Why Travelocity Sucks: Sorry the lowest Price has changed...
in [Airline Travel]
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From: bertbarndoor on 29 Oct 2007 16:55 You people are all too accepting!! Give me a break, are you seriously telling me that it isn't technically feasible to show the actual price of the fare when, with one more click of the button, I get the ACTUAL frigging price 2 seconds later? As that guy on TV says, GIVE ME A BREAK! This is a simple BAIT and SWITCH! My original post stands, why annoy us like that? And you are right, it isn't only travelocity, but I am going to single them out anyway. Why? Because I used to think they were industry leaders and now I think they are a bunch of chumps for wasting all of our time like this. Get real, show us the actual price. If you can show us a second later with one click of a mouse button, then you can show us NOW UP FRONT. STOP WASTING OUR TIME! You suck Travelocity, you suck.
From: TEP on 29 Oct 2007 17:50 > are you seriously telling me that it isn't technically feasible to show > the actual price of the fare Well, Yes, I think we are. Between any 2 airports (more if one is doing a multi-city search), there are multiple airlines and a variety of possible connections. Imagine the time it would take if sites like Travelocity (but, insert Orbitz, Expedia, etc.) had to go to each possible airline's website and insert the parameters of your search in order to arrive at possible itineraries and prices and then display them in some matrix for you to look at. Thus, to speed things up to the user, these sites build a large database a few times during the day and use that for conducting searches. (Reference my use of "real-time" in my prior post.) > with one more click of the button, I get the ACTUAL frigging price 2 > seconds later? Yes, this can now happen quickly as you have identified a specific flight on a specific day that can then be input into an airline's database to get a real-time quote. If the fare still exists, fine--otherwise this is when you get the message that the fare no longer exists. > This is a simple BAIT and SWITCH! Well, you are right. These sites are not upfront with the user on how the search is actually performed. >I used to think they were industry leaders The industry leader is Orbitz.
From: TEP on 29 Oct 2007 17:49 > are you seriously telling me that it isn't technically feasible to show > the actual price of the fare Well, Yes, I think we are. Between any 2 airports (more if one is doing a multi-city search), there are multiple airlines and a variety of possible connections. Imagine the time it would take if sites like Travelocity (but, insert Orbitz, Expedia, etc.) had to go to each possible airline's website and insert the paramters of your search in order to arrive at possible itineraries and prices and then display them in some matrix for you to look at. Thus, to speed things up to the user, these sites build a large database a few times during the day and use that for conducting searches. (Refernce my use of "real-time" in my prior post.) > with one more click of the button, I get the ACTUAL frigging price 2 > seconds later? Yes, this can now happen quickly as you have identified a specific flight on a specific day that can then be input into an airline's database to get a real-time quote. If the fare still exists, fine--otherwise this is when you get the message that the fare no longer exists. > This is a simple BAIT and SWITCH! Well, you are right. These sites are not upfront with the user on how the seach is actually performed. >I used to think they were industry leaders The industry leader is Orbitz.
From: DevilsPGD on 29 Oct 2007 18:02 In message <1193682154.772769.143610(a)t8g2000prg.googlegroups.com> midcopkg(a)fone.net wrote: >Travelocity is no better than any other travel site, really. It's great to research options, but only once in my life have I not been able to get the same or better fares directly from the airline. This might not hold true for more complex itineraries, but I'm near a reasonably well connected airport and primarily fly to major cities. -- You can get more with a kind word and a 2x4 than just a kind word.
From: Rog' on 29 Oct 2007 19:24
"bertbarndoor" <bertbarndoor(a)gmail.com> wrote: > You people are all too accepting!! Give me a break, are you > seriously telling me that it isn't technically feasible to show the > actual price of the fare when, with one more click of the button, > I get the ACTUAL frigging price 2 seconds later? As another poster said, you're asking them to interface with each airline's system and attempt to book every possible flight combination for available fares, as opposed to published tariffs. I suppose that is technically possible, but then you'd be here to whine about how slow the website is. IMHO, its better to use such sites (Expedia, Orbitz, etc) to get a list of which airlines fly a particular route an which have lower fares, as a starting point. I prefer to book directly with the airlines themselves, since there's no middle-man in case of changes and your also get perks like extra FF miles. =R= |