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Comment by rradu | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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