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Show HN: Book and change flights with one email
Hi there,
TLDR; I built an inbox simulator so you can try BonBook in 15s, without sharing your email.
Earlier this year I was flying 2-3 times per month and found booking and changing flights a hassle. So I decided to fix it.
BonBook lets you find, book and change flights with one email. It can also auto-find flights for events you’re attending.
Over the last few days, I built a simulator that lets you interact with BonBook without sharing your email. It responds with real flights and each response includes a link to compare w/ Google.
- adawg4 2y agoinsanely easy, make it on SMS?
- themagyar 2y agoit's on the roadmap!
- indchief101 2y agoWow, this is a brilliant idea! It sounds perfect for fewuent travellers.
- themagyar 2y agoThanks for the kind words
- SocksCanClose 2y agoI am one of the early customers and this works like a charm. Was on a flight last week that was on the tarmac for two hours due to weather one evening last week; the pilot finally got on the PA system and announced we were headed back to the terminal. I booked myself a new flight for the next morning within 90 seconds. Pure magic.
- themagyar 2y agoHappy BonBook could help. Thanks for the glowing recommendation
- rdl 2y agoWow.I book a lot of flights, often waste a huge amount of time find the best flight, and would use this for a lot of the easier bookings. I was amazed at how well it works (in the simulator). Google Flights is really the last Google product I routinely use -- happy to have an alternative!
- themagyar 2y agoHappy to give you one. Biased but the live beta is better.
- danpalmer 2y ago> often waste a huge amount of time find the best flight Would you trust that this would book you the "best" flight? Every user has a different definition of "best" – cheapest, shortest, fewest stopovers, shortest stopovers, airline preference, lounge preference, seat preference, time of day preference... Personally I find Google Flights gives me the right amount of detail and I book flights I'm happy with.
- themagyar 2y agoFair, beta isn't for everyone. It's geared towards frequent fliers and people who want to save time. But lets break down the points: -> cheapest?? Frequent fliers are primarily concerned with time efficiency. -> shortest/fewest-stopovers/shortest-stops?? These are all synonyms for efficiency. -> airline preference?? Beta curates based on airline loyalty. -> lounge preference?? Not handled when booking flights.. -> seat preference?? Furthest forward aisle/window, avoid no-recline, some want extra legroom (beta has an algo that handles this). -> time of day?? Easy, just add it to your request (works in sim too).
- danpalmer 2y agoMy partner books a lot of travel for people who travel a lot, and while some of this is broadly true, I think the devil is in the details. They get a lot of preferences from people who arguably should only care about their time, but in reality also have comfort preferences. When you say that shortest/fewest stopovers/shortest stops are all synonyms for efficiency, this is true, but also misses human factors. Some people prefer a single flight at nearly all costs, some people prefer to have shorter flights with stopovers even if the total time spent is slightly longer. Ask someone if they'd rather have a 45 minute stopover or a 1.5 hour stopover and I bet most would choose the latter, despite taking more time. > time of day?? Easy, just add it to your request (works in sim too). This also misses the fact that everything is about tradeoffs. I'd like a flight after 9am, the tool tells me that will be A$500, oh yeah, you know what I don't mind flying at 8:30am for A$200. I think for a tool like this to work beyond a specific audience of optimisation nerds who only care about their time, it needs to treat everything as negotiable, and then present sensible alternatives outside of spec. Sacrifice time for lower stress, sacrificing seat preference for sooner flight, sacrificing airline preference based on price, sacrificing destination based on availability. Being close to someone doing this job, and having travelled a fair bit of long haul over the last few years, I know that "efficiency" is very nuanced with personal preferences, that most people don't give even a fraction of the required information to be able to actually do this well and back and forth is necessary. I wish you all the best of luck, if you can make it work, great!
- sib 2y agoGreat idea. Would use (flew 140 segments the year before Covid). One piece of feedback: I asked for a "flight from LAX to..." and it recommended flights from SNA and ONT (two other airports in the Greater Los Angeles area). These airports are easily 1.5 - 2 hours away from LAX at commute times. I suggest that, if the user requests a specific airport (as indicated by an IATA code), you limit responses to that airport code by default, rather than broadening the search to a region. If I had asked for a "flight from Los Angeles to..." I would not have been surprised by the current behavior (and probably would have appreciated it.)
- themagyar 2y agoSolid feedback. To keep the demo light, it doesn't have full functionality but being specific on airports vs cities is part of the live beta. NYC is another example w/ EWR. Can say "NYC" or specify "JFK or LaGuardia". DC too for people wanting to avoid the drive w/ BWI. Happy to share access. Feel free to shoot me an email (attila@).
- sib 2y agoCool, thanks - I sent you an email
- pomian 2y agoSo I've tried a few variations on ticket searches. Pain language great. Two fliers great, can specify times and stops. Trans continental with connections, works - specifying destinations and round trips Worked great too. Local flight in Western Canada, came up with options, but very expensive, and in USD. I don't use Google for flights - but your tool provides a very efficient way of communicating to google, to get what you want. One thing I noticed so far, that Google prefers Lufthansa over KLM on search results. Anyway, great work. Keep us informed!
- themagyar 2y agoPertinent note: BonBook doesn't communicate with/use Google at all. Google link is just there for result comparison. BonBook has its own internal search+recommendation engine. And private beta let's you actually book the flights in two clicks via the checkout link. That's why you can also change/cancel them with an email. This is also probably why you are seeing LH > KL.. BonBook doesn't yet have access to KLM inventory. And haven't added non-USD currency support yet.
- chirau 2y agoGmail sent me back a failed mail response: ''' Address not found Your message wasn't delivered to test@bonbook.co because the address couldn't be found, or is unable to receive mail. '''
- themagyar 2y agoYes, test@bonbook.co is not valid for booking. And private beta requires onboarding. The inbox simulator provides high-level functionality of the beta without access.
- dddw 2y ago> No cheap carriers by design Why no love for the frugal ?
- themagyar 2y agoDifferent mindset. BonBook is targeted at travelers solving logistics problems who make lots of repeatable decisions and fly often (eg. need to be in X at Y). No saying what can be done with time.
- matt3D 2y agoWhile that's a good point, I think it would be wise for them to incorporate budget airlines if they are looking at the European market. There are so many routes that are served exclusively by budget airlines.
- themagyar 2y agoNoted re the EU. Though there's another side to it as well. BonBook does more than just booking (eg. one-email changes) and many budget airlines make this difficult with their restrictive fare rules.
- namdnay 2y agoThey’re probably not distributed by whatever GDS API the app is using
- themagyar 2y agoBeta (and sim) intentionally does not search them.
- genericspammer 2y agoReally cool and useful, how long have you worked on this?
- themagyar 2y agoThanks. Built this sim in a few days. Iterating the beta since summer.
- porridgeraisin 2y agoThis is nice. How do we choose currency?
- themagyar 2y agoEmail sim doesn't have this (can't actually buy tickets). And haven't built out currency support for the beta yet but its on the list.
- porridgeraisin 2y agoGreat, thanks
- dankwizard 2y agoIs this US only? Nothing is working for me in Australia
- themagyar 2y agoThe email sim doesn't allow booking but should still work to demo functionality. And it's not geo-limited. What are you seeing?
- zacmps 2y agoFor me the demo pulled up flights, but in USD, I'd need it to be localised to be useful. Airlines also tend to present different prices for different locations/currencies so I doubt this would be as simple as a UI change (though that would still go a long way!).
- themagyar 2y agoYes, the demo doesn't localize results. And Beta doesn't have currency support just yet but it's on the list. Beyond the price differences, airlines also grant scoped 'ticketing authority' in jurisdictions (eg. can only sell these tickets in EU or US+Canada etc).
- maeil 2y agoHow is this enforced? Purely IP-based? Sounds like we now need a VPN when buying tickets.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago>Sounds like we now need a VPN when buying tickets. Frame 6: You guys are buying tickets without a vpn?
- ragazzina 2y agoI personally see "Hi there, it looks like the internet dropped the ball somewhere. Please try your request again.".
- 3np 2y agoSounds super useful! Feature request: Cryptocurrency available as a payment option. The payment part is a major painpoint in flight reservations. Would be happy to help with integrating if of interest.
- themagyar 2y agoYes, its on the roadmap. Zooming out, crypto gets super interesting in terms of industry dynamics. If you shoot a note to the contact email, will take a look.
- drewrbaker 2y agoWould love to be able to have this buy my the flight at an optimal purchase time. Like I say “LAX to JFK for Jan 10th to Jan 15th, between $400 and $600” and it will wait until that is seen and then buy for me. That would be a real new feature.
- themagyar 2y agoCalling it 'scheduled booking'. It's on the roadmap :)
- r0fl 2y agoYou can set up alerts using Google flights that will email you when prices change I save thousands using this feature each year
- evan_ 2y agowhy would you ever set a minimum price? If you're looking for a certain service level just have it look for that. Otherwise I'd be worried you'd miss out on a flight that fits all your criteria but costs $385 or something
- padolsey 2y agoI imagine this is a much harder problem than meets the eye. Even for my own travel, there are like a dozen things I'm trying to optimize for. Time, money, seat, travel to/from airport (traffic, train cost, taxi pickup/dropoff ease), lounge quality, layover length or complexity vs cost calculus, loyalty program, airport navigation, airport amenities, flight hospitality quality etc. etc. When an AI can take into account all these subtleties and work reliably then yeh, I'd give it a go. But for now I'm kinda ~ok with the time cost of finding a non-rubbish flight. I guess this is where 'travel agents' once used to shine. Also: I want to be _absolutely_ certain the flight was booked -- that nothing was dropped, that no weird API failed to callback, that no letter was dropped from my name, that no silly email parser thought I meant London, Ontario, Canada. Ps. Cool demo!
- themagyar 2y agoThanks. Definitely more complicate than originally imagined. A lot of this can be done automatically with time (eg, already built an auto-seat algo), but there is a reason the beta is focused on frequent fliers solving logistics problems and making repeatable decisions :) That said, think you'll be surprised by how well it optimizes already. During beta onboarding, you make an account with all travel info (no need to parse this). Travelers also confirm their booking before purchase ("checkout" links to a page with all flight info in a lot more detail instead of 'access' link). And BonBook sends a confirmation email post-booking (required by federal regs).
- bux93 2y agoNot to mention cabin luggage allowances (as well as the likelihood they will be honored and you won't be checking your cabin luggage at the gate, or stowing your bag in row 45 when you're in row 9). Even finding the (cabin/checked) luggage allowances on an airline's website can be a task for AI.
- Y_Y 2y agoI was very to booking a flight to SJO instead of SJC. The interface just said "San Jose" so it looked fine. Might have been nice to go to Costa Rica instead.
- lastofthemojito 2y agoSeems like a neat idea but I just tried 4 times and got the same response every time: > Hi there, I couldn't find any flights for your request. Please try again. > -BonBook I was trying input like "Find me a flight from BWI to PWM December 27 to January 1".
- themagyar 2y agoWe had a bug with one of our external provides earier this morning, but its now resolved.
- theqwxas 2y agoI am not sure about the US market, but Skyscanner [1] works great in Europe, I wonder how this is different. Besides from being structured as an email, it offers quite similar functionality of finding optimal flights (in some sense of optimal). It may just be me, but I am definitely misunderstanding the inbox metaphor. Why is it an inbox? Why is there emphasis on _one email_? I don't book flights through email -- I go on an airline's website to book. For now it seems to be always responding with "Hi there, I couldn't find any flights for your request. Please try again.", I could not test it out. Unless this is a demo version, and is working as expected. [1] https://www.skyscanner.net/ https://www.skyscanner.net/
- themagyar 2y agoThe beta is email-based booking, changes and more. The demo simulates the search experience via email.
- pomian 2y agoI get results everytime. Maybe not the cheapest. But it's something, and it's fast... Very fast. (Compared to going to a website.) With a very simple sentence full of acronyms that we all use buy now, it is a fun experimental tool. (Then clicking through the Google link, you can actually continue and book.) But, I agree, Skyscanner is awesome.
- themagyar 2y agoBeta turns booking into two clicks.
- prmoustache 2y agoHi there, I couldn't find any flights for your request. Please try again. Cross checking with skyscanner there are indeed no flight in the morning I asked, but there are in the afternoon, maybe propose alternatives with nearby airports and/or timeslots when there are no flight meeting requirements?
- TripleChecker 2y ago'Yes. BonBook is live in private beta and can do a whole lot more than just find flights. Click here to request access.' - why keep it a secret? What else can it do? :)
- themagyar 2y agoHi HN: Looks like LLM API calls started being rejected. Working on a solution...
- themagyar 2y agoUPDATE: We're back!
- freeone3000 2y agoI told it to give me a direct flight and all of its flights have an Atlanta layover. It also ignored my seat pitch request, my checked bags request, and gave me only WestJet flights when Air Canada flights are cheaper. Is this a frontend to google flights? Sabre integration might get you the info you need to do these queries.
- themagyar 2y agoThe sim has limited ability to make it lightweight, free from signup and responsive in ~15 seconds. Beta is much more capable. GFlights is not used, link is there for comparison.
- ishtanbul 2y agoIt would be great if i could chat with chatgpt and it could book it for me, like a travel agent
- crro 2y agoSuper cool! Are you using an API for travel or scraping the flights from a website?
- akrymski 2y agoI may be an outlier but I don't get it - I much prefer a visual interface of Google Flights that gives me all the options. I'd hate to have to explain to a real PA all my preferences for each and every journey (every flight has a very different set of trade-offs). It's like asking a realtor to show me the 3 houses she thinks would be best for me. Thank God for technology that allows us to see all the options. The real value is in the actual booking aspect: fill in all the forms on the airline's website and checkout for me!