Expedia, the travel booking website, has stepped up its search game in recent weeks, adding three features to help travelers find — and organize — the best flights possible.
The first, Flight Recommendations, automatically suggests alternative itineraries associated with a user's search, offering flights with cheaper fares, perhaps, or more convenient routes.
For any given route, there can be trillions of flight options, John Kim, a senior vice president of global products at Expedia, said. "We're looking for signals, the most common patterns of what Expedia users typically book, what people are actually buying," he said, and then use that real-time feedback to come up with more, possibly better, options.
Search functions like "include nearby airports" or "my dates are flexible" have been around for a while, but they serve to narrow a user's search subset, Mr. Kim said, as opposed to opening it up to the best of all options.
The goal is to give more information and make things easier, Mr. Kim said. On a recent search for a ticket to Thailand, he said he found 438 possible flights in a 30-day period.
"And if you open up the variables," he said, changing the city you fly out of, the dates, times, that number increases exponentially, "so why shouldn't we do that work for you?"
The feature is currently available only to users in the United States flying domestically, but will expand to include international service and consumers over the next year. It is not yet available on Expedia's mobile application.
Scratchpad, the second of the site's new features, is available on all devices. Much like an actual notepad, it keeps a record of a user's search activity, eliminating the need to re-enter data several times.
A user will search for a flight an average of 48 times before actually booking, according to research from Expedia, Mr. Kim said. By clicking the Scratchpad button, a user will be able to view their search histories, even if performed on the mobile app, and receive updates on fare changes and availability, if desired.
And for friends and family who are tired of circling airports, wondering about the whereabouts of their loved ones, the site's new Itinerary Sharing feature allows travelers to share their flight information, and any updates or changes to that flight, with others.
A welcome benefit during this particularly snowy season, to be sure.
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