Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B

Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by antoko on Thursday November 08, 2012 @04:39PM (#4759996)

Kayak is great (was?) but Hipmunk is more than up to the task of filling the void if Priceline ruin Kayak.

Congrats to the Kayak folks I guess, when they got into the industry they really raised the bar.

Before Kayak I remember having to use Expedia and Orbitz and just having to accept their crappy UI because there simply were no alternatives.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by thezilch on Thursday November 08, 2012 @06:36PM (#4760499)

http://www.google.com/flights/?hl=en&gl=us#search;f=LAX;...

versus

http://www.hipmunk.com/flights/LAX-to-SFO#!dates=Nov09,Nov16...

I respect what Hipmunk is trying to do, but I really doubt they are filling voids outside of "this" community. I find it much harder to scan, slower to load, and having lower quality tools for finding alternate (or cheaper) fares.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by TillE on Thursday November 08, 2012 @06:43PM (#4760518)

I tried the Google tool...

"Sorry, flights from Germany are not currently supported."

"Sorry, flights from Italy are not currently supported."

"Sorry, flights from United Kingdom are not currently supported."

Wonderful. I can find flights from New York to London, but not vice versa.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by thezilch on Thursday November 08, 2012 @07:02PM (#4760579)

It's interesting, considering they will provide round-trip flights and list the London to NY flight(s) as a separate item, which would make me think the data is there.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by kylec on Thursday November 08, 2012 @09:32PM (#4760966)

There's also:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/CheapFlights?geo=1&travelers=...

More Kayak-like in terms of the results list. Cheapest rates match Hipmunk, though curiously for different flights.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by jobu on Thursday November 08, 2012 @05:33PM (#4760254)

Hopefully Priceline will learn some improvements from Kayak and not try to force changes the other direction. Kayak has a great UI overall, but the explore interface is pure awesome: http://www.kayak.com/explore/

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by photorized on Thursday November 08, 2012 @06:31PM (#4760477)

Visually that kind of interface is very appealing, but fares may be misleading... once you start the booking process, you will end up with completely different numbers. Typically, a featured "as low as $" air fare is a red eye, 8 hour connection time etc. I was going to output specials myself too, but then commented them out - as they hardly ever apply.

That being said, Kayak does have a great UI, and their iOS apps are eye candy.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by TillE on Thursday November 08, 2012 @06:38PM (#4760504)

I see Hipmunk still doesn't track budget airlines in Europe (eg, EasyJet).

Which makes it fairly useless to me, and absolutely not a replacement for Kayak.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by spez on Thursday November 08, 2012 @07:14PM (#4760619)

Hipmunk does have EasyJet, in fact.

For example: http://www.hipmunk.com/flights/BCN-to-CDG#!dates=Dec31

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by brianbreslin on Thursday November 08, 2012 @06:46PM (#4760529)

Do any flight search tools track budget airlines?

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by wakeless on Thursday November 08, 2012 @07:05PM (#4760589)

Adioso was adding a lot of budget airlines up until recently. It's worth checking out.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by eddmc on Friday November 09, 2012 @05:46AM (#4762195)

Another site for budget airlines is travelfusion.com They also have an API

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by tommyd on Friday November 09, 2012 @09:18AM (#4762869)

skyscanner.net does (or has done in the past anyway!)

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by saintamh on Thursday November 15, 2012 @06:34AM (#4788100)

Still does. They've got almost every European budget airline, actually. And I hear they have pretty good coverage of the Asian market, too.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by bduerst on Thursday November 08, 2012 @05:54PM (#4760329)

Hipmunk has a much better interface, and considering it's also an aggregator, much better at helping me quickly find flights or hotels.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by philfreo on Thursday November 08, 2012 @09:25PM (#4760949)

disagree. kayak provides filters in exactly the way that makes sense to me. i've tried hipmunk and google and always come back to kayak.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by mertd on Friday November 09, 2012 @07:32AM (#4762491)

I find hipmunk better for optimizing schedule, kayak for optimizing price.

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Re:Priceline.com acquires Kayak for $1.8B by bmelton on Thursday November 08, 2012 @06:04PM (#4760371)

I was getting ready to say almost the exact same thing -- thank heavens that Hipmunk came when it did, or that acquisition (if soured) would have left a very large hole in my travel-making tools.

I don't particularly like Kayak, but as a matter of effectiveness, there's no doubt that it was pretty much king of the hill for a good long while. Since Hipmunk's inception though, it has definitely been the 'go-to' place for travel-planning, and beats the nearest competition (that I've used) by a mile.

I would also venture to say that this was perhaps a timely exit for Kayak, as the more and more traction Hipmunk sees, the less off the Kayak founders would have been for an exit.

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