary is valid or not. Then
you also know that the customer booked and the 'expert' can get paid. What
about abuse, you say? Three strikes and you're out: if a person puts up a
bounty and doesn't book the flight 3 times, just kick 'em out.

~~~
aes256
_Here's my problem (going with one of the examples quoted, flying from Buenes
Aires to Toronto): one of the suggestions is to fly to Montreal and take a
bus. But what if I _don't_ want the hassle of going from airport to greyhound
to bus, only to be dropped into the middle of T'o in the middle of the night?
As it stands currently, I can get a refund only if I can find a cheaper
flight; but in many cases it's hard to beat the price of a shitty flight +
slumming it for 12 hours on the road. So you're SOL._

That seems to be accounted for with the three 'flexibility' questions contest
creators are asked; whether they will fly with any airline including discount
airlines, whether they'll consider ground transport to nearby airports, and
whether they'll consider multiple stops and long layover times, respectively.

~~~
ajays
Unless Montreal has become a Toronto suburb recently, I don't think any of the
options account for the Montreal --> Toronto bus ride.

------
bullseye
I think this seems like a fantastic idea. I really hope it continues to
expand.

I am taking the family on a US domestic trip in a few months and have already
started the process of flight-searching. I'd be willing to try out something
like this, even just for the novelty. However, with so many international
flights, the list inadvertently seemed to alienate simple domestic flights.

I wanted to see more examples of my type of trip (business class, simple
domestic flight), but wasn't really sure how to do that. I searched through
the first 3-4 pages before deciding I would have liked some filter controls on
the list. I wanted to see what kind of savings people were finding and what
types of trips were being posted. Basically, a way to determine if my trip met
the right criteria for a contest and if it was feasible to use the service.

That said, I understand my trip may not be the immediate target market.
Nevertheless, I'm going to keep watching this because I really like the
concept.

~~~
todsul
Many thanks bullseye.

If you think you could get value from experts do the searching and giving
suggestions, then give it a try and we'll refund you if you aren't satisfied.
But if you're just flying between two large cities, you really are better off
going to AA, Southwest or whomever.

Flying domestic in your home country really is not the best use of Flightfox.
You know all the airlines, you've heard the anecdotes regarding cheap prices,
and prices are already low for domestic.

On the other hand, if you fly RTW, to a different continent, using FF points,
to many cities, etc, the expert skill and local knowledge of our experts can
save you a small fortune.

Hope that helps.

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joshwa
As a potential expert/buyer, I'd love to see what the results look like (and
the comments on the entries as well), but it looks like those can only be
viewed by the contest owner. Any way to post some examples?

(and who is this MrHyde fellow who wins everything?)

~~~
todsul
Hey joshwa,

The experts tend to keep their methods to themselves. Some have trade secrets,
but in the simplest cases, it takes time to find the best airports and
connections, so they'd rather not share the info. They've even suggested we
hide the dates because it takes time to find the cheapest dates when someone
has flexibility.

MrHyde is relatively new. The winners go in waves. As you can imagine, our
experts keep flying around the world and neglecting Flightfox :)

I just added detailed examples to another comment on this page. Please see
below (or above).

Most of the best examples involve better routing, special offers or FF points.
We've saved people $10k+ on group bookings, $5k+ on premium class, $1k+ on
multi-city, etc, etc, etc. And in one case, a customer beat our experts by
$700 by finding a glitch on Expedia. Of course we refunded him and offered a
free contest if he dared to return.

On average, we save people 20%+ on long-haul multi-city flights. This isn't a
guarantee, but the results from a test we ran on real flight contests.

We have a lot of work to do to find the best balance between the amount of
info we show. We're looking for another engineer right now in the hope of
being able to iterate much more quickly.

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sidi
Since you are asking for fees when a user creates a contest, you should
provide case-studies of savings on similar flight searches in the past (also
include cost-benefits over other flight search engines). May be, even allow
the user to extend the contest duration (with some constraints). Doing this
should give a better assurance to the user.

I believe your service has the potential to do well in this market,
particularly considering there are many variables involved in flight searches.

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brainless
Lovely concept, I will try it sometimes.

But why is the domain for sale on Sedo? I searched on whois.sc and saw the
sale notice! Is that by mistake?

~~~
brainless
@Todd I think you should check your domain auctions:
<http://sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=flightfox.com>

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nikunjk
Excellent site, even better customer service (refunded money instantly for
some fraud answers) and some fantastic results. Keep the good work going

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caublestone
Make this for group travel arrangements and you will be golden. Personal
travel is good enough right now, but the hassles of group traveling still
exists. I would definitely pay you a finders fee to book a cheaper Vegas trip
for my 10 friends.

Awesome work and best of luck!

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dlox
I loved their friendly customer service when I approached them for help to
change my flight dates after booking it.

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treme
cool execution on the business model. Wondering.. wouldn't bots come to
dominate these eventually? would that be allowed?

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chrisrickard
I love this idea guys - v. cool

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jermaink
Very very cool!

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faucet
Crowd-Sourced TSA patdown.

