If you could change one thing about the way you buy travel, what would it be & why?
As the question states, trying to collect some great thinking points. I will start with one - I want to change the hotel buying experience where the map show me areas on the line of HoodMaps (Hipster, Party Place, History, Crazy area, locals, etc) by Pieter Levels so that I instantly know which areas to focus on to plan my stay.
Gems_Bond
Stealth
8 months ago
Remove the convenience fee across categories.
Why?
I don't know, but I don't want to pay convenience fee.
C0ldphr34k
Stealth
8 months ago
Convenience fee is the only earning left in flights. Indigo gives 0% commission, some big players like MMT, etc. deposit 2-3 crores of more with Indigo to top-up wallet (as it’s cash & carry business) and get 0.5-0.75% extra as bonus on that deposit. Doesn’t even cover cost of capital.
The only way flight convenience fees go away completely is that people buy flight + something else by default.
That’s the unfortunate reality of the industry.
Gems_Bond
Stealth
8 months ago
I don't know dude, you are CEO, figure it out.
Post-purchase, non-irritating marketing of financial products, D2C brand products, etc. can be experimented with.
Categories are many, but again the marketing should not be in the face, and definitely not telecalls.
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I think they should handle last-minute reservations better. Nightly pricing should dynamically adjust based on the remaining hours until check-out. For example, if I book a hotel room at 9:30 PM with a check-in time of 12 PM and check-out is at 11 AM the next day, current pricing displays the standard nightly rate. However, note that without the sale, the hotel gains nothing. Accommodating last-minute bookings at a discounted rate could, in fact, positively impact their revenue as well as be beneficial for the users as well.
This approach applies to last-minute flight bookings as well, and I think there are startups already in this space.
C0ldphr34k
Stealth
8 months ago
Last minute hotel bookings is slowly creeping up with hourly rates & all that jam. This change is more fundamental in the software which hotels using i.e. Property Management Systems. I think this is getting solved in pockets and over the next couple of years will become main stream. Hotel Tonight was also an attempt at this.
For flights, last minute is always gonna be holy grail of making money.
Will deep dive more.
C0ldphr34k
Stealth
8 months ago
Can you elaborate?
No nonsense of promo codes for bookings,
I've used mmt mybiz it mostly shows the best price upfront, exception being bank offers, has become my defacto app.
I don't like use code holil2023 for 23% discount upto 500₹ with mov 5000 or use code ghumofree for 10% off upto 1000₹ no mov or use code icicifest for 20% off on xyz credit card varient this atleast makes some sense.
I can't understand the need to have promo codes, why can't they just show the best possible price upfront, including all the dynamic pricing, commission, base rate etc. why complicate for the user.
If today I'm booking a hotel abc for 27-28 jan on your app, if shown ₹2000 + GST it's fine and understandable.
But when they sprinkle these codes, one will get it for 1800 other may get for 2100, which makes me feel cheated and wronged for the same thing at same time.
Similarly for flight if you've give 4000 to indigo charge me 4500 upfront or whatever sustains your bottom line,
Why complicate by showing 5000+ added convience fee and use code cleartripmagic for ₹1000 off, which also endup costing same to user.
