Show HN: Price comparison for attraction tickets, tours, and activties | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Price comparison for attraction tickets, tours, and activties

ticketlens.com

49 pointstymonw35 comments

OK, be CAREFUL. I checked a couple of this and it seems like it compares only third party websites, so make sure you check the OFFICIAL website for the attraction. An example: the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, on this website the lowest is 27 euro but from the official website you can get the same fast track ticket for 17(+4) euro.

Maybe you can find something good here, but always do some extra research.

Thanks for the feedback!! We are planning on adding these! Our first version though includes 6 big providers which have worldwide reach. We did some test and vs some official sites we are cheaper (e.g. Empire State) however on some we are a bit more expensive (e.g. Vatican Museum). But as said we are planning to add all of them.

> compares only third party website... the official website (was cheaper)

Not surprisingly all the links are affiliate tagged "&partner_id=2FA2B&partner_visitor_id=9lvgkk3kpaa8&psrc=partner_api" so yeah, they only want to show you things that will give them a kick-back.

So not really helpful as a one-stop-shop.

Currently for us the limiting factor is API availability. Most of the official sites don't offer an API so we would need to scrape them one by one. For sites which offer an affiliate program we joined to finance the project but our ranking is not dependent on what we earn but strictly on price.

Exactly, I went down the rabbit hole, saw $69 Book of Mormon Broadway tickets; decided to do the clickthroughs. Took me to headout.com where the listing occurs, boom total price $162 for 1 ticket ($130 ticket, $32 fees) - I don't even know where they got the $69 from without pulling out of thin air.

We double checked that. $69 (excl. fees) seems to be not available on all dates. We could not find a case where the price we show are not correct.

You can check prices by date by using the calendar button above the section with the product listings at: https://www.ticketlens.com/en/g7758

I'd say then the "Select an Offer" section feels a bit misleading.

Using our example, I'm seeing "headout.com - available today". The impression I get from this is I am able to get a ticket for today. Looking on the right, I see "from $86.25". This gives me the impression that I can get a ticket for today, starting as low as $86.

Clicking through the link however shows the tickets for today are $159. I get that on headout.com, when they say "from $69" they are implying there are days where tickets are $69, and I think it comes from nothing on their site saying "available today".

On your site however, I read it as I mentioned above. As my first click through resulted in an unexpected price hike (again, from my expectations, not reality), I had the same mental connection I have looking at coupons on RetailMeNot - I assume that most of the coupons are bogus or personal affiliation links. Not knocking the product, but this was my "user experience" interacting with it for the first time.

As someone who is currently planning a trip to NYC and has been comparing CityPass to its competitors (and versus just buying individual tickets)... Thank you! I will be using this site this weekend to help me make my decisions.

Hope it will be useful for you. Please don't hesitate to give us feedback. Have a nice weekend in NYC!

Looks cool, good name as well, I can see myself trying to remember it next time I'm on holiday and the connection between the functionality and the name is tight. How are you monetizing, and what is your vision for the project?

Thanks

A bit more context. We created a price comparison for attraction tickets, in-destination tours and activities. We were surprised to lear how much you can save by choosing the best provider (check out New York City).

Everything in Las Vegas is showing up in Euro prices, even though I am located in Las Vegas and would like to see dollars.

Also if you look at "The Mob Museum" one vendor has the lowest price, which is 15, but its only because they offer a child ticket, and that price is being compared to the adult tickets on other websites.

Not sure how you can solve that but it seems like a significant obstacle to finding the actual best price.

Thanks for the feedback. You can change the price to USD in the top bar of the page. We are working on a smarter way to set the currency on first visit. In regards to the Mob Museum we will take a look and fix. Sometimes the APIs we use are not very specific in regards to child / adult pricing.

I just did a quick check for WTC tickets in NYC, and the prices were wrong. https://www.ticketlens.com/en/g6262

All of the vendors had the exact same price of $26.00

Are you relying on an affiliate feed or something? If so, why? Those are notorious for being out of date quickly, and definitely not reliable at all.

We just checked again and the prices are correct. Some vendors charge a booking fee which they do not show at the first page but only if you proceed to checkout. E.g. the last offer for $29 has $3 booking fee. We always show the full price including all fees.

Gotcha, nice catch!

Booking fees are not showing up , I tried the Empire State building, cheapest being $35 (Normal price is $38). There is a $3 booking fee per ticket.

Indeed :-( You got us! We need to fix this case.

We corrected the problem see: https://www.ticketlens.com/en/g6248 the parent page: https://www.ticketlens.com/en/p680490/new-york/empire-state-... will update soon. Unfortunately this specific site is a bit complicated with the fees. Which underscores how in transparent this market is.

It would be useful if you broke it down and had a total.

Do you use any Google APIs?

I clicked on London, and got Stone Henge listed ?!

There needs to be some geographical search options, you don't seem to be able to search by area either.

Thanks for the feedback! This is a first version of the product. Far from perfect and the area search definitely needs some more work.

Miami shows Kennedy Space Center as an attraction, that is over 3 hours away.

Thanks for the feedback

Congrats! I have rarely seens such a fast website from Austrian developers. :) Would be interested in your tech stack for that project.

In additional to that, if you are looking for SEO / performance marketing or have any questions, just ping me.

Liebe Grüße aus Linz Thomas

Hey! My company (https://qbix.com) makes something very complementary to this: apps for communities.

We are looking to integrate ticket sales for festivals and so on.

Would you like to collaborate? Email me at the username greg and domain is qbix.com

Will do!

Looking forward

I like the site. It's easy to find stuff in multiple ways. Easy on the eyes.

imo the only thing missing for me are destinations for drinkers like Napa / Sonoma and beer country in the Northwest US. I'm sure there are more places in France, Germany, and Ireland

Thanks for the feedback! There is more destinations coming. So stay tuned ...

Very neat, I can see myself coming back to this for literally every urban destination.

Thanks!

London in city passes it seems that "explorer pass" is repeated.

Noted

Reply on news.ycombinator.com