Shopping Simplified: Hipmunk
Posted by Natalie Kaar / Thursday, January 5th, 2012
Photo: Hipmunk
Hello there, shoppers! Booking flights can be a fright. That’s without a little online help in the form of a handy dandy website or shopping app that simplifies the situation.
I used to think Kayak ruled the school, but these days it’s Hipmunk — hands down. Talk about Shopping Simplified! The site and app (for iPhone, iPad and Android phones) make booking air travel a breeze.
Instead of throwing you a whole bunch of irrelevant search terms in a format that’s beyond frustrating to read, it puts everything in a clean visual timeline that helps you pick the best flight for you at a glance.
At the jump, things are simplified already, as you can enter airport codes or city names. And that’s just the beginning of the ease, as you’ll see when I search for flights from IAD (Dulles) to Barcelona, leaving Jan. 13, returning Jan. 14, for two people in business class. (Don’t I wish!) You can sort results by agony OR price OR duration OR departure OR arrival.
Don’t know what’s not to be missed in Barcelona? (I’d argue just about everything!). The Hipmunk website features a heatmap of popular attractions and nearby hotels; the hotel search capability is also being added to the mobile app next week according to a Hipmunk representative I spoke with today.
Filtering has never been so fabulous!
Happy shopping — and travels!
–Natalie Kaar
Tags: air travel deals, best online booking, booking flights, flight deals, Hipmunk, Kayak, Natalie Kaar, Northern Virginia Magazine, nova mag, S.W.A.G., Shopping Simplified, TBD shopping