Hipmunk for iPhone | Hacker News Reader

Hipmunk for iPhone

blog.hipmunk.com

98 pointsrufo27 comments

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.

What details do you need that aren't there? I see airlines, stops, price, and time information.

EDIT: Whoops, meant to hit cancel in the iOS app as I wanted to write a bit more but didn't have time… I'll leave the message as it stands.

The bars span the full width of my screen, which makes them hard to read. There's very little text, and I have to interact with each option to see details about a flight, which I find annoying if I just want to scroll through.

Also, the screenshot I gave above is a pretty tame example. Compare it to another search where there are more airlines in similar price ranges - http://i.imgur.com/e7VJq.png

Again, I'm not sure what details you're looking for; the stuff I care about (cost, departure and arrival time, rough length of flight, where it connects) is all right there.

As someone who lives in a city that's always one connecting flight away, I can't tell you how many times I've almost booked a flight only to realize the one that's $5 more on the same airline connects in a city more on the way and with less layover time, and Hipmunk does a far better job of communicating that to me then a traditional list.

That being said, I'm not using it exclusively yet (I usually check both Kayak and Hipmunk just to make sure I'm not missing something), but I really like that somebody is trying to do something different and (hopefully) enjoyable in flight search.

You are not the only one. It seems too complex for my taste(I know its not in reality). But the focus is more on time which I don't care much personally.

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

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.

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.

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".

"We don't have Emirates at the moment" ...?

I see Emirates all the time when I search for SFO-BOM

For me, Hipmunk's search results are the major selling point. Seeing the departure times of similarly-priced flights is important to me. I'm willing to spring for an extra $50 to get to my destination earlier, or leave later, in most cases.

This isn't Hipmunk's fault, but the lack of Southwest schedules kills the utility for me.

Strong disagree. It seems like everyone else (Kayak, Expedia, etc) can't do a simple flight search without 10 inputs and 5 pop-up windows.

Hipmunk is simple. It has tabs. Its not covered in shit. I can't see myself using anything else.

I find it a bit easier.

Very simple and easy to use interface. Very visual on comparing timelines of flights. I'm also fond of the no nonsense prices, no added fees.

What is lacking for me are "fuzzy dates," when I travel I don't mind looking +/- a day or so to get a cheaper flight.

I feel the same way so, you're not alone. I was super excited to try out Hipmunk but I find it to be cluttered, confusing and not informative. I don't know if its a left brain/right brain thing - maybe I'm just not a visual person, but I much prefer a grid style listing like the travelocity example you showed. I can't really tell what's going on with hipmunk.

Additionally - time is very rarely an important sorting criteria for me. I take the same half dozen flights regularly and I know what times they depart and arrive - I don't need to see that laid out. What I need to see is the price to book it.

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?)

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.

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

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. ;)

Agony is when you get stuck for 14 hours in a stopover on a journey with 4 legs instead of no or 1 stopover.

I had 9 hours in Taipei once and couldn't leave the airport. So insanely boring.

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.

When will you also provide this on Android devices?

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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