An Interesting Travel Site

I've been flying a lot lately and had an interesting conversation with a guy in the Salt Lake City airport. He is a truck driver who's engine and transmission broke down. Instead of waiting around town for a week in Bozeman, Montana, he jumped a flight home to Atlanta. I figured that would be an expensive plane ticket to buy at the last minute. Furthermore he doesn't plan to fly back to his truck until everything is fixed. While it is impolite to ask about how much someone paid for an airline ticket I did remark that it must have cost a lot. He told me he only paid $200 and that he uses Skiplagged to help find great deals on airfare.

I got to my destination and the next day looked into the site. While he may have said "Skip Lagged," I heard "Skip Jack" and so that is how I started my search. Fortunately the correct site came up. On the home page they claim to specialize in ridiculous travel deals nobody else can find. They are not wrong. I did a few searches and it amazed me at how inexpensive last-minute flight deals can be on the site. I did a search from Salt Lake to Columbus, Ohio for the next day and the price came in $200 less than the cheapest flight on the same airline's own website.

Now for the fine print. Skiplagged gets you the cheapest flight available. That means that you probably won't get a seat assignment until you get to the airport. If you are traveling alone, that isn't much of a problem but it becomes one if you are traveling with someone you want to sit next to. Furthermore you are probably getting stuck in a middle seat. You can also assume your loyalty account won't be credited with many frequent flyer miles, if any.

While I really am most interested in the site for air travel, Skiplagged also has great deals on hotels. I didn't do much research on those but what browsing I did on the home page looked like great prices. The next time I need to book a hotel for personal travel, I will give it a shot and see how well the prices really are.

I definitely won't be using Skiplagged for any business travel. I will also think twice about using it for when I am flying with my wife. However if I am footing the bill for a quick trip at the last minute where I am alone, it will be the first place I look.

A Possible Uber Discount

I have been using Uber to get from my office to the San Francisco Airport recently and have noticed a steady increase in cost for the same distance. It has gotten to the point of me looking at other alternatives and today that may have worked in my favor.

Last week I used Uber to get to the airport and my cost was either $20 for Uber Pool (shared ride with other people) or $25 for Uber X (direct non-stop by myself). This is consistent with costs for the past few weeks. In going through my receipt, I noticed a $7 surcharge because of the airport. I know that there is a BART train that is non-stop and leaves from the Millbrae station, which is close to the airport. The cost is only $5 and so I checked to see how much Uber would cost just to get to Millbrae. When I saw the cost at only $10 for Uber Pool, I thought I would do that this evening. Just to make sure I did a fair comparison, I checked how much it would cost to the airport. Instead of $20, the cost came up at only $15 and so I booked Uber. After all, it saved me from having a train transfer.

While going through the airport security I thought about it and wonder if the programmers at Uber recognize when customers are trying to save money. If I was a developer looking for ways to differentiate my rideshare application from others, I would look for little nuances like that.

Anyone that has used Uber for any amount of time know that there are a number of factors that determine pricing. Ever try to hail an Uber or Lyft after a concert? It is really expensive unless you can get a fair distance from the concert venue. It could be that my reduction in price today is reflective of a number of other factors and I just got lucky. Fortunately I will have many more opportunities in the near future to test out my hypothesis. I'll be sure to keep you posted.