

Hipmunk for iPhone - rufo
http://blog.hipmunk.com/hipmunk-for-iphoneipod-touch

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rradu
I'm gonna get downvoted for this, but I really don't find Hipmunk any easier
to use than the traditional flight booking service.

In fact, quite the opposite--I find the splash of colors and symbols across my
screen confusing. Attempting to match the rows and columns with each other
just makes my head hurt.

Compare the same search on Travelocity ( <http://i.imgur.com/PlX0d.png> ) and
Hipmunk ( <http://i.imgur.com/1eh47.png> )

It may be just me, but the Travelocity results are much clearer. I don't have
to click on each flight to view basic details about it. Additionally, Hipmunk
charges a higher fee for their bookings than bigger name travel sites.

~~~
smackfu
The Hipmunk display is really aimed at making it easy to pick the best option
time-wise when there are multiple options at roughly the same price.

OTOH, what really put me off Hipmunk was not finding cheapest flights,
compared to Kayak. I put in a multi-hop international flight, and Hipmunk is
giving me $4479 vs $1786 on Kayak. That basically means "do not use" to me.

My search: NYC ​ DXB on Sun, Mar 20 ​DXB ​ MEL on Thu, Mar 24 ​MEL ​ NYC on
Mon, Apr 04

~~~
spez
We don't have Emirates at the moment. We should have the same prices as
everyone else in the US, but we're still growing our international coverage.

~~~
smackfu
That is the thing that worries me with all these meta search sites. No one is
announcing who they don't search. So when someone like Kayak gets in a fight
with AA, and they disappear from the listing, you better hope you notice it
and do your search somewhere else that has AA. Or all this fancy technology is
for naught.

~~~
calbear81
There are still holdouts like Southwest so the whole search one and done
mantra has not been fulfilled. I do appreciate that Hipmunk is trying to do
something different and they recognize clearly that the status quo was "not
good enough".

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panacea
Really nice app.

It's not immediately obvious to me what the agony ranking is for though, and
there's no help menu?

(Obviously it's ranking flights from least agony-inducing to most, but what's
the metric?)

~~~
unwind
This image: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/crankyflier/4929727281/> shows a
tooltip that describes it as "A combination of price, duration, and number of
stops" which sounds about right for a flight's agony-factor.

~~~
BCM43
I don't have an iphone, so forgive me, but how does a tooltip work on the
iphone?

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shimon
Tooltips are not typically seen in iPhone apps. The screenshot was from the
hipmunk web application.

Perhaps hipmunk assumes that anyone using their iPhone app is already familiar
with the web app and shouldn't be treated as a novice user. Or perhaps they
have so much confidence that their agony ranking is what you want that they
don't feel compelled to explain it. ;)

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jasonjei
I am all for services that help us find plane tickets in a lower price bucket,
but how exactly is this different from ITA's new matrix interface and OnTheFly
app? I guess understanding how you position yourself differently from ITA will
help.

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AngeloAnolin
When will you also provide this on Android devices?

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pchristensen
I downloaded this immediately, loved it, then remembered that they don't have
Southwest results, so I sighed and realized that I would hardly ever use it.
It looks great though!

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johns
I love Hipmunk except for that it only gives me limited options for purchasing
at the end. I'm guessing this is to maximize their referral revenue, but I
have status on an airline and only purchase from their site directly. If I
purchase from another site I have less control over changes to my itinerary
after purchase. That's my preferred airlines fault, but other sites like Bing
Travel let me click through the results right to my airlines' web site.

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ondrasej
I'm glad to see Hipmunk have an app, this could make searching for flights
even more fun.

I was interested if they had any problems with selling tickets via an iPhone
app using the browser for paymentsm not the in app purchase API. But obviously
they did not, as the app was approved.

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CoachRufus87
I can't seem to find Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)

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danilocampos
Thank you. A fix is in the pipe. In the meantime, you can select that blank
cell that turns up as the first result when you type "AUS". Dumb display logic
decision on my part. Sorry.

