

Attn, flight-search startups: Priceline, Expedia say hotels are where it’s at - levirosol
http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/08/priceline-earnings/

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naner
There's a lot of room for improvement:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/e0val/how_pricel...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/e0val/how_priceline_screwed_me_out_of_a_family_vacation/c14ebz2)

 _I work front desk in a hotel and Priceline, Expedia and Hotwire... basically
all 3rd party booking companies [oversell our rooms]. They are the number one
reason we get oversold. Most frustrating experience in the world..._

 _It sounds like Priceline was closed out to booking rooms by the hotel, but
still continued to sell rooms on their website after the cutoff period. I have
been oversold numerous times by these companies and we will actually have to
call them (more than once usually) and tell them to stop selling rooms because
we have no more. And sure enough, an hour later I will still have people come
into the hotel and say that they just bought a room through expedia when they
landed at the airport. In this case, there is nothing I can do for this person
because their money is with expedia and not the hotel._

 _My best advice: next time you see a great deal on expedia/priceline/etc.
call the hotel up directly and ask them if they can match or do better. Hotels
have to keep their promises with guests and if it is our fault we overbooked
we have to walk you to another hotel and pay for it out of our pocket.
Expedia/Priceline don't have to do that at all because they simply don't
care._

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ojbyrne
Having worked on tripadvisor's flights product, all I can say is "well, duh."

Seems to me there is room for a disruptive hotel booking startup. A Kayak
Explore like interface that included the total cost of a trip (mid-range hotel
and cost of a flight) would be killer.

Or even better, one that also offered/priced alternative methods of travel.
Here on the east coast, now that air travel has been turned into a massive
ordeal and time sink by the TSA, bus and train are often quicker, cheaper and
more convenient alternatives.

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happybuy
Good thing Hipmunk chose a nice, broad and non-flight specific name.

Very likely that accommodation bookings are on their long term implementation
plan. The flight bookings could also just be a good customer acquisition tool
to on-sell additional bookings & services.

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zach
Orbitz turned out okay despite having a flight-related name, right?

I like choosing a broad name (there's certainly enough examples of that within
travel) but I'm more interested to see how the cutesy name and branding works
for them. It seems like an easy way to help people remember it but my first
impression is a little negative. We'll see, I'm sure.

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happybuy
Yes I think the name Hipmunk and cutesy positioning works in a sense that it
seems small and relatable, a counterpoint to a lot of their competitors
branding.

As a challenger brand I think 'hipmunk' works better than a generic non-
emotive name would.

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dzlobin
Goddamn it VentureBeat, stop blowing up our spot :-)

We (me and ihodes) are launching our startup in this space within the month

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ihodes
Damn right. And we welcome the competition!

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hartror
The current batch of flight search startups (ie YC backed Adioso & Hipmunk)
are disruptive in a space that has long stagnated. First using them I felt
like I had been unchained, the incumbents are so restrictive and clumsy
whereas the new kids on the block are fresh and flexible.

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kn0thing
Thanks! We've got plenty more planned for hipmunk - as many in this thread
point out, there's a lot more than flight search that needs agony removed.

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logicalmoron
Care to get into just a wee bit more detail, Alexis? :)

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SageRaven
To hell with hotels -- give me a nation-wide (US) real estate listing site
with a Hipmunk-like lean and clean interface. All the current ones suck,
unless there are some new startups that I haven't come across.

realtor.com has gotten so bad over the last few years (especially with its
latest site re-vamp), I've resorted to scraping queries myself to avoid the
frustration of wading through the mess of an interface. The leading runners-up
in this space all have equally bloated/useless interfaces.

Hipmunk is just plain awesome. I don't fly myself, but I spread the Hipmunk
love to any all friends and family that'll listen. A huge congrats and heart-
felt thanks to the developers!

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kn0thing
Thank you very much, SageRaven! We really count on folks like you to spread
the word about hipmunk.com (we're sans PR firm) and really do believe that a
great product will sell itself. Or more to the point, that users will sell it
for us. In your case, you're not even a user, yet you still are doing us a
huge favor by promoting it. Lemme send you something. Please send me your
mailing address: Alexis@hipmunk.com

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jessriedel
The fact that profit margins are bigger in Hotel search doesn't mean that
there isn't money to be made in airfare search.

Hotel search is a thornier problem. There may be more money to be made when
someone eventually figures out how to do it right, but that doesn't mean that
you shouldn't tackle airfare search if you think you've solved that easier
problem.

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colinsidoti
Room77 has been recruiting heavily at MIT and are "working to bring a unique
twist to hotel search"

They seem to have quite the team: <http://www.room77.com>

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jrockway
Doesn't booking.com pretty much have a monopoly in this market? What will your
company do that's better than what they do?

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sanj
I'm a little surprised that this is news. The profit margins in hotels appear
to be _much_ bigger than in flight.

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ebun
I guess nobody informed AirBnB.

