
Show HN: Get the real best price for your hotel or get a superior hotel - borgatov
https://www.triprebel.com/favourite-list
======
aesthetics1
Cool idea, but the UX is very unintuitive. For example, when trying to search
for a hotel in LA, every time I zoom (the mousewheel doesn't work?) it begins
searching. Slowly. When it finally updates (I have clicked zoom several times
by now), it zooms out again to the first zoom level. This really needs to be
fixed so that it behaves more like Google Maps' search, where I can continue
to zoom in until I have reached my intended geographical area, and _then_ the
search could finalize. It's fine if it searches as I zoom, but it's not fine
if it refreshes the map. It's almost unusable unless you uncheck the box to
disable searching when the map is moved.

My thoughts about the landing page - It's pretty, but again, the UX is bad.
While the screen is loading, I see the slogan drop in (pieces at a time), a
second tagline drop in, and then a how it works button. By the time the search
has dropped in (this is really your call to action, right? You want people to
begin searching, and see it right away), I have already scrolled passed it
down the page looking for the search. When I come back up and finally see "Oh,
there it is", I've wasted a ton of time looking for it. I recommend that you
make this static. The slogan can drop in if you'd like, but this needs to have
a permanent place on the landing page.

Upon searching, it took as long as it did to write this paragraph to find any
hotels. It returned 11 results, and I'm searching near USC in Los Angeles.
Zoomed in a bit further to only encompass 2 hotels, and it took roughly 11
seconds to find them. Anything you can do to speed this up?

It's a neat concept, just hoping to give some constructive criticism.

~~~
borgatov
First of all thanks for the feedback, I always love when critics are useful. I
try to go point by point. We took a conscious decision disabling the scrolling
wheel as zoom in/out because otherwise it would have triggered too many
"refine searches". In addition today the search is even slower due to the huge
traffic we're getting and it's definitely something we should work on. But I
agree, the map is definitely something we should work on.

Regarding the landing page I think it's still a speed problem, but I'll take a
closer look to this.

Thanks again.

~~~
jdmichal
> We took a conscious decision disabling the scrolling wheel as zoom in/out
> because otherwise it would have triggered too many "refine searches".

Tip: Any operation that's reliant on mouse events should be throttled or
debounced -- they are just too noisy. For mapping, I have done debounces as
long as two seconds without the delay being obvious. I suspect due to the
style of user interaction in combination with the loading animations from the
map itself.

~~~
dzoing
really appreciated - it's somewhat debounced already, but it seems to be not
quite right... I'd be curious to hear about how you went about debouncing
(what time delays on which specific actions, zoom, moving the map)

~~~
jdmichal
Option one: Use the built-in `idle` event on the top-level map object. This
basically does all the debouncing for you, though I don't remember off the top
of my head whether this event happens before or after the `tilesloaded` event.
The distinction would only be important if you want to wait for the map to
visually update before displaying the results.

Option two: I think for your use case just listening on the single
`bounds_changed` event will do what you want. That should trigger for all
types of map movement or zooming. For the callback, use a closure which clears
and sets a timeout event with the desired debounce time; no need to
overcomplicate it. Then it's just tuning the delay until it hits that sweet
spot between firing too often and obvious visual delays.

------
jn
Great product idea. I was quite taken aback by how similar the UI and UX is to
Airbnb's though [1]. Of course that's not necessarily a bad thing - it's a
much nicer interface than most hotel comparison sites - but it's extreme to
the point of brand confusion. My first instinct was to check if this was a
spin-off business!

[1] Triprebel vs Airbnb UI:
[http://imgur.com/a/FALP0](http://imgur.com/a/FALP0)

~~~
troycarlson
Landing page: ubiquitous design. Search page: nearly a pixel-for-pixel copy of
Airbnb's unique design.

I would advise changing that...

~~~
Sleaker
Err, this is a pretty common bootstrap style theme. It's nearly identical to
Vitality, a $10 theme on wrapbootstrap. The maps page is actually google
powered in both cases.

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popotamonga
Wanna try it, can't zoom out on map, only in, wich makes it unusable (also
can't zoom out with mousewheel)

[http://puu.sh/kdmXo/47f8988ac6.png](http://puu.sh/kdmXo/47f8988ac6.png)

~~~
borgatov
Thanks man. Something went wrong in the last update. We're on it.

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zv
Your product targets other type of customer, but I want to share my chores I
experienced. Supposedly I plan a trip across USA, by car, for example NY->LA.
I don't have exact places at what date I will be at which city. I can
approximate 600km-900km drive a day. If there would be application that showed
the best hotel on path with driving instructions+reservation it would be
godsent.

~~~
pimlottc
There's apps like Roadtrippers and Furkot that will show you lodging along
your route (along with dining, attractions, etc), but I don't know any that
actually handles booking/price comparison as well.

------
dghez
Great. I just booked a hotel for my next stay in Lisbon. Let's see what you
can do. If it works it'll be game-changing. (Y)

~~~
dghez
Oh and by the way it looks that they are on product hunt as well
[http://www.producthunt.com/tech/triprebel-s-favourite-
list](http://www.producthunt.com/tech/triprebel-s-favourite-list).

~~~
borgatov
Yep. We're launching today our brand new Favourite List so you can upgrade on
a superior hotel with just one click.

Up-votes on ProductHunt are appreciated ;)

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chrisan
> Get the real best price for your hotel or get a superior hotel

If you are allowed to share, is this the best price among online booking
agencies or best price including direct from hotel?

I see/hear many comments that going direct to the hotel is best chance of
lowest price and asking "what can you do"

~~~
borgatov
Our way we get the best deal is checking daily if the price of your hotel
decreased and getting that for you. In this way you'll have the best rate
available on the market from now to the day you check in.

If you book directly on the hotel today it doesn't mean than tomorrow the
hotel won't drop the price, so there's no absolute truth in saying that the
best deals are available just dealing with the hotel. Sometimes is true,
that's why we're negotiating pilots with some hotel chains (i cannot tell
more, sorry)

------
dothis
"Hello Product Hunters! Get €50 off at the checkout"

As a Hacker Newser, somehow this message confuses me.

~~~
borgatov
Something was wrong with the trigger. Thanks man.

~~~
pdabbadabba
I will try to give this advice in the gentlest way possible both because it
isn't a big deal, and to avoid a thread-destroying argument: Might I suggest
you adopt a different phrase (which I see you've used a few times just in this
conversation) other than "thanks man"? I'm not offended by it, and most other
people probably wouldn't be either, but it _does_ strike me as making the
unfortunate assumption that everyone on this forum is a man. (I know that many
people who use the word "man" in this way don't really mean to be referring to
literal males. I'm one of them, in fact. I have been known to call my wife
'man.' But the impression will remain, for some--especially among people who
don't know you.)

I'm sure you don't mean to offend, and you're just trying to be friendly and
appreciative--and I would not blame you for bristling a bit at an off-topic
scolding by the PC police. But it would cost you nothing to just say "thanks,"
and it could save you some grief in the future.

Just a thought from a friend.

Edit - I should have said this first: the service seems really cool. I'll try
it next time I travel.

~~~
hunterjrj
The PC police, in my opinion, are a bit too visible on HN these days.

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tangue
Great Job. From my experience the best deal is often from the hotel itself (no
fees to Booking, Expedia ...), are you including hotels' prices directly in
your listing or are you using some OTA's APIs ?

~~~
nicarus1984
Of the hotels I've viewed, it appears the images are hosted on TravelNow,
which (I believe) is owned by Expedia. If that is the case, they are probably
using EAN's API for part or all of it.

[http://developer.ean.com/](http://developer.ean.com/)

~~~
dzoing
dev here; yea, we're using EAN for sourcing the hotels that people initially
book - but we have many more other OTAs integrated for tracking prices the way
you could look at it is that we try and capture peoples traveling intent with
an API which is relatively easy and fast-performing, then we try in our own
time to find something better

------
descartes
I don't understand the hype... this is destroying the market and will cut
margins of hotels, potentially affecting quality in the long run. How can
travellers profit from it longterm?

~~~
borgatov
Seriously? We're talking about bringing transparency to a really blurred
market and you think this will not help customers in the long term?

~~~
descartes
Not sure, since this is driving prices down in a market already plagued by
high booking fees from travel providers. In which way do you see people
benefiting from that beyond saving a buck here and there?

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angryasian
Maybe its just me, but it appears to be ios only? I can't seem to find a link
to use it anywhere on the landing page.

~~~
borgatov
What do you mean? Can you articulate?

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pbreit
Could be interesting if follows through on the promise. I prefer to see daily
rates which is much easier for comparisons.

~~~
borgatov
Our algorithm is based on daily rates from different providers as Kayak or
Trivago does. What we do on the top of it is to keep checking day by day
looking for better rates and getting that for you. It's beyond price
comparison websites.

------
annadl
The idea seems pretty awesome. But how often can you find better prices?

~~~
dzoing
there's some pretty interesting statistics to do with price changes - chances
of finding something better are biggest when you book somewhat further in
advance (say, 60 days) & travel to big cities - then we do find better prices
in about 50% of the cases what makes me happiest is crazy stuff, like a $600
better rate for a $1300 hotels somewhere on the strip in LA (happened a few
weeks ago)

