
Travel Search Site Hipmunk (YC S10) Cuts Yahoo Deal - goldfish
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/travel-search-site-hipmunk-cuts-yahoo-deal/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
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forrestthewoods
I've used Hipmunk several times. The interface is fantastic. The ipad app is
also great.

It does immensely suck that you leave Hipmunk to actually buy the tickets. I
had to redo my entire search and purchase because the Safari view of Delta's
website in the ipad Hipmunk app crashed.

I also had to recently buy my cross-country Christmas tickets through Expedia.
For whatever reason Expedia had far, far better selection and prices. Usually
Hipmunk is great but in this case it wasn't even close. That's definitely made
me slightly wary of it for the future.

All things said it's great. Can't wait to see where it is in a few more years.

~~~
whopa
I try Hipmunk every so often, the last time being about a month ago. Every
time, Kayak shows more flight options for the same query than Hipmunk, and
often cheaper ones. I don't get it, they both use ITA on the backend.

I'd use Hipmunk more often if they actually fulfilled their functionality
promise as an aggregator. A pretty UI isn't enough.

~~~
spez
Hmm, that shouldn't be the case. If you try again and feel like helping us
out, feel free to email the discrepancy to support@hipmunk.com.

Sometimes there is an explanation (e.g. the flight doesn't exist, or has a
30hr layover), and other times we don't have the flight, in which case we want
to alert our providers to fix it.

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notahacker
First discrepancy I found was the first search I ran (LHR - SYD one way Mon
3/11) but I'll try to give a more helpful general case answer.

\- Consolidators [that you don't have commercial relationships with] have
wholesale arrangements with airlines allowing them to sell tickets below the
direct/GDS price. I suspect you're more reliant on ITA results than many other
portals or meta-search sites and their prices are trivially easy to beat on
competitive routes if you have a broader range of partnerships.

\- Some consolidators put together logical itineraries not bookable via GDS or
even direct with the airline. As an extreme example I once bought a cheap,
logical pair of connecting long haul flights with Saudia via eBookers that
Saudia's website wouldn't allow me to book at any price direct with them; I'd
guess the airline didn't want to market anything involving a 5 hour layover in
an under-redevelopment terminal in Riyadh. There are plenty of less glaringly
obvious potential indirect itineraries that consolidators (potentially
including Kayak as well as their affiliates) can identify with Innovata's
minimum connect time file and schedule data[1] and other providers might have
a more liberal view on reasonable connections than ITA

\- Sometimes other sites' metasearch results' advantages are purely illusory,
based on outdated results they've cached or screenscraped. I find Skyscanner
LCC prices are frequently out of date, even though the actual ticket price is
also usually cheaper than ITA's. Other sites might also create the appearance
of more choice by not combining codeshared flights into one.

As for LON-SYD on Monday Kayak has a lot more results under $1000 than you.
It's possible their much cheaper ticket prices with SIA are outdated or
geolocation specific, but the cheapest flight they show (a Garuda two-stopper
that's no more obviously agonising than your cheapest result but 10% cheaper)
doesn't show on your engine at all. Then again, the price with Kayak had risen
to only 5% cheaper than your best price when I started the booking process...

[1]disclosure: I sell that data, amongst many other things, although not to
OTAs

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maxerickson
Given the founders, it's fun to contemplate Hipmunk as an anti-reddit, where a
successful visit is probably brief and directly generates revenue.

~~~
spez
Yes, I often muse about this

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7Figures2Commas
> Although Hipmunk has raised $40 million in venture capital funding — $20
> million of it in May from Oak Investment Partners and others — it decided
> not to lavish it on television advertising like competitors “because that
> means going head-to-head against companies spending hundreds of millions a
> year.”

> Mr. Goldstein would not discuss specific financial terms of the company’s
> deals with Yahoo and Yelp, but said they would participate in the benefits
> Hipmunk received — commissions, usually — when one of its users booked a
> flight or hotel through a travel partner.

Hipmunk's position in such a competitive market is not enviable.

These types of revenue sharing deals often look very attractive on paper
because they don't require much if any capital, but they can be disastrous and
far more costly in the long run. In a _good_ outcome, you frequently end up
with a handful of partners who drive most of your business, effectively own
many of the customers they send you, and have a permanent claim on a
substantial portion of your margin.

Put simply, these deals tend to defer the hard costs associated with customer
acquisition but also drive them up.

~~~
shostack
In some cases the amount of leverage these sources of customers have over you
can be crippling as well.

The other factor that I feel doesn't get brought up enough is the attribution
piece. How much did they REALLY contribute to bringing a customer vs. all your
other marketing efforts, brand awareness that has built up over time, etc.?

In the worst cases, some partners can just be parasitic and leech off bottom
of the funnel traffic to maximize their return and minimize their risk. The
trick is finding the right balance between all those efforts which requires
data, flexibility, and trust between all parties in the relationship.

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karambahh
Yeah for Hipmunk, Capitaine Train and others. They are providing a very
efficient, no fuss, travel booking experience. Historic players like Amadeus
or DBahn (not to mention SNCF...), beware, these guys are rocking your world
even more than you may be suspecting...

~~~
smcl
I'm not sure they need to beware - DB\SCNF aren't really competing with the
likes of Capitaine Train. If you buy a ticket from Paris to Lyon with CT for
example - you're still getting the same SNCF train ticket and they'll get a
giant chunk of that money (I have no idea what sort of referral CT get). I
suppose its in these rail companies' best interests that _someone_ puts
together a nice interface for their ticket systems.

~~~
karambahh
Except Capitaine Train had to go (almost? can remember the details) to court
in 2009 to gain access to SOCRATE, the SNCF booking system. Capitaine is
competing with Voyages SNCF and SNCF themselves. They both operate and sell
tickets. (And VSC see themselves as competitors to SNCF, which is kinda
schyzophrenic if you ask me).

Now that they have set a precedent, Lyria and the likes opened their booking
plateforms to Capitaine.

But, still, you get odd looks if you try to exchange a CT ticket at a counter
"how, that's a travel agent ticket, we don't support those" "well, yes you do,
just type this booking number and you'll be able to deliver me another ticket,
trust me" ;-)

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merrillii
Being able to sort flights by "agony" was pure genius! There are so many times
when I'll gladly pay $20 more for an easier flight plan.

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ASquare
I have a simple question: Why are sites like Hipmunk, Kayak etc called "travel
search" sites? Travel is far more than booking flights, hotels, cars, cruises
and vacation packages

At best sites like this are booking sites for xyz but I have a heard time
reconciling the appropriateness of "travel search"

What am I missing?

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calbear81
Because these sites and ours (room77.com) are MetaSearch sites, we search
prices from multiple sources and aggregate the information (inventory,
content, prices) into one place. Booking sites like Expedia and Priceline are
considered OTAs (Online Travel Agency) since they are the entity that sells
you the actual inventory whereas metasearch scours the market for the best
prices.

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ASquare
Understood.

To me "travel search" implies everything to do with travel including
destination research and more. So whether it's metasearch or OTAs - ultimately
the focus is on booking something (is that a correct statement to make?)

To me travel - and certainly travel search should mean more than that

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andrea_s
I'm not sure there's a point in using anything but Google Flights, to be
honest... But in my experience hipmunk is among the best in the rest of a very
crowded pack.

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ape4
I would like to see an option to avoid stopovers in countries you specify...
as an agony avoidance option.

