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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

That really is good. Hipmunk is still better if you know what days you want to fly, but this is great if you haven't yet decided precisely when, or precisely where, you want to go.

A pity it only works within the US so far, but I'm sure they'll add international destinations eventually.

Also a shame that Southwest still won't cooperate with any of these guys. I guess it's a rational decision on their part: be cheapest most of the time and hope that people won't bother to compare your fares to others.

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Yes, the first site that has JetBlue and SouthWest comparisons with the major airlines will have my traffic. I usually prefer to travel on price when it's not business so I love how Google has made this clear - that's my core problem with Hipmunk and I'm not sure why they don't just tell you the cheapest days to fly, like Kayak at least tries to. I also like how http://skyscanner.com does it.

We (Hipmunk) have Jetblue, and so does Kayak and Google. We also let you figure out the cheapest days to fly: just click "I'm flexible."

Good to hear.

You also have one killer competitive advantage: an adorable logo.

Thanks for that tip! i've been looking for a service like that, but I never saw that link on hipmunk.

Thanks for a great service.

Maybe you should have "I'm flexible" on the results page, too? Skyscanner does. I would not find it without your hint.

Thanks, I just saw this (new?) feature. Works beautifully.

I love your site. It easily has the best UI. I knew in the back of my mind that you have the "flexible" feature, as I've seen it before, but never thought about or even bothered to use it, because it just isn't visible enough. It may help to make it a link on the results page, and perhaps mention it on the loading screen as well.

Google Flights only supports the US at the moment. I see this as a good thing for Skyscanner which covers Europe well, they can adopt and implement new ideas from Google Flight search before Google gets around to other countries.

except that Hipmunk's interface is a clean clone of ITA's matrix search's gantt view (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/) - I'm sure it'll be a matter of time before that makes it into google's interface.

> except that Hipmunk's interface is a clean clone of ITA's matrix search's gantt view

Why clean clone? Gantt charts are (technically) 115 years old, and it's not like there are 5 billion ways to display a gantt chart, especially one with no paths. Other flight search startup have independently stumbled upon the idea of gantt charts for flight, why could that not be yet another independent reinvention?

> I'm sure it'll be a matter of time before that makes it into google's interface.

Or not, ITA does not seem to have met much success with their matrix so far.

They are the same as in yes, it's the same idea - a gantt chart but Hipmunk's way better looking and more interactive.

When I say clone, I don't mean to imply they simply copied it with no originality - I'm just pointing out this fact to all the people who claim Hipmunk's advantage is their gantt view..which ITA already has a versin of and can be improved to match or be better than Hipmunk's.

And yet so far no one has.

> When I say clone, I don't mean to imply they simply copied it with no originality

That's what "cloning" implies though: making the exact same thing.

> I'm just pointing out this fact to all the people who claim Hipmunk's advantage is their gantt view..which ITA already has a versin of and can be improved to match or be better than Hipmunk's.

But have not so far, so Hipmunk's remains an advantage. You "could always" copy to match, in theory. Does not mean it's technically feasible, let alone easy. Or that you think it's a good idea.

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