[HN Gopher] Show HN: Book and change flights with one email
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Show HN: Book and change flights with one email
Hi there, TLDR; I built an inbox simulator so you can try BonBook
in 15s, without sharing your email. Earlier this year I was flying
2-3 times per month and found booking and changing flights a
hassle. So I decided to fix it. BonBook lets you find, book and
change flights with one email. It can also auto-find flights for
events you're attending. Over the last few days, I built a
simulator that lets you interact with BonBook without sharing your
email. It responds with real flights and each response includes a
link to compare w/ Google.
Author : themagyar
Score : 113 points
Date : 2024-12-03 02:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bonbook.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bonbook.co)
| adawg4 wrote:
| insanely easy, make it on SMS?
| themagyar wrote:
| it's on the roadmap!
| indchief101 wrote:
| Wow, this is a brilliant idea! It sounds perfect for fewuent
| travellers.
| themagyar wrote:
| Thanks for the kind words
| SocksCanClose wrote:
| I am one of the early customers and this works like a charm.
|
| Was on a flight last week that was on the tarmac for two hours
| due to weather one evening last week; the pilot finally got on
| the PA system and announced we were headed back to the terminal.
| I booked myself a new flight for the next morning within 90
| seconds. Pure magic.
| themagyar wrote:
| Happy BonBook could help. Thanks for the glowing recommendation
| rdl wrote:
| Wow.I book a lot of flights, often waste a huge amount of time
| find the best flight, and would use this for a lot of the easier
| bookings. I was amazed at how well it works (in the simulator).
|
| Google Flights is really the last Google product I routinely use
| -- happy to have an alternative!
| themagyar wrote:
| Happy to give you one. Biased but the live beta is better.
| danpalmer wrote:
| > often waste a huge amount of time find the best flight
|
| Would you trust that this would book you the "best" flight?
| Every user has a different definition of "best" - cheapest,
| shortest, fewest stopovers, shortest stopovers, airline
| preference, lounge preference, seat preference, time of day
| preference...
|
| Personally I find Google Flights gives me the right amount of
| detail and I book flights I'm happy with.
| themagyar wrote:
| Fair, beta isn't for everyone. It's geared towards frequent
| fliers and people who want to save time. But lets break down
| the points:
|
| -> cheapest?? Frequent fliers are primarily concerned with
| time efficiency.
|
| -> shortest/fewest-stopovers/shortest-stops?? These are all
| synonyms for efficiency.
|
| -> airline preference?? Beta curates based on airline
| loyalty.
|
| -> lounge preference?? Not handled when booking flights..
|
| -> seat preference?? Furthest forward aisle/window, avoid no-
| recline, some want extra legroom (beta has an algo that
| handles this).
|
| -> time of day?? Easy, just add it to your request (works in
| sim too).
| danpalmer wrote:
| My partner books a lot of travel for people who travel a
| lot, and while some of this is broadly true, I think the
| devil is in the details. They get a lot of preferences from
| people who arguably should only care about their time, but
| in reality also have comfort preferences.
|
| When you say that shortest/fewest stopovers/shortest stops
| are all synonyms for efficiency, this is true, but also
| misses human factors. Some people prefer a single flight at
| nearly all costs, some people prefer to have shorter
| flights with stopovers even if the total time spent is
| slightly longer. Ask someone if they'd rather have a 45
| minute stopover or a 1.5 hour stopover and I bet most would
| choose the latter, despite taking more time.
|
| > time of day?? Easy, just add it to your request (works in
| sim too).
|
| This also misses the fact that everything is about
| tradeoffs. I'd like a flight after 9am, the tool tells me
| that will be A$500, oh yeah, you know what I don't mind
| flying at 8:30am for A$200.
|
| I think for a tool like this to work beyond a specific
| audience of optimisation nerds who only care about their
| time, it needs to treat _everything_ as negotiable, and
| then present sensible alternatives outside of spec.
| Sacrifice time for lower stress, sacrificing seat
| preference for sooner flight, sacrificing airline
| preference based on price, sacrificing destination based on
| availability.
|
| Being close to someone doing this job, and having travelled
| a fair bit of long haul over the last few years, I know
| that "efficiency" is very nuanced with personal
| preferences, that most people don't give even a fraction of
| the required information to be able to actually do this
| well and back and forth is necessary.
|
| I wish you all the best of luck, if you can make it work,
| great!
| ipdashc wrote:
| Yeah, I'm kind of surprised by all the uniform praise in the
| comments - NOT saying it's not a cool tool, it's definitely
| very impressive and the author's done a nice job, but I could
| never really see myself using this. Mainly just because
| flights are super expensive, I can't see myself trusting a
| bot to make the best choice instead of spending 10 minutes of
| my own time to potentially save a lot of money. I guess it's
| a different world when you're a super frequent flier (or when
| your company is paying, of course).
|
| It reminds me of the Carvana ads that called out home
| delivery for cars. Like, it's definitely neat, and I'd love
| to skip scummy dealerships, but convenience is wayy down my
| list of priorities when I'm dropping that much money on
| something.
| themagyar wrote:
| Worth noting: if you don't specify a time of day in your
| search, you will see the cheapest flight on that day.
|
| Bots can analyze several thousand flight options (which
| even the sim does) in a few seconds. So odds are it catches
| a deal someone might otherwise miss.
|
| Also, because BonBook searches direct w/ airlines, it sees
| inventory not shared with Google (and regularly has better
| fares).
| ipdashc wrote:
| Interesting, the last one is pretty surprising. I kind of
| just assumed all airline booking systems (Expedia, Google
| Flights, Kayak, whatever) all used the same underlying
| service - maybe SABRE or something, but that's a total
| shot in the dark. Would love to hear what the difference
| is, assuming you're comfortable with sharing!
| themagyar wrote:
| Can share a bit of background: (TLDR; airlines want to
| keep more profit so are witholding some fares.)
|
| A system called GDS (Global Distribution System) was
| built in the 60s as a data transmission standard. Was
| used by airlines to publish fares (among other things).
| But it was complicated so aggregators (Sabre, Amadeus,
| Travelport) were born to ingest all this published data
| and make it easily searchable.
|
| When travel went online in the late 90s, Online Travel
| Agents (OTAs) were using this data, and since then most
| new OTAs have too. (An example; Expedia's first patent
| minimized GDS searches per customer request, saving them
| $$).
|
| But, because OTAs take a cut and airline margins are
| thin, IATA (group of airlines) came up with a new system
| called NDS (New Distrubution Standard) in mid 2010s.
| Since its an XML standard that anyone can consume direct,
| airlines have been trying to push everyone onto NDC by
| simply not publishing certain tickets via GDS, requiring
| OTAs to book X% of tickets via NDC and even removing
| inventory entirely.
|
| Some examples: American trying to go full NDC recently
| but getting pushback and Turkish Airlines pulling out of
| Sabre.
| ipdashc wrote:
| Super cool stuff. Thanks for the info.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Is there a reasonable way for me to consume this data
| directly? I'd love to be able to pull a big pile of
| flight prices and mess around with the data, but I'd
| prefer not to pay big money or have to register as a
| travel agent or anything.
| themagyar wrote:
| Depends on the detail. There are a few simple ones (eg
| flightlab).
| rdl wrote:
| I would use it for flights where the best flight is pretty
| obvious, or in cases where satisficing is fine. I'd tbh
| mostly use it when OTHER PEOPLE ask me to find a flight for
| them.
|
| I'd also use it to quickly book flights on my preferred
| airlines because I have free changes/cancellations on those,
| so the value of getting something booked immediate and then
| refined later (and possibly rebook) is fine.
| sib wrote:
| Great idea. Would use (flew 140 segments the year before Covid).
|
| One piece of feedback:
|
| I asked for a "flight from LAX to..." and it recommended flights
| from SNA and ONT (two other airports in the Greater Los Angeles
| area). These airports are easily 1.5 - 2 hours away from LAX at
| commute times.
|
| I suggest that, if the user requests a specific airport (as
| indicated by an IATA code), you limit responses to that airport
| code by default, rather than broadening the search to a region.
|
| If I had asked for a "flight from Los Angeles to..." I would not
| have been surprised by the current behavior (and probably would
| have appreciated it.)
| themagyar wrote:
| Solid feedback.
|
| To keep the demo light, it doesn't have full functionality but
| being specific on airports vs cities is part of the live beta.
|
| NYC is another example w/ EWR. Can say "NYC" or specify "JFK or
| LaGuardia". DC too for people wanting to avoid the drive w/
| BWI.
|
| Happy to share access. Feel free to shoot me an email
| (attila@).
| sib wrote:
| Cool, thanks - I sent you an email
| pomian wrote:
| So I've tried a few variations on ticket searches. Pain language
| great. Two fliers great, can specify times and stops. Trans
| continental with connections, works - specifying destinations and
| round trips Worked great too. Local flight in Western Canada,
| came up with options, but very expensive, and in USD. I don't use
| Google for flights - but your tool provides a very efficient way
| of communicating to google, to get what you want. One thing I
| noticed so far, that Google prefers Lufthansa over KLM on search
| results. Anyway, great work. Keep us informed!
| themagyar wrote:
| Pertinent note: BonBook doesn't communicate with/use Google at
| all. Google link is just there for result comparison.
|
| BonBook has its own internal search+recommendation engine. And
| private beta let's you actually book the flights in two clicks
| via the checkout link. That's why you can also change/cancel
| them with an email.
|
| This is also probably why you are seeing LH > KL.. BonBook
| doesn't yet have access to KLM inventory.
|
| And haven't added non-USD currency support yet.
| chirau wrote:
| Gmail sent me back a failed mail response:
|
| ''' Address not found Your message wasn't delivered to
| test@bonbook.co because the address couldn't be found, or is
| unable to receive mail. '''
| themagyar wrote:
| Yes, test@bonbook.co is not valid for booking. And private beta
| requires onboarding.
|
| The inbox simulator provides high-level functionality of the
| beta without access.
| dddw wrote:
| > No cheap carriers by design Why no love for the frugal ?
| themagyar wrote:
| Different mindset.
|
| BonBook is targeted at travelers solving logistics problems who
| make lots of repeatable decisions and fly often (eg. need to be
| in X at Y).
|
| No saying what can be done with time.
| matt3D wrote:
| While that's a good point, I think it would be wise for them
| to incorporate budget airlines if they are looking at the
| European market.
|
| There are so many routes that are served exclusively by
| budget airlines.
| themagyar wrote:
| Noted re the EU. Though there's another side to it as well.
|
| BonBook does more than just booking (eg. one-email changes)
| and many budget airlines make this difficult with their
| restrictive fare rules.
| namdnay wrote:
| They're probably not distributed by whatever GDS API the app is
| using
| themagyar wrote:
| Beta (and sim) intentionally does not search them.
| genericspammer wrote:
| Really cool and useful, how long have you worked on this?
| themagyar wrote:
| Thanks. Built this sim in a few days. Iterating the beta since
| summer.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| This is nice. How do we choose currency?
| themagyar wrote:
| Email sim doesn't have this (can't actually buy tickets).
|
| And haven't built out currency support for the beta yet but its
| on the list.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| Great, thanks
| dankwizard wrote:
| Is this US only? Nothing is working for me in Australia
| themagyar wrote:
| The email sim doesn't allow booking but should still work to
| demo functionality. And it's not geo-limited. What are you
| seeing?
| zacmps wrote:
| For me the demo pulled up flights, but in USD, I'd need it to
| be localised to be useful.
|
| Airlines also tend to present different prices for different
| locations/currencies so I doubt this would be as simple as a
| UI change (though that would still go a long way!).
| themagyar wrote:
| Yes, the demo doesn't localize results. And Beta doesn't
| have currency support just yet but it's on the list.
|
| Beyond the price differences, airlines also grant scoped
| 'ticketing authority' in jurisdictions (eg. can only sell
| these tickets in EU or US+Canada etc).
| maeil wrote:
| How is this enforced? Purely IP-based? Sounds like we now
| need a VPN when buying tickets.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| >Sounds like we now need a VPN when buying tickets.
|
| Frame 6: You guys are buying tickets _without_ a vpn?
| ragazzina wrote:
| I personally see "Hi there, it looks like the internet
| dropped the ball somewhere. Please try your request again.".
| themagyar wrote:
| Yes, the internet did in fact drop the ball. Fix is live.
| 3np wrote:
| Sounds super useful!
|
| Feature request: Cryptocurrency available as a payment option.
| The payment part is a major painpoint in flight reservations.
| Would be happy to help with integrating if of interest.
| themagyar wrote:
| Yes, its on the roadmap. Zooming out, crypto gets super
| interesting in terms of industry dynamics.
|
| If you shoot a note to the contact email, will take a look.
| drewrbaker wrote:
| Would love to be able to have this buy my the flight at an
| optimal purchase time. Like I say "LAX to JFK for Jan 10th to Jan
| 15th, between $400 and $600" and it will wait until that is seen
| and then buy for me. That would be a real new feature.
| themagyar wrote:
| Calling it 'scheduled booking'. It's on the roadmap :)
| r0fl wrote:
| You can set up alerts using Google flights that will email you
| when prices change
|
| I save thousands using this feature each year
| lxgr wrote:
| I like that feature! But now I'm wondering if Google is
| selling that data back to airlines.
| evan_ wrote:
| why would you ever set a minimum price? If you're looking for a
| certain service level just have it look for that. Otherwise I'd
| be worried you'd miss out on a flight that fits all your
| criteria but costs $385 or something
| padolsey wrote:
| I imagine this is a much harder problem than meets the eye. Even
| for my own travel, there are like a dozen things I'm trying to
| optimize for. Time, money, seat, travel to/from airport (traffic,
| train cost, taxi pickup/dropoff ease), lounge quality, layover
| length or complexity vs cost calculus, loyalty program, airport
| navigation, airport amenities, flight hospitality quality etc.
| etc.
|
| When an AI can take into account all these subtleties and work
| reliably then yeh, I'd give it a go. But for now I'm kinda ~ok
| with the time cost of finding a non-rubbish flight.
|
| I guess this is where 'travel agents' once used to shine.
|
| Also: I want to be _absolutely_ certain the flight was booked --
| that nothing was dropped, that no weird API failed to callback,
| that no letter was dropped from my name, that no silly email
| parser thought I meant London, Ontario, Canada.
|
| Ps. Cool demo!
| themagyar wrote:
| Thanks. Definitely more complicate than originally imagined.
|
| A lot of this can be done automatically with time (eg, already
| built an auto-seat algo), but there is a reason the beta is
| focused on frequent fliers solving logistics problems and
| making repeatable decisions :) That said, think you'll be
| surprised by how well it optimizes already.
|
| During beta onboarding, you make an account with all travel
| info (no need to parse this). Travelers also confirm their
| booking before purchase ("checkout" links to a page with all
| flight info in a lot more detail instead of 'access' link). And
| BonBook sends a confirmation email post-booking (required by
| federal regs).
| bux93 wrote:
| Not to mention cabin luggage allowances (as well as the
| likelihood they will be honored and you won't be checking your
| cabin luggage at the gate, or stowing your bag in row 45 when
| you're in row 9). Even finding the (cabin/checked) luggage
| allowances on an airline's website can be a task for AI.
| Y_Y wrote:
| I was very to booking a flight to SJO instead of SJC. The
| interface just said "San Jose" so it looked fine. Might have
| been nice to go to Costa Rica instead.
| themagyar wrote:
| Checkout link in beta provides details. But you can request
| both :)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _I guess this is where 'travel agents' once used to shine._
|
| Score one for self-service software "improving lives" and
| "increasing productivity" by allowing everyone to do the job
| that would previously be done much more efficiently by
| dedicated specialists :).
|
| Still, reading that:
|
| > _Even for my own travel, there are like a dozen things I 'm
| trying to optimize for. Time, money, seat, travel to/from
| airport (traffic, train cost, taxi pickup/dropoff ease), lounge
| quality, layover length or complexity vs cost calculus, loyalty
| program, airport navigation, airport amenities, flight
| hospitality quality etc. etc._
|
| I envy your dedication. Halfway through reading this list, I
| already feel like going by a train instead. I can't imagine
| doing it myself without some specialized software; I'd lose my
| mind trying to do it with the normal travel/accommodation
| search and booking websites.
|
| > _Also: I want to be _absolutely_ certain the flight was
| booked -- that nothing was dropped, that no weird API failed to
| callback, that no letter was dropped from my name, that no
| silly email parser thought I meant London, Ontario, Canada._
|
| Very much this. It's my main concern here, too. I need live
| feedback on every input at every step throughout the process,
| because I don't trust software to not screw this up.
| RaftPeople wrote:
| > _I imagine this is a much harder problem than meets the eye.
| Even for my own travel, there are like a dozen things I 'm
| trying to optimize for._
|
| But if you created "profiles" of how you might search with
| various weight settings, it seems like it could get reasonably
| close without having to re-enter all of the details each time.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Seems like a neat idea but I just tried 4 times and got the same
| response every time:
|
| > Hi there, I couldn't find any flights for your request. Please
| try again.
|
| > -BonBook
|
| I was trying input like "Find me a flight from BWI to PWM
| December 27 to January 1".
| themagyar wrote:
| We had a bug with one of our external provides earier this
| morning, but its now resolved.
| theqwxas wrote:
| I am not sure about the US market, but Skyscanner [1] works great
| in Europe, I wonder how this is different. Besides from being
| structured as an email, it offers quite similar functionality of
| finding optimal flights (in some sense of optimal). It may just
| be me, but I am definitely misunderstanding the inbox metaphor.
| Why is it an inbox? Why is there emphasis on _one email_? I don't
| book flights through email -- I go on an airline's website to
| book.
|
| For now it seems to be always responding with "Hi there, I
| couldn't find any flights for your request. Please try again.", I
| could not test it out. Unless this is a demo version, and is
| working as expected.
|
| [1] https://www.skyscanner.net/
| themagyar wrote:
| The beta is email-based booking, changes and more. The demo
| simulates the search experience via email.
| pomian wrote:
| I get results everytime. Maybe not the cheapest. But it's
| something, and it's fast... Very fast. (Compared to going to a
| website.) With a very simple sentence full of acronyms that we
| all use buy now, it is a fun experimental tool. (Then clicking
| through the Google link, you can actually continue and book.)
| But, I agree, Skyscanner is awesome.
| themagyar wrote:
| Beta turns booking into two clicks.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Hi there, I couldn't find any flights for your request. Please
| try again.
|
| Cross checking with skyscanner there are indeed no flight in the
| morning I asked, but there are in the afternoon, maybe propose
| alternatives with nearby airports and/or timeslots when there are
| no flight meeting requirements?
| hinach4n wrote:
| Getting the same results, here is my query: "Find me a flight
| for the 10th, 11th or the 12th from BKK to London, ideally
| heathrow."
| themagyar wrote:
| Can't handle multi-date (yet).
| themagyar wrote:
| Yes, this is a bit more complicated but on the roadmap. Great
| suggestion.
| TripleChecker wrote:
| 'Yes. BonBook is live in private beta and can do a whole lot more
| than just find flights. Click here to request access.' - why keep
| it a secret? What else can it do? :)
| themagyar wrote:
| Hi HN: Looks like LLM API calls started being rejected. Working
| on a solution...
| themagyar wrote:
| UPDATE: We're back!
| freeone3000 wrote:
| I told it to give me a direct flight and all of its flights have
| an Atlanta layover. It also ignored my seat pitch request, my
| checked bags request, and gave me only WestJet flights when Air
| Canada flights are cheaper.
|
| Is this a frontend to google flights? Sabre integration might get
| you the info you need to do these queries.
| themagyar wrote:
| The sim has limited ability to make it lightweight, free from
| signup and responsive in ~15 seconds.
|
| Beta is much more capable.
|
| GFlights is not used, link is there for comparison.
| ishtanbul wrote:
| It would be great if i could chat with chatgpt and it could book
| it for me, like a travel agent
| crro wrote:
| Super cool! Are you using an API for travel or scraping the
| flights from a website?
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