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Comment by tobyjsullivan | Hacker News Reader

> But it does not solve a need, from what I can tell, that Kayak or other meta-searches solve.

I'll give you my last flight search (and ticket purchase) as a direct counter-example.

I want to go to Europe for two to three months. I'll fly wherever is cheapest and I'm willing to go for any period between March and July.

This is theoretically one search on Adioso. It is impossible on Kayak or any other website I've seen to date. And when I say impossible, I don't mean impossible in a single search, I mean I would have to do several thousand searches to cover the full matrix of options which would actually be impossible.

Not to mention, the carriers listed by Kayak actually was quite limited (not sure about others).

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Try this:

https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=YVR;t=POX,ORY,XCR,B...

Then flip between to the Map and lowest fare icons (top right of map). I find this much better at zeroing in on a good fare, with loose travel requirements.

Thats what drove me crazy about this website. You can't do what you're describing. You can with Hipmunk and apparently google flights.

Try this as well: https://www.google.com/flights/explore

Not true. Skyscanner as just one example lets you search to 'Everywhere' depart 'Any Day' and arrive 'Any Day' and have nearly all the airlines including low cost carriers including ones Adioso don't like 'Ryanair'

Ryanair will give you all their flight data for 50 euro per year. You have to send them to their site, but still.

Sure, I think the discovery flexibility is great. But are there enough people who think that way?

And how many compared to people who think:

- I have the week of April 25-30 off. I can visit my best friend in Phoenix

- What flights are available for Boise, ID on July 2, when my friend gets married?

- time to find a flight for that conference next week

- Time to book a flight to go home for Christmas

I'm guessing: very few. And so even if Adioso's flight finding ability was as good or better than Kayak, I still have the habit of checking Kayak whenever I need a flight. And that is very hard to overcome.

But let's say I overcome my reflexive Kayak visit for special summers when I can just explore...how many of those special summers does anyone have, and is it enough to give Adioso enough traction?

But are there enough people who think that way?

We're betting that there are - or that there would be if they were given the option.

Think about it this way: if you were to build the perfect online travel product from scratch today, would you say "it will be a better product if we only let people search narrow origin/destination/date options; it's fine for people who have flexibility to just spend hours submitting hundreds of different searches"?

We think we have sound basis for believing there's huge demand for a more flexible search product with a company culture that excites people, but it's pointless to debate it here; we're very happy to let the market decide.

The argument that Expedia/Priceline/Kayak etc have the market sewn up is one we've lived with daily for the 5+ years we've been in the space.

Once you examine it closely, it's surprising to find how small a share of the total travel market these companies have, and how little affection and loyalty they command from ordinary people, even within the US, but particularly outside of it.

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