

The Lowest Fare? Ask the Crowd - todsul
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/technology/flightfox-lets-the-crowd-find-the-best-airfares.html?_r=0

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patio11
I tried this for booking my current business trip. I offered a $100 reward for
a five city US excursion, originating in Japan, with the proviso "I use Delta.
Make sure I get miles for this, either with them or an allied carrier."

The best offer I get that actually read that instruction knocked $3,000 off
the $5,000 that Delta.com quoted me. _I went with Delta_. I have the utmost
respect for the amount of searching which went into it, but the instructions I
got back were 6 steps long, with each step sounding like "Book a one-way
flight from X to Y using this web interface", and I was terrified of getting
halfway through and then being stranded in Des Moines not able to book the
rest of the flights at anything near the quote.

I'm _so there_ if they can handle the bookings themselves, such that I'm not
the one bearing the risk-of-failure-to-book.

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nopassrecover
Agree with your general point but with those kinds of savings it seems fairly
irrational not to. With $2k in pocket I can't imagine being stuck in Des
Moines with no options.

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kanamekun
Congrats to Flightfox, YC S12:

[http://www.startupsmart.com.au/success-stories/flightfox-
acc...](http://www.startupsmart.com.au/success-stories/flightfox-accepted-
into-y-combinator-after-snagging-$800000/201205306453.html)

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usaar333
From experience, it is tough for the crowd to beat skyscanner.

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marquis
matrix.itasoftware.com is also where i check first.

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chrisdroukas
ITA Software (by Google) — would it be reasonable to guess that this flight
tracker is built into <http://flights.google.com>?

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lsh
I had $300 shaved off of a $1100 trip. Some of the posters really must read
the criteria first and one, who I ended up going with, went way above and
beyond in his helpfulness for the default bounty ($30?).

The only thing I'm worried about now is somehow getting my luggage wired
through all legs of my trip rather than my having to go through immigration at
each stop and pick it up, only to go back through again and drop it off :P

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s_henry_paulson
This is definitely a "Why didn't I think of that?" moment.

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cocoflunchy
Is anyone here an 'expert' for Flightfox? Can you share you thoughts about it?

