On plane travel | Hacker News Reader

On plane travel

blogs.gnome.org

44 pointsditados19 comments

The ultimate travel geek toolbox:

http://matrix.itasoftware.com - especially once you learn the advanced QPX language, e.g.:

    SFO,LAX CX,AA,KE F HKG,ICN,NRT ~CZ+ KMG

Search for flights from LAX or SFO, on Cathay Pacific, American, or Korean Air, a single flight to stopover cities Hong Kong, Seoul, or Tokyo, then any number of flights except on China Southern to Kunming, China (where I happen to live).

They're also the source of inspiration for Hipmunk's Time Bar interface.

The one downside: you can't book directly through them. But once you know your exact itinerary you can go book somewhere else. Sometimes you'll have to call to get the fare code/construction that Matrix recommends, as it won't always come up in an airline website or kayak search.

http://kvstool.com/ (Subscription required, windows/WINE) Search all kinds of fare, routing, timetable, award info. Uses the Sabre, Amadeus, and Worldspan (the 3 major info brokers). Has a pretty decent mobile website that has saved my ass more than once (I can see that there's open seats in business on a particular flight, etc).

And down the rabbit hole: http://flyertalk.com/

Lots of people also like http://expertflyer.com/ (subscription required) as a web-based alternative to KVSTool, but I find its search engine too restrictive and the results more difficult to quickly parse.

The ITA Matrix tool was ridiculously helpful when dealing with my old company's corporate travel agent. They would invariably put me on some horrible flight schedule unless I used Matrix to find the best route and just give them the flight numbers to book.

It also was great the one time I was 4 segments away from requalifying for platinum on AA and needed to make it up before the end of the year. That routing language is good when you need to stuff extra segments into a trip and have them be on a specific airline.

Turned out the cheapest route was to have me go to Omaha (by way of Chicago) where I met a friend for lunch in the airport cafeteria and then hopped right back on a plane home.

> 6. ook with the airline

Unfortunately, I have to agree here, which is unfortunate for sites like Hipmunk and Kayak.

I once booked through Expedia (years ago) a return flight from the UK to Australia and accidentally picked the wrong airport. I lived not far from Heathrow but I picked a departure from Gatwick and return to Heathrow. I rang up the airline (Emirates) and they said they could change it if it was booked through them and Expedia were no help.

Nowadays American Airlines has all my details so booking flights through their website is easy.

Hipmunk provides a great interface and I feel bad for not booking through it but I've been burnt on this a number of times so just won't do it anymore.

Plus there are other advantages like seat selection through the airline's website.

Perhaps the business model for online travel booking needs to evolve from the current commission model to an affiliate model like Amazon. If, say, Hipmunk directs you to aa.com they get a commission on purchases made by you on aa.com for the next 24 hours or whatever.

Maybe it's just because I've flown far too many times, but this seems to be such general and obvious information, stuff that would seem common sense to my mother who isn't exactly high-tech. Are there really people, other than those obsessed by loyaly miles, who don't look at different airlines, and there really people who, if they don't have a rock solid requirement of the date, check +/- a few days?

The biggest tip I would add on: just because an airport is named for a city, doesn't mean it is close. For example budget airlines in Europe often pick really shit airports, such as London Stansted, or there's an Oslo airport that is ~90 minutes away from Oslo. Even for decent airports, depending on your final destination, there could be a big upside/downside chosing between London Heathrow or London Gatwick... New York JFK or Newark..

I'm with you. All points were painfully obvious. "Try to find the shortest trip", "Check for a nice departure and arrival time". I mean, really?

I'd add many, many others, for example: don't book priority boarding with ryanair if you're a solo traveller; just get on last (this also means you get to keep your legs stretched as long as possible) and sit between the people at the front who always grab a window and aisle seat. Everyone else then roams further in to do the same, midway down the plane, leaving the middle seat free.

I wouldn't inflict a Ryanair flight on my worst enemy.

I don't understand what you mean with sit between people in the front. What is the point of that? Is not the middle seat something you want to avoid?

Ryanair flights are packed so tight to the aisle (which sees so much traffic by Ryanair's cart-pushing peddlers) that aisle seats are simply a guarantee of getting your shoulders or feet barged, not extra comfort. Fool's gold. The benefits to sitting at the front (besides not having to get on til you absolutely have to) are hassle-free and speedy embarking and disembarking, beating the rush to passport control/immigration desks.

"Hacking" airports is especially useful due to certain airport layouts. #1 rule about standing in line: everyone just stands in line without understanding why they are standing in line.

For instance, in Philadelphia, the airport security is outside of the inner walkway which connects terminals D & E. E was the international terminal, so there was always way less traffic going in/out of the gate. Sometimes D would have a security line backed up to the curb. Simply walk over to terminal E and bypass the entire line.

Similarly, in LaGuardia, there are two taxi lines outside the American terminal. One is all the way at the end, hidden from sight. Everyone not familiar with the airport just lines up at the main one and if you walk around the edge of the terminal you can hop in a taxi right away.

Anyone seriously optimizing their travel, though, will most likely be a loyalty member of some airline alliance and the goal is to maximize your upgrades (free or otherwise) to always fly business/first.

For example, AA has a "challenge" where you can automatically earn Platinum status if you earn 10,000 points in 90 days. This isn't terribly difficult if you're flying to an international conference. You quite literally call a 1-800 number and say "I want to take the challenge." Platinum gives you automatic domestic business class upgrades when available!

And on Roundtrip vs. Oneway:

In most cases roundtrip is way cheaper, even if you only require a oneway flight. The cheapest roundtrip from Vienna to San Francisco is something like 700 EUR, with oneway it costs around twice as much for half the flights (1400 EUR).

One notable exception for flights between US and Europe is Air Berlin, where oneway costs only half of roundtrip. But they only fly on certain days under the week and may therefore not show up when you search for a site.

Next best option is to just book roundtrip and just let the return flight expire. Warning: Most airlines invalidate all the other flights after you've missed on of them. So make sure to only let the last flight(s) expire.

And the most important rule at the end: Never ever (even if it's free) fly Air France or over CGD airport. The experiences I had there were (multiple times) so awfully bad that one wouldn't believe them if I told then.

I try to always fly with Lufthansa, even if it is a bit more expensive. They are usually on time and they serve food and drinks. You can almost guarantee that Iberia will have some delay. KLM is also nice.

To avoid: Ryanair. Seriously, even if it's cheap it is not worth it. Also, the one time I flew with Alitalia I got the worst headache I've gotten flying.

Obviously it's anecdotal, but I've also had a few bad Alitalia experiences and plan not to ever fly with them again.

anyone who is a serious frequent flyer needs to be on flyertalk.com - its basically the ultimate hub for all things related to flying and frequent flyer programs and airport rules and ticketing tricks. one can also trade 'instruments' on their coupon connection forum.

http://rome2rio.com/ actually took a lot of hassle out of flying for me. Sure, they don't list "no-frills" airlines like Ryanair, but I don't want to fly those anyway. Check them out if you don't know the site yet, they were on HN some months ago.

Also, http://skyscanner.net/ has not been mentioned yet. From the article, Amadeus seems to do something similar, but I've only used Skyscanner so far and have been quite happy with the results.

Seems like Hipmunk should integrate Airport ratings to their flights, and stuff like if there's a free wifi available.

it recommends amadeus http://www.amadeus.net/ which i've never used before. now that i try it out, i cant see any prices! am i doing something stupid? does anyone else see prices? if not, what's the idea? how do i know these are lowest cost?

I'm seeing prices in british pounds, which isn't terribly useful to me. I generally use kayak.com to look for flights, and this looks like an exact copy of the interface.

ah! it seems that it doesn't show prices if you select multiple destinations (i was planning a round trip SCL - SEA - SFO - SCL). but when i try a simple return i see the same as you. thanks.

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