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Comment by borism | Hacker News Reader

why use Orbitz in the first place? It seemed very terribly done few times I searched with it. I like Expedia, even though it is not significantly better.

But this year I used Kayak, Expedia and ITA's Matrix only to search for flights. I then booked directly with the airlines.

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Habit. I know how Orbitz's interface works already and can go through it on autopilot - I don't have to poke around with something new.

I also tend to use orbitz to find the cheapest fare and then book with the airlines. Orbitz, expedia, kayak, they're all about the same as far as I'm concerned.

And for hotels I'm mostly using hotwire at the moment, in combination with betterbidding which has so far had 100% accuracy in predicting which hotel I'm going to get... or at least correctly predicted that I'm going to get one of two equally palatable alternatives (Airport Sheraton vs Airport Hilton? Who cares?)

After using Hipmunk and ITA Matrix, I won't go back to using Orbitz or Expedia for searching fares. They're still convenient for actually booking things, but that's it.

I've lately had to book some flights between SFO and IAD on very short notice, and with Hipmunk for searching and Orbitz for booking, I can go from deciding that I should get a plane ticket to having it ordered in 10 minutes. For more complex searches, though, ITA Matrix still beats Hipmunk.

OK, I'd never heard of hipmunk, but now I've had a look I'm pretty much converted. That's a far better interface than anything else I've seen.

\o/ Word of mouth really does work. Thanks, weel! And don't be a stranger, hugh3, drop us a note with any & all feedback (contact@hipmunk.com) or say hi in Olark chat right on hipmunk.com

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