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Comment by rjsamson | Hacker News Reader

So this is pretty cool and everything, but the frustrating thing for me is I would love to see the itineraries that won, but I keep getting greeted with a "only the contest owner can view flight details." I'd love to see this opened up - I think it would build a lot more trust in their platform.

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Hi rj,

Here are the details for the economy itinerary, which was $1730 for 6 Continents. We're working with the expert of the business class itinerary to see what details he's happy for us to post.

   JFK 18-Oct-2012 GEO 18-Oct-2012 Delta (New York, US to Georgetown, Guyana)
   GEO 25-Oct-2012 JFK 25-Oct-2012 Delta (Georgetown, Guyana to New York, US)
   JFK 14-Nov-2012 TXL 15-Nov-2012 Air Berlin (New York, US to Berlin, Germany)
   SXF 29-Jan-2013 AGA 29-Jan-2013 EasyJet (Berlin, Germany to Agadir, Morocco)
   AGA 05-Feb-2013 LGW 05-Feb-2013 EasyJet (Agadir, Morocco to London, UK)
   LTN 26-Feb-2013 SAW 26-Feb-2013 EasyJet (London, UK to Istanbul, Turkey)
   SAW 18-Mar-2013 IKA 19-Mar-2013 Pegasus (Istanbul, Turkey to Tehran, Iran)
   IKA 29-Mar-2013 KUL 30-Mar-2013 AirAsia (Tehran, Iran to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
   KUL 02-Apr-2013 PER 02-Apr-2013 AirAsia (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Perth, Australia - YAY!)
   PER 07-Apr-2013 KUL 07-Apr-2013 AirAsia (Perth, Australia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
   KUL 09-Apr-2013 BKK 09-Apr-2013 AirAsia (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Bangkok, Thailand)
   BKK 18-Apr-2013 KBP 18-Apr-2013 Aerosvit (Bangkok, Thailand to Kiev, Ukraine)
   KBP 18-Apr-2013 JFK 18-Apr-2013 Aerosvit (Kiev, Ukraine to New York, US)

Would it not make sense to enable public viewing for it on the site - at least in instances like above where you are happy to let people know?

I feel the rough cost should be promoted up front, I remember the last time you did one of these promo contests (or at least the last time one was on HN) I found it interesting, then was put off by the fact that you didn't allow viewing of the winning itinerary, and the fact that information on the service didn't seem to be as accessible as it could have been... I then completely forgot about you.

This time I clicked around, entered some information and saw the prices - and signed up to pay for a search. If the results are good, or even suggest promise for the future, I'll be sure to remember you. But I'm not sure I would have done any of this if a.) I wasn't sat here watching a football (soccer) match that's boring the hell out of me and b.) Next week I need to go on a trip to two cities in hopefully a single day, i.e. good timing

Edit: More feedback, would be nice to have more flexibility in requesting flight details. For example my trip next week, I don't care what day it's on (any of Mon-Fri would be fine), but I don't want to put +/- 3 days because I don't want one flight Monday and the next on Friday. Additionally I want to go to two cities, I don't care in which order. Maybe you could take a look at my notes on http://flightfox.com/contest/23238 and tell me a.) If it's OK that I specified them there and b.) If it might be possible to be able to specify them somewhere more efficient rather than just writing prose

I agree - if you could put this on the site, at least for your FlightFox sponsored contests, I think that would be pretty powerful marketing material.

Hi corin_5, coincidentally we're working on improved date flexibility right now. You'll be able to specify before/after and many more day period options. We're doing the same for passenger type. Not just adults, but students, infants, etc.

We can't enable public viewing because the experts don't want to divulge their most prized tips and tricks to the wider public. This is their livelihood, and we are mostly holding these contests to test their skills and proving something more interesting that the typical simple return trips.

Glad you're giving us a go. Please let us know if you have any issues or questions.

Another piece of flexibility feedback - wildcard destinations, for finding a decent priced holiday (obviously with some guidance on rough location). I guess this is possible from the competition you just ran, but I must have missed the option.

As to the reasons for not enabling public viewing... as you've publicly shared here on HN, could you not at least share that much on the site? Alternatively could you not offer an option for people to "buy it now", to use an ebay phrase? Or would the necessary price tag be too high for most people to be interested?

p.s. The 5 was attached to the number of minutes, not my name! ;D

Great point re destinations. You can actually do wildcard destinations right now, but it's just not obvious. We have an autocomplete function on the airport box, but you can enter anything you want. As you'll see on the RTW contests, we just entered "Round the World" for 'from' city and "6 Continents" for the 'to' city.

That said, we need to make this more obvious and probably tease out more adventurous use of this feature. Thanks for the feedback.

I think corin_5 was suggesting more that you have the option to display more info on a case by case bases. I understand why you don't show detailed information for all contests by default. But on high profile contests, that you have permission from the expert, it would make sense for you to have the option to show detailed information.

Thanks! In my personal opinion I think that seeing that actual itinerary really boosts the 'WOW' factor.

So, this requires essentially being gone for 4 continuous months in order to get these prices?

I'm not sure how amazing that is really. That's also 4 months of living on the road, hotels, meals, etc.

If you wanted to visit all 6 continents, it seems like you could do it for a cheaper overall rate by just book 6 individual flights over time taking advantage of various promotions.

4 months traveling the world, having to eat "meals"... sounds terrible! :)

Well, it is for almost anyone with a halfway decent/steady job.

What I'm saying is that it's kind of impractical for a lot people. I would expect a "contest" like this to have a winning result that was a little more practical from a total travel time perspective, or at the very least have 2 winning options, one for "Total trip time of 2 weeks or less" (granted this might have to be 3 or even 4 weeks if you're going to be spending at least 12 days away anyway) and one for "Lowest cost overall regardless of duration".

The contest had a specific set of rules and a 4-month itinerary was permissible within these rules. The point wasn't to create an itinerary that would be advisable for a particular individual, it was to demonstrate that FlightFox is a good tool for finding rock bottom prices, so any set of fair rules would work.

If you were actually making an itinerary for someone, you'd probably have even more pressing questions than trip duration, such as "Where would you like to go?" Do you even want to go 6 continents? :)

Yeah, I was interested until I found that part.

I think for most people, if they could afford 4 months off work then they wouldn't be too concerned about finding the cheapest possible flights.

It's still interesting in a theoretical way, but far less useful than the headline makes it sound.

At least here in the UK (I know slightly less so in the US, so your mileage may vary) it's extremely common for students who are either between high school / university or just graduated to take a 'gap year', or some other period of time to travel. For them price is clearly a very important factor, and the four months isn't a huge problem!

I'm American and I just got back from 5 weeks backpacking in Southeast Asia. I through my trip was long until I met legions of Brits on gap years...

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to take an around the world trip in just 2 weeks. You'd end up spending the majority of your time on planes and barely being able to enjoy each stop.

Doesn't sound like very much fun to me.

For people who would actually book an around the world trip, 4 months is probably a much more realistic duration.

I can see this working out better for remote workers (like so many of us are). I don't know about other people, but I can pretty easily bring myself down to part time and work on the road -- on planes, in coffee shops around the world, etc. Enough so I can still enjoy the travels and yet make some income while I'm doing it.

I'm on month 7 of 12 of doing just this, really enjoying it. About $3500/mo expenses on average (includes my wife and I), mostly in south/southeast Asia (lower cost) but housesitting is making Europe doable on the same budget. Current house even has an LCD to plug into, so I'm back in the warm embrace of vsplits :)

Edit: clarify expenses, not income; so utilization is <100% of a 40HWW.

Why would you try to visit the entire world if you only have 2 weeks of vacation available? At best you would have time to visit a handful of landmarks per city before getting right back on a plane. That's a complete waste of money.

So pessimistic. Four months of new adventures, pushing your boundaries, learning new things, meeting new people, new stories, great memories.

Very cool, but I'm not clear who your site targets. That price is amazing but the itinerary involves a lot of flying around on terrible airlines. I usually have a lot of restrictions: I want to fly on these dates, with the fewest travel hours possible, on good, dependable airlines. How much leeway is in there to save money?

Less leeway, but flightfox is about saving you time and money. Even if you build a 6-continent itinerary with a lot of restrictions, it will take many hours. The tips and tricks the experts provide, even for getting on better airlines or other perks, really comes in handy. There are of course sometimes we just can't help. That's normally with simple itineraries and inflexible flyers.

I was curious to see how the prices broke down and made a spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArqFVqywuf39dEZ...

My total was $2617. I know flight prices change over time, but I'm guessing that whoever found this took advantage of some promotions or booking methods other than buying directly from the airline?

The rules for economy were that to be freely bookable online. The contest was a while ago now though so the same deals they took advantage of probably ended.

And here are some of the details of the business class itinerary for $3,630. Keep in mind that a similar itinerary from the same expert came in at $2569. That itinerary didn't win because we couldn't verify it online. The expert suggested it required a quick phone call.

   Los Angeles LAX to Sydney SYD
   Sydney SYD to Bangkok BKK
   Bangkok BKK to XXX
   XXX to XXX
   XXX to Cairo CAI
   Cairo CAI to London LHR
   London LHR to XXX
   XXX to Bogota BOG
   Bogota BOG to XXX
   XXX to Los Angeles LAX

Apologies for the missing details, but these details are the experts' secret sauce. If you actually want to take a trip like this, let us know and we can hold a content for you and make sure the best experts know about it.

Not personally interested in that deal, but wondering: what would it take to get that trip. Could create a contest, but would it need paying more than the minimum fee to get that same deal? Do some experts not get out of bed for less than $x?

To get the business class itinerary, it would take a significant finder's fee. If you are seriously interested in an itinerary like this, please email us, team at flightfox.com and we'll work directly with you. Like we mentioned in the post, this would be an unforgettable trip without a doubt.

What is "significant"? $100? $500?

So who are these "experts"? Travel agents? What is the motivation to them to keep certain details secret?

Not sure if it applies to this particular one, but there are a lot of pricing quirks in international, multi-airline itineraries that one can exploit: airline fare rules are fairly complex lists of requirements/exclusion/combination/stopover rules etc., and the combinatorial complexity and ancient IT infrastructure it's all coded in sometimes produces results the airlines might not have intended had they realized it. Particularly lucrative combinations tend to get shut down once airlines notice them, so there's sort of an ethos of not talking about them openly in public. One exploit that was going around for a while, for example, was that certain combinations of cities/airlines would result in the fuel surcharge not showing up on a fare like you'd expect it to ("fuel dumping"); you could sometimes purposely add weird legs to make that situation come about, but weren't supposed to publicly post such a leg if you found one, lest it go away.

Hi _delerium, just for the record, these RTW itineraries do not contain fuel dumps. The prices have mostly come about from intelligent routing, which you rightly suggest is the work of humans better recognizing efficient combinations than websites using existing rigid algorithms and limited data sets.

We built Flightfox after living across 6 continents and learning this for ourselves. Often we'd save thousands just by spending a few hours on routing. Like most people who travel wide when they're young, the costs of flights became a primary expense. But even after we'd traveled for a while, it didn't get easier because for the most part, local knowledge is what makes the difference. Always traveling somewhere new meant we were always starting from scratch. Then it hit us... crowdsourcing.

how long is the trip from LA to LA, how much would the finder's fee be, on each continent and could it be made to include at least a stop of 48 contiguous hours?

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