4 ms·

This is what I want when I'm looking to plan a trip. Notice I said "trip", not flight. Usually I don't care about my method of travel, I just want to get from A

by Ricapar 13y ago

This is what I want when I'm looking to plan a trip. Notice I said "trip", not flight. Usually I don't care about my method of travel, I just want to get from A to B to C in an efficient and affordable manner. I live in Central NJ. Nearby me are several Amtrak and NJ Transit stations and three major airports (EWR, JFK, and LGA). I have a car that can take me to any of those places. I also have friedns that could drop me off at any of those places as well. Plenty of options to depart from. Let's say I want to visit some family in Florida. My final destination is also abundant in transportation options. For Florida, I can land in Miami (MIA) or Ft. Lauderdale (FLL) and be picked up in either one. I usually end up fiddling around in Excel, planning out time and costs for many different ways to get from A to B.. EWR -> MIA EWR -> FLL JFK -> MIA FJK -> FLL ... etc .. And to throw another wrench in the plan: dates. I could be planning a trip a few months in advance (in hope that tickets are cheaper). Some sites really struggle with the concept of having flexible travel dates. I want to be able to say: "I want to leave from the general $HomeArea, go to $FinalDestination, +/- $x days of $date1, and come back +/- $y days of $date2." I shouldn't be building my own OLAP cubes in Excel to not get screwed over on rates. But I've grown enough despise towards the travel industry that I'll happily spend a few hours to make sure that I'm not paying them a penny more than I have to.

smaccona 13y ago
Have you tried ITA Matrix[1], now owned by Google? It's very powerful, especially compared to the standard travel sites. A good intro can be found at http://www.50by25.com/2013/05/travel-tip-how-to-use-ita-matrix.html http://www.50by25.com/2013/05/travel-tip-how-to-use-ita-matr.... [1] http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ http://matrix.itasoftware.com/
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  ITA Matrix is awesome; sad thing it doesn't seem to have data on cheap airlines that operate in Europe (Ryanair, Easyjet, WizzAir, et al.), as they tend to be used here most frequently.
kapkapkap 13y ago
I usually end up fiddling around in Excel, planning out time and costs for many different ways to get from A to B.. EWR -> MIA EWR -> FLL JFK -> MIA FJK -> FLL ... etc .. What are you talking about? Every major travel website has an option along the lines of 'New York City - All airports', which includes JFK, LGA, EWR
ams6110 13y ago
Flexible dates are a nice thing to have but I wonder how much they would actually be used? I cannot think of a time where I was booking a flight for business and not only were the departure and return dates non-optional but I was looking for pretty specific times as well (i.e. within a few hours time range). Even when traveling for pleasure I generally want specific dates so as to maximize my time at my destination.
- honzzz 13y ago
  The problem is that each person has different needs and it's difficult to make a site that is usable for most of them - that's why so many 'niche' sites exist. For example I used to fly a lot and most of the time I did not care about exact dates at all. I guess that scenarios like 'I live in Spain now and I want to visit my parents in the Czech Republic some time in June' or 'I want to spend some weekend in Paris' are pretty common. Sometimes I don't even care about destination that much - I want to travel somewhere in south of Europe to take a couple of days off - all I care about is the price. Date-of-flight-centric sites are really difficult to use for me. Only recently I discovered http://skypicker.com http://skypicker.com (I'm not affiliated wit them) that does what I want - I want to fly to Spain some time in August - here are cheapest flights.
jakub_g 13y ago
Skyscanner and Momondo offer that to some extent. You can choose departure/comeback time as "whole month" and airports as sth like "London (all)". But you can't select say two different outbound airports from different cities.
lnanek2 13y ago
NYC works for most sites. I wish there was an SF equivalent. I usually don't care SFO/OAK/SJC and have to do what you do, although I just keep it in my head.
- kanyang 13y ago
  "QSF" works for the SF area on Hipmunk.

by Ricapar 13y ago

smaccona 13y ago

Have you tried ITA Matrix[1], now owned by Google? It's very powerful, especially compared to the standard travel sites. A good intro can be found at http://www.50by25.com/2013/05/travel-tip-how-to-use-ita-matrix.html http://www.50by25.com/2013/05/travel-tip-how-to-use-ita-matr.... [1] http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

TeMPOraL 13y ago
ITA Matrix is awesome; sad thing it doesn't seem to have data on cheap airlines that operate in Europe (Ryanair, Easyjet, WizzAir, et al.), as they tend to be used here most frequently.

kapkapkap 13y ago

I usually end up fiddling around in Excel, planning out time and costs for many different ways to get from A to B.. EWR -> MIA EWR -> FLL JFK -> MIA FJK -> FLL ... etc .. What are you talking about? Every major travel website has an option along the lines of 'New York City - All airports', which includes JFK, LGA, EWR

ams6110 13y ago

Flexible dates are a nice thing to have but I wonder how much they would actually be used? I cannot think of a time where I was booking a flight for business and not only were the departure and return dates non-optional but I was looking for pretty specific times as well (i.e. within a few hours time range). Even when traveling for pleasure I generally want specific dates so as to maximize my time at my destination.

honzzz 13y ago
The problem is that each person has different needs and it's difficult to make a site that is usable for most of them - that's why so many 'niche' sites exist. For example I used to fly a lot and most of the time I did not care about exact dates at all. I guess that scenarios like 'I live in Spain now and I want to visit my parents in the Czech Republic some time in June' or 'I want to spend some weekend in Paris' are pretty common. Sometimes I don't even care about destination that much - I want to travel somewhere in south of Europe to take a couple of days off - all I care about is the price. Date-of-flight-centric sites are really difficult to use for me. Only recently I discovered http://skypicker.com http://skypicker.com (I'm not affiliated wit them) that does what I want - I want to fly to Spain some time in August - here are cheapest flights.

jakub_g 13y ago

Skyscanner and Momondo offer that to some extent. You can choose departure/comeback time as "whole month" and airports as sth like "London (all)". But you can't select say two different outbound airports from different cities.

lnanek2 13y ago

NYC works for most sites. I wish there was an SF equivalent. I usually don't care SFO/OAK/SJC and have to do what you do, although I just keep it in my head.

kanyang 13y ago
"QSF" works for the SF area on Hipmunk.