
Google Flights - usaphp
http://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=JFK,EWR,LGA;t=POP;d=2013-01-13;r=2013-01-25;mc=m
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tjmc
For values of "brilliant" that originate in North America only...

~~~
lucaspiller
++

I use Skyscanner here in Europe for regional and international flights,
however really the prices are only useful as an indication. For example, one
flight I found the cheapest option was Ryanair, but when I actually booked it
the price was €10 cheaper than listed on Skyscanner.

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dtf
I used to find that Ryanair had a tendency to lowball the aggregators, and
then whack on ridiculous extra charges at the end of a tedious and lengthy
purchase process. Have they stopped doing that now?

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walshemj
This is Ryanair SOP - you don't the the owner got to be the "most hated man in
Ireland" for nothing do you.

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taigeair
Yeah I really hate Ryanair also. Horrible forced experiences.

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Justin_Time
I'm a big fan of <https://www.google.com/flights/explorer>, since it gives me
an immediate picture of how far in advance I should book to get the lowest
prices.

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ojbyrne
I find it interesting that it basically has the same function as Kayak
Explore: <http://kayak.com/explore> \- but with a completely different
presentation.

~~~
mda
Not exactly, this shows daily price changes through a few months, You cant see
this in Kayak's interface.

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rabble
So sad to see matrix.itasoftware.com's amazing search engine get most of it's
features ripped out and replaced with a pretty UI that does so little.

For folks who like hipmonk? Do you really travel? Their search engine also
fails to find most good fares. Pretty but useless.

Most people who are serious use expertflyer.com and matrix.itasoftware.com to
find fares. Yes you have to learn a bit about how air fares are constructed,
but this is hacker news not consumer news isn't it?

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mda
May I ask which feature in Matrix you like is not available in Google Flights?

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sareon
I like being able to select a number of possible departure airports (Ottawa,
Toronto, Montreal, Detroit) and then my days I like being able to say +/- 2
days.

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MertsA
You can do a lot more than that in Google Flights, just hit the plus sign on
the right side of the departure box and you can add as many airports as you
want, ditto for the arrival airport. Also, for the plus or minus 2 days just
click on the little bar graph at the top right of the page instead of map view
and it will show you months on either side. That feature is probably one of
the best, there is a huge difference in prices depending on the date.

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asdkl234890
A few days ago my gf tried to book a flight. Like most people, she starts with
googleing flight tickets. And sees Google flights for the first time and
starts using it.

Gets to the point where Google kicks you off to the airline's own page, and
that's where the trouble starts. She is forced to pick seats but can't,
because the only ones available require being a specially background checked
and known passenger. Eventually she gives up.

Then she googles Expedia. A few minutes later she has her tickets. Yesterday
she printed out the boarding passes complete with her seat assignment. On the
_same_ flight Google Flighs couldn't book.

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cloudwalking
I'm confused. In your second paragraph you say the _airline_ page won't let
your gf book the flight, but in your third paragraph you blame it on Google.

Sounds to me that the airline webpage has additional (read: useless?) security
features that Expedia doesn't have.

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CKKim
It is a confusingly-written comment, and I think the final bit especially is
simply the wrong wording for what the author means, but beneath all that
there's still a valid criticism of Google Flights over Expedia.

The unambiguous part is that Google Flights failed to account for the nature
of the seats it had identified as "available", and went ahead with the
recommendation when in fact they were not appropriate. The unclear part is
whether Expedia did actually find the same flight and seats (as the author
appears to be saying) but has some way around the security features (an
agreement with the airline?), or whether Expedia was aware of the
inappropriateness of the seats Google Flights recommended and in fact provided
different ones on a different flight.

It would be nice if the parent had been clearer in the explanation but it
seems that either way: Expedia 1, Google 0.

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jrockway
"Seats" is a terrible word to use. Airlines sell "inventory", not seats. You
can easily buy a ticket when all seats are assigned: someone will probably not
show up and you will get their seat instead. (If everyone shows up, then
they'll pay you, or another volunteer, money to take the next flight instead.)

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pm90
You may not get the best deal/least troublesome flight from here. Well, at
least for international flights.

I was trying to book a flight from Chicago->Seoul, and the options showed at
least $2000 for the cheapest flight, which involved a 33hr total journey
through China and Japan. I then asked my Korean friends, who recommended a
travel agent and they got me a $1700 ticket with only 17hrs direct flight

~~~
tvirot
Same here. My travel agent can always find me cheaper international tickets
than what I could find on the internet. Does anyone know exactly how this
works?

The best part is they can put me on a wait list for cheap tickets!

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JoshTriplett
> Same here. My travel agent can always find me cheaper international tickets
> than what I could find on the internet.

Funny, I've always had the opposite experience: every time I've used a travel
agent, they always found more expensive flights with worse timings (time of
day, layover, etc), and I end up requesting specific flights based on what
I've found online.

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jff
I've used a travel agent once; she found me a trans-continental flight for
about $200 less than I could find anywhere else, but for some reason I've
never tried calling again.

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te_chris
Sky scanner is fantastic <http://www.skyscanner.co.nz>

~~~
adambyrtek
It's great for cheap airlines. For major carriers there are better tools (e.g.
ITA Matrix).

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ajays
... and ITA Matrix was bought by Google, and its latest incarnation is Google
Flights.

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waqf
Matrix hasn't gone anywhere (<http://matrix.itasoftware.com/>). And it still
does things that Google Flights doesn't (such as working outside North
America).

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shn
I just did try, and got an incredible quote for DTW-IST roundtrip for only
$638. Funny thing is that when you go to the web sites it tells at the end
gives twice the price. Seems like a joke. It does not really link to an actual
sales opportunity.

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contingencies
I have it on reasonable authority that at least one X.25 era hacker has
exploited ye-olde travel provider interfaces to: A) automatically detect and
utilize cheap global routes B) brute force discount codes for global hotel
chains

~~~
shiven
Care to elaborate? I am missing context here. Do you mean a Google Flights
employee is that hacker? Or is X.25 accessible to anyone with an Internet
connection and knowledge of ye olde software running on green phosphorescent
screens?

~~~
contingencies
Nothing to do with google flights. Just a fun note about the old CRS platforms
generally.

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Harj
This year I left booking my tickets back to the UK for the holidays until the
last minute. The cheapest fare I could find myself, after what I considered to
be extensive searching, was $1800.

I ran a contest on Flightfox (<http://flightfox.com>) and offered a $49
finders fee. Someone found me a fare for $1000 with only one stop (vs two on
the fare I found).

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euccastro
Totally besides the point, but why $49? I thought the point of ending prices
with 9 was to make them look lower. You wanted the opposite, so perhaps $50
would have worked better?

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meric
This cool flight search has a "by Google" on it.
<http://matrix.itasoftware.com>

~~~
vijaykiran
.. because Google acquired ITA Software -
[http://googleblog.blogspot.nl/2011/04/ita-software-
acquisiti...](http://googleblog.blogspot.nl/2011/04/ita-software-acquisition-
cleared-for.html)

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chime
Also check out
[http://www.google.com/hotelfinder/#search;l=key+west,+fl;d=2...](http://www.google.com/hotelfinder/#search;l=key+west,+fl;d=2013-01-04;n=2;si=676776f6)

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downey
It's okay, but it's no Hipmunk.

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usaphp
Actually it's much better than hipmunk. I used to be a fanatic user of
hipmunk. But once I tried google flights i immediately was amazed by its
speed, browsing different dates is super fast and easy.

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acchow
Google Flights' instantaneous search allows you to freely explore the option
space opening up new ways of travel planning. Free for spring break and don't
know where to go? Set your travel dates and pan around the map looking for
deals.

Kayak doesn't even come close to this. At best, you can set the month of
travel; useless for most busy people.

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daurnimator
Looks great; but doesn't support trips originating in australia... wtf

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dorian-graph
I noticed that too. For a good, similar website, try <http://www.adioso.com/>
which is also an Australian startup, Melb based I think.

(I'm from Brisbane)

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daurnimator
Thanks; looks good; love the wide range of dates you can enter.

Annoyances are inability to sort by flight length, search non-economy; or
blacklist a certain airline.

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sfaruque
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to support Asia yet.

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aquilax
Neither Europe

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bronxbomber92
What do you mean? I can book a flight from the US to Rome, Italy.

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acchow
Only supports flights originating from US and Canada at the moment.
Destination can be anywhere in the world.

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bronxbomber92
Ah, I see. Strange it can only go one way (especially since it can book
international round-trip flights).

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dotmanish
Do you sense the big Google conspiracy to deport all US HN-ers out?

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geuis
Searched for New Zealand and got nothing. Searched for a specific city like
Auckland or Christchurch and got matches. I am used to better results from
Google.

~~~
usaphp
It's for US originating flights only. e.g. New York -> Paris will work,
however Paris -> New York will not. But i guess they are adding additional
counties.

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roopeshv
i use bing flights for my flight needs, and probably that's the only MS
service i ever use/used. I like bing flights just because of two checkboxes,
and nothing else; the checkboxes to search nearby airports on departure and
arrival destination.

I also found cheapest or next to cheapest flights on bing for some reason.

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adambyrtek
Bing Flights is just Kayak wrapped in a different user interface.

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roopeshv
ya, but for some wierd reasons, i find the cheapest tickets on bing, and not
on kayak.

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taigeair
interesting - i'll take a look into this too.

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hsiaobrandon
Any comparisons to that one YC-funded company (Hipmunk or something)?

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brackin
Hipmunk can't compete with anyone on price as they use prices directly from
airlines vs a mix of travel sites and airlines.

Hipmunk has a great interface & iPad app if you want to compare on flight
"agony" and their hotels interface is very good.

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niketdesai
This is a partial product still being built (as it's domestic at the moment
and will obviously go international I'm sure).

But the speed and data quality is where they will win out. The faster the
interface allows people to do what they want to do: many searches until an
ideal candidate is found. Other sites appear slow and most of the information
they bring back is useless (to the user) so speed is the name of the game.

Turns out Google is pretty good at that game. Just my thoughts.

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jasonlingx
Rubbish, no flights coming out of Singapore

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turbulents
Looks like this could be useful for planning out some potential mileage run
destinations!

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blhack
What is a mileage run?

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acchow
Avid frequent flyer miles collectors hunt for abnormally low cost fares which
travel long distances (often due to multiple out-of-the-way stops). This
results in a great cost per mile for them.

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tworats
Opened a few tabs with HN items in it. Booked my trip to SF, then started
browsing the tabs. Hit this tab, tried it, found a flight for about $80 less
than I just booked.

Lesson learned: always read HN before doing actual work.

~~~
jtheory
...I'm struggling to avoid downvoting this, just out of fear that someone
might read this and take it seriously. :)

Imagine...

Benefit: saved $80 on a flight, once!

Cost: OMG, did I just spend 2 hours reading about people doing interesting
things, instead of _doing_ interesting things? Again?

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tathagatadg
Have you tried <https://www.google.com/experimental/gmailfieldtrial>

was pleasantly surprised seeing "my flights", "my hotel reservations" etc ..

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ccleve
This isn't remotely as good as Kayak.

Kayak allows you to search for flights that are +- a few days around your
desired dates, and shows you fares on a calendar. Indispensable when you're
just exploring prices.

~~~
mda
There is an interface for exploring prices on calendar, click on the "Lowest
prices" icon next to the map icon. It shows changes in the prices when you
change dates etc and its usually very fast.

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rogerbinns
For some reason they don't have pricing information for Singapore Airlines,
but do have the flights which are mostly filtered out because "unknown" sorts
as the most expensive.

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catcherintherye
<http://www.skypicker.com> is really good for the European flights. What do
you think?

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gokulk
I find the ticket prices too high .. wonder if it just gets the prices from
the vendor websites or has some special arrangement with them.

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bdcravens
Thought this had been around a while - used it to plan flights for my last 2
conferences (3+ months ago)

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gimbuser
There are tons of international services like that, too bad Google didn't
launch worldwide...

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EToS
Sorry, flights from United Kingdom are not currently supported.

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gwillen
I don't use it because, last I checked, it's unable to handle what I think of
as basic corner cases, like booking a roundtrip going out from one airport in
a metro area and coming back to a different one.

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alec
It does that now - click on the button that says 'round trip' and choose
'multi city'.

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gwillen
See my self-reply.

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chrisringrose
This is INCREDIBLE! Gonna use this all the time now

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jamesmcn
Looks great. Light UI, responsive, low prices.

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Inetgate
Unfortunately, from Japan is not supported.

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silentnight1
What is this? Hidden Google spam? How can a mediocre (at best) site like this
get front page? Hope mods hellban all who up voted this.

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taigeair
It's a pretty cool release though. I'm liking whichairline.com quite a lot
these days because of it's visualisations. I also use kayak and hipmunk.
Pretty excited about what Google can do in this space.

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mrslave
I have used it but I haven't actually used it.

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drivebyacct2
Wow, just wow. I didn't know that I could apartment shop for this cheap.
January just got more exciting.

