Yapta Will Be Awesome For Heavy Travelers
Michael Arrington
38 comments »
I don’t know what it is about Seattle and travel startups, but newcomer Yapta now joins Farecast and TripHub, two other startups we’ve been tracking from that cold, rainy place.
I saw a pre-launch demo of the company yesterday from co-founder and CEO Tom Romary. The site, which should launch around May 15, helps users find deals on flights and (later this year) hotels.
Yapta is very different from other travel sites. It is not hooked up directly to airlines’ systems (as Expedia and Oribitz are), nor is it essentially a search engine for low fares like Farecast. Instead, they’re using some of the ideas behind del.icio.us and bookmarking to create a potentially compelling new way for people to search for cheap flights.
The core of the Yapta service is a browser bookmarklet or addon that lets users “bookmark” fares that they find on major travel sites. At launch, ten airline and travel sites will be supported, many more will be added over time. See a flight you are interested in and bookmark it. The flight and fare information is then stored in your account at Yapta.
Find a number of different flight options at different sites, and then go back to Yapta to compare them. This is particularly useful when you fly Southwest or Jetblue, which do not provide flight information to other services. If the fare increases or decreases before you make a purchase, that will be reflected on the Yapta site.
If you make a purchase by clicking through to the airline or travel site from Yapta, they’ll continue to monitor the price. If it falls, they’ll ping you and suggest you contact the airline for a refund or flight coupon. All airlines offer these on price drops but few consumers follow up. Yapta will help by reminding you.
The company has quite a few sources of revenue. They collect affiliate fees from most airlines and sites if the user clicks through and purchases a previously bookmarked flight. There will be some advertising on the site, and Yapta will offer information on Travelzoo-like “deals” to users who opt in. Finally, for customers who are eligible to receive flight coupons for price drops, Yapta will offer to do all the work to get the coupon for a 10% fee (or a flat yearly subscription fee of $40).
In beta testing with 275 users over the last several months, Yapta found that 34% of purchased tickets became eligible for a refund. The average refund was 16% of the ticket price, or $85. During the beta period that worked out to a total of $28,900 in aggregate potential refunds, or about $100 per beta user. If Yapta can successfully tap into this refund pool and get a share, the numbers look good. More importantly, this is a great service for consumers, who rarely even bother to check for price drops. Users can also use just this feature of Yapta by entering in the flight information on the Yapta site - they are not required to use the Yapta service for research or buying beforehand. For a lot of users, just this one aspect of the service will be very compelling.
I know I’ll be using it.
See Erick Schonfeld for more. He also saw the Yapta demo and wrote about it a couple of days ago.
I had no clue such refunds even existed. Most “low fare” tickets come with a bunch of restrictions, change fees ..etc, really giving you the imporession, that you have no recourse whatsoever after purchase.
So how does Yapta get its price information? You say it’s not hooked directly into the airlines’ systems so presumably it screenscrapes their websites. If this is the case then it’s a simple matter for the airlines to block Yapta and put them out of business.
It is interesting that you can track one individual flight. If you like a particular route/airline for your travels this seems like an interesting concept. Still, it would seem beneficial to also know of other flights with similar routing and pricing.
TripStalker ( http://www.tripstalker.com ) is a similar service except it automates a lot of this process. It runs on your desktop and automatically enters your flight criteria for you in a number of airline websites, plus is tied into the GDS (like expedia). It then resubmits the query on a regular basis keeping the flight price constantly up to date. It looks across the spectrum to find the best price for the exact travel criteria. You can specify particular airlines and/or non-stop flights only. But it will still check the price in a number of websites / data sources.
Sounds pretty great, a nice way to organize and track after the searching. I usually find just a couple of possible candidate flights anyway, and often one is Southwest, so most flight search sites can’t directly compare all my choices.
I think the refund service will do well for them.
http://www.kayak.com/
Sounds like a - great - service -
People in seattle - easily hide their great place to live - so that others dont move in and ruin it -
- Seattle is a beautiful great place to live
crybaby,
this looks completely different than kayak.com. As someone who flies Southwest and JetBlu, I think this service looks awesome. I will give it a shot.
This sounds like an excellent improvement on what the marketplace currently provides. I’ll also be using their service. Thanks for reviewing them, Michael.
I hate how I can only search for direct flights, or everything else. Why can’t anywhere search for only 1 layover.
I also don’t want to guess which day is cheapest, or worry about any rules. I usually don’t even know when I want to go on a trip, and typically the price determines when I will go (Except for business travel, then I don’t care about price).
sounds like an airlines worst nightmare if this site becomes popular. like commenter #1 stated, i had NO idea that their was a refund option when prices on fares dropped below purchase price. i would expect the airlines to collectively discontinue this refund option if they begin to see a large volume of refund requests. the paperwork, financial reporting, and cost of handling these refunds could be enormous.
seems like a well-thought out business with a strong knowledge of the ins and outs of the interworkings of the travel industry.
Maybe I’m missing in this explanation a key concept: how could this work right if it’s not on-demand search-driven (like Sidestep, Kayak)? Bookmarking a fare seems useless, as fares change constantly in real time?
otoh, the idea of having a service that does the busy work of monitoring refunds due is super-useful, and a huge oppty accross many areas of commerce.
Personally, I think this is a great service idea. I think in the direct-to-consumer market this makes a ton of sense and will definitely check it out.
However, for the business traveler (the KEY travelers to the entire hospitality industry), I am less convinced. Business travelers rarely even book their own travel. Furthermore, larger companies generally use travel agencies (yes, still) and are less concerned about saving a few bucks here and there…
Watch out, the refunds are only valid for REFUNDABLE tickets (which are the most expensive) for what the normally flyer buys - NON-refundable tickets - then the best you can get is maybe a voucher if anything (probably not as they are non-refundable) and certainly not cash.
Read the contract of carriage and the fare rules for the ticket you buy, it’s clearly stated in there.
@11, @13: what you guys said.
that said - there is one particularly brilliant developer at yapta, initials m.c.
Mike,
How could this article miss an opportunity to feature http://www.FareCompare.com?
Hands down the best travel search website on the market.
Try it out, FareCompare does all the searching for you. No more 15 open windows. No more expired session. No more paying more than you need to.
(Note: I am not affliated in anyway with FareCompare. I just think they do a great job and deserve a mention here.)
Can I vote this blog?
Boring… 2/5
The most exciting blog was powerset scandal, rivals pump & dump, and others. They were 1# best blogs…
Everytime you see this web 2.0 stuff.
It’s 100% re-inventing wheels website.
What is innovation behind Yapta.com?
I see trip ticket cost, nice graphics… nice graphics and nice graphics. :/ But what about other travel website. They have similar idea as Yapta .
Now, I’m confused with TC’s web2.0 concept. I’m not 100% sure if TC have lost it’s way out. Maybe, Rivals.com destory it or TC got lazy.I don’t know how to say this… TC is out of batteries.
How long can we bring TC spirit back?
Further to Tom’s Point:
Even a refundable ticket will probably have fees. And my educated guess tells me that as time moves forward fares get higher.
The only way for a fare to get lower is if people cancel their tickets. Otherwise as planes fill up, they fill up with cheaper tickets, and the fare gets higher as the seat buckets get more rare.
So there is probably a fee with either one, and typically the fee for any change in ticket is > $100.00
So the chance of saving money by monitoring for a price drop and being able to get the airline to reimburse you in some fairly liquid way… doubt it.
G - I wonder why they’re still in Beta.
Also, the idea of monitoring a ticket for a price drop is kind of worthless even if you haven’t purchased it. The price is probably going to go up over time, so if I’m looking to save money, I should do it sooner, and just be flexible on WHEN I want to travel.
“I don’t know what it is about Seattle and travel startups…”
I know what it is…it’s the crappy weather there that makes people want to look for cheap tickets easily and quickly to get the hell out of there as often as possible!
P.S. A perfect 70 degrees and sunny yesterday in Seattle
This company has big challenges:
1) Another bookmarklet? Cmon - how many bookmarklets do you already have? Do you need/want more than Delicious, Magnloia, SU toolbar? It’ll just clog you browser. From experience, nobody’s going to DL this except the company’s employees.
2) Prices change every minute! You’ll find a great price, wait a few days (the only reason they’d save it in the 1st place right - if not, I can compare directly on Expedia and Travelocity) clickthrough and be disappointed.
Just my 2 cents.
A bit of misinformation - at least with JetBlue I know that I can book them through Travelocity. Their fares are a few dollars higher to cover Travelocity’s fee, but the flights are there…
Yeah but Rainy and 50 degress today in Seattle.
Hey Jonas check out http://www.farecompare.com/art....._hope.html
Pretty nifty. Not a heavy traveler, but I can see for those who are (and for businesses) this could be a great money saver.
Mike,
A couple of quick points in response to the thoughtful comments made by your visitors:
- We’ll email people when the Yapta Beta is “open” in May (just sign up under announcements at http://www.yapta.com ). We’re also adding users to the private Beta everyday.
- People use Yapta to track multiple of flights when planning a trip, and we alert them when prices drop so they can buy the best deals. This is actually a very compelling solution for airlines too: Yapta delivers buying customers directly to their websites. The airlines want to build direct relationships with online customers (and only 41% of all airline tix are bought online, so there is lots of room for category growth).
- Airlines do offer coupons and travel credits on price drops (and yes, definitely for non-refundable tickets), but only if you bought your tickets directly from the airline. They want your loyalty, and the airline giving you a non-transferable “coupon” for future travel is smart because it brings you back to their airline website again (maybe to buy 2 tickets and a Cancun vacation package — a win for the airline and you!).
- Last, as one reader points out, prices change hourly. This is exactly why our Beta users love that we continue to monitor prices mutliple times daily, and why we alert them when the price on their trip drops.
The Yapta crew looks forward to helping more people save money (and travel more)!
Tom
good information for travelling
On the issue of refunds - It used to be that there were a number of 3rd parties who would offer to track your Fedex and UPS package deliveries and offer to collect a refund on your behalf if the package was not delivered on time - something most customers don’t bother to do. Eventually, the couriers wised up and now have a clause that prevents “3rd parties” from requesting refunds..
Some of the variability of pricing is built into yield management practices. Now, as a frequent traveler, I believe there should be more transparency in airline pricing but if 34% of the travelers start requesting 16% refunds it wouldnt take too long for the airlines to start shutting down 3rd party refund processing, or worse, increase prices for everyone. Take a look at airline P&L and tell me how many can take a 5% hit to their bottom line ( ~ 34% times 16% ) without going under.
Problem with low fare website is its difficult to get the refunds and cancellation process is tedious. But Yapta’s suggest option is really interesting. But wondered how Airlines accept for refund. Overall concept sounds great!!
http://www.suggestusability.com
If it supports Southwest, fine. If not, it’s dead in the water.
sheer genius!
Southwest is a non-issue for a site like this. I travel almost 100,000 miles a year and this concept is great for someone like me. This isn’t about a race to the bottom, it’s about getting money back when you’ve already made a committment to fly a particular flight. Besides, unless you’re booking Southwest on “DING” fares or 6 months in advance, their fares have climbed significantly in the past year. In many cases, SW is not the cheapest flight if booked within even two weeks of departure.
Even non-refundable fares can be canceled. Non-refundable just means you don’t get your money BACK, but the airlines hold the money associated with your ticked “on account” referenced by the ticket number, less a change fee (which can be up to $150). For example, I recently bought a ticket for a cross-country flight on Delta for the week of 4/10. My plans changed and I needed to book the same itinerary but a week later. The fare was cut in half, so even after the change fee (a reasonable $50 for ‘elite’ members on Delta) I still have $270 towards my next flight.
Having a way to get this all the time would be fantastic, and I surely would pay the $40 annual fee to have someone do the work for me and save, potentially, hundreds of dollars each year. The key is that the savings has to be above and beyond any and all change fees.