Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 10:55AM Got a ticket to ride? Here's a very, very cool tool for people who fly--for either business or pleasure.
The title's from the Beatles--the site comes from smart web-planners.
Most days there's a promising idea or [like yesterday] an interesting corporate situation to analyze, but today the topic's more straightforward: I've got a terrific website to recommend to you for when you are about to make flight plans. From the point of view of the consumer--it's a terrific break-through in ease and provision of useful information.
The site you'll want to check out is called hipmonk. It represents a quantum step forward in helping consumers see what's available, figure out what's best for the occasion, and then make specific plans based on that information. Hipmonk is a site solely dedicated to offer flight information from Point A to Point B--without the clutter of other extraneous data, offers, decision to make, stuff to take-in if only to ignore.
Hipmonk is, indeed, hip.
The required entry information could not be more direct, and it is difficult to imagine how the resulting flight information presentation could be improved on. It is displayed graphically and is easily sortable based on departure times, arrival times, price, flight and travel time, and an "agony" factor--a composite of several variables that shows the various alternatives from least agony to most.
I remember the first time I "found" Travelocity--I thought I'd arrived at flight-planning heaven; well, this site replicates that impression and feeling all over again--mostly because it, for me at least, far surpasses all the stuff I thought was nifty about Travelocity in the first place.
Check it out.
So, my tip for the day is simple, whether you're a casual traveler or a road warrier, check out Hipmonk for size in terms of how your might be served better than the existing sites you use. It won't take you long and I bet you'll be glad you did!
[I ran across an interesting article "Travel search get hip [again]" [FASTCOMPANY, March 2011] that has other interesting tips for business travelers. I'll post it on the blog's Facebook Page for all to see and read.]
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Reader Comments (1)
Travelocity's recent format change has made it less user-friendly, so this is very timely.
One question: Have you been able to get it to display the return flight leg of a round-trip? Even when I fill out the "Return Flight Optional" it will never go there. Do I have to initiate a new search for the return flight?
Operator error no doubt :)
Kindest regards.