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Off-topic: I have been a long-time Kayak user, but don't see many people mention it hear when discussing Hipmunk. Does anyone feel strongly that one of the com

Off-topic: I have been a long-time Kayak user, but don't see many people mention it hear when discussing Hipmunk. Does anyone feel strongly that one of the competitors is better than Kayak? If so, could you elaborate? I have occasionally used Google Flights, but it seemed to have fewer knobs and I could not find any features that made me want to stay. The only competitors I have consistently but rarely used is Skiplagged, since it performs a kind of search (of somewhat dubious morals) that can't be done with Kayak.

DangerousPie 7y ago
I used to use Kayak and Skyscanner but started using Google Flights more recently because it has a much nicer interface.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  Anything in particular you like about Google Flights over Kayak? Aesthetics, functionality, or efficiency?
  - therealdrag0 7y ago
    I just opened Kayak for the first time in a LONG time. - I don't like the rows and rows of panels trying to get me to go to other pages or see their guides. - I want a search focused page. - I don't like how when I click search, it automatically opens up cheapoair. - I don't like how the results page starts with a modal asking me to setup a price alert.
    - jessriedel 7y ago
      Thanks. I basically agree with those complaints. For what it's worth Kayak will stop automatically opening up comparisons like CheapOAir if you uncheck the box once, and it seems to remember that preference. I think the price alert modal is also a one-time thing.
  - yibg 7y ago
    For me it's because google flights is more responsive and faster with search results compared to kayak.
novok 7y ago
I like skiplagged's price graph, which I didn't realize until now kayak has too. Skiplagged shows it in the search result, while kayak shows it only on the front page. I'll miss hipmunk's time chart when trying to plan flights.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  Yea, I do wish Kayak had this, on the search page (although they do have a color-coded grid illustrating how prices change if you adjusted your dates +-3 days).
gniv 7y ago
I haven't used Kayak in a while. I use Google Flights because I like the date grid. Usually my dates are flexible.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  FYI Kayak has a date grid. When selecting a date, click the drop-down menu labeled "exact" and choose "+-3 days" (or whatever).
  - username3 7y ago
    Google Flights is faster than Kayak was.
    - jessriedel 7y ago
      Faster at populating the date grid? Or just a snappier UI in general?
      - Cyph0n 7y ago
        Google Flights immediately populates the date grid with price estimates after you pick a date. I have yet to see a competitor that has this feature.
        st1ck 7y ago
        But those are estimates and not the final prices displayed after you pick the date. If you specifically want the cheapest date, the grid is barely useful. ITA matrix usually does a better job.
hoistbypetard 7y ago
It's been a couple of years since I did much air travel. When I did, hipmunk's sort was much better than Kayak's. Kayak was my favorite before hipmunk opened. Once hipmunk came along, I tended to use both when searching for flights, just to see if a better deal popped up on one but not the other.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  You mean you liked the criteria by which Hipmunk sorted flights, e.g., by accounting for layover time rather than just by price? If so, not that Kayak has a "Best" sort (which didn't exist when Hipmunk appeared) that's now the default.
makmanalp 7y ago
(disclaimer - worked at Kayak a long time ago) A big part of what made Kayak good was that it was (is?) a solid data product - basically a gigantic farm of scrapers and crawlers glommed together with direct-from-provider (airline, hotel etc) data ingestion pipelines and coherence protocols that flowed into massive unified local cache databases. All this to ensure that you, as a customer, saw the most up to date and widest variety of information possible. When Kayak IPO'd, it was around the time that ITA software (massive airline data provider you've never heard of) got sold to google, and there was a lot of hand wringing over whether this'd spell the end for Kayak. But even then it looks like ITA supplied only 42% of flight data (check out the S1 filing https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1312928/000119312510262521/ds1.htm#toc117777_2 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1312928/000119312510...), the rest from other data providers (Amadeus etc), online travel agencies, or individual airlines. So given that, Hipmunk's focus on "we're gonna make the UX so much better" was admirable (especially given the state of a lot of the competition), and it pushed everyone to do better in that regard, but always felt a bit naive as a business strategy to me, since I think most people will pick the site with the slightly worse UI and better / cheaper / non-stale flights rather than the other way round. Especially in a non-premium race to the bottom industry like online tickets. And getting quality data takes a big team and lots of money and infrastructure, as well as lots of business relationships. But I always thought they were a cut above a lot of the other competitors which were bad UIs mangled with dozens of ads thrown together in a slapshod way on top of the same 1-2 data providers.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  Thanks! I have the vague impression that there are fewer stale or missing flights on Kayak than competitors, but I haven't done a bunch of comparisons recently, so I'm very interested in what others think.

DangerousPie 7y ago

I used to use Kayak and Skyscanner but started using Google Flights more recently because it has a much nicer interface.

jessriedel 7y ago
Anything in particular you like about Google Flights over Kayak? Aesthetics, functionality, or efficiency?
- therealdrag0 7y ago
  I just opened Kayak for the first time in a LONG time. - I don't like the rows and rows of panels trying to get me to go to other pages or see their guides. - I want a search focused page. - I don't like how when I click search, it automatically opens up cheapoair. - I don't like how the results page starts with a modal asking me to setup a price alert.
  - jessriedel 7y ago
    Thanks. I basically agree with those complaints. For what it's worth Kayak will stop automatically opening up comparisons like CheapOAir if you uncheck the box once, and it seems to remember that preference. I think the price alert modal is also a one-time thing.
- yibg 7y ago
  For me it's because google flights is more responsive and faster with search results compared to kayak.

novok 7y ago

I like skiplagged's price graph, which I didn't realize until now kayak has too. Skiplagged shows it in the search result, while kayak shows it only on the front page. I'll miss hipmunk's time chart when trying to plan flights.

jessriedel 7y ago
Yea, I do wish Kayak had this, on the search page (although they do have a color-coded grid illustrating how prices change if you adjusted your dates +-3 days).

gniv 7y ago

I haven't used Kayak in a while. I use Google Flights because I like the date grid. Usually my dates are flexible.

jessriedel 7y ago
FYI Kayak has a date grid. When selecting a date, click the drop-down menu labeled "exact" and choose "+-3 days" (or whatever).
- username3 7y ago
  Google Flights is faster than Kayak was.
  - jessriedel 7y ago
    Faster at populating the date grid? Or just a snappier UI in general?
    - Cyph0n 7y ago
      Google Flights immediately populates the date grid with price estimates after you pick a date. I have yet to see a competitor that has this feature.
      - st1ck 7y ago
        But those are estimates and not the final prices displayed after you pick the date. If you specifically want the cheapest date, the grid is barely useful. ITA matrix usually does a better job.

hoistbypetard 7y ago

It's been a couple of years since I did much air travel. When I did, hipmunk's sort was much better than Kayak's. Kayak was my favorite before hipmunk opened. Once hipmunk came along, I tended to use both when searching for flights, just to see if a better deal popped up on one but not the other.

jessriedel 7y ago
You mean you liked the criteria by which Hipmunk sorted flights, e.g., by accounting for layover time rather than just by price? If so, not that Kayak has a "Best" sort (which didn't exist when Hipmunk appeared) that's now the default.

makmanalp 7y ago

(disclaimer - worked at Kayak a long time ago) A big part of what made Kayak good was that it was (is?) a solid data product - basically a gigantic farm of scrapers and crawlers glommed together with direct-from-provider (airline, hotel etc) data ingestion pipelines and coherence protocols that flowed into massive unified local cache databases. All this to ensure that you, as a customer, saw the most up to date and widest variety of information possible. When Kayak IPO'd, it was around the time that ITA software (massive airline data provider you've never heard of) got sold to google, and there was a lot of hand wringing over whether this'd spell the end for Kayak. But even then it looks like ITA supplied only 42% of flight data (check out the S1 filing https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1312928/000119312510262521/ds1.htm#toc117777_2 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1312928/000119312510...), the rest from other data providers (Amadeus etc), online travel agencies, or individual airlines. So given that, Hipmunk's focus on "we're gonna make the UX so much better" was admirable (especially given the state of a lot of the competition), and it pushed everyone to do better in that regard, but always felt a bit naive as a business strategy to me, since I think most people will pick the site with the slightly worse UI and better / cheaper / non-stale flights rather than the other way round. Especially in a non-premium race to the bottom industry like online tickets. And getting quality data takes a big team and lots of money and infrastructure, as well as lots of business relationships. But I always thought they were a cut above a lot of the other competitors which were bad UIs mangled with dozens of ads thrown together in a slapshod way on top of the same 1-2 data providers.

jessriedel 7y ago
Thanks! I have the vague impression that there are fewer stale or missing flights on Kayak than competitors, but I haven't done a bunch of comparisons recently, so I'm very interested in what others think.