iXiGO launched anywhere to anywhere least price flight search tonight (and you hear it here first!!); by connecting all the smaller airports with their nearest regional hubs. All the other OTAs have had this feature for quite some time now, but what’s unique & first from iXiGO is that they combine flights from all carriers to present you the cheapest option possible.
Look at the comparative screenshots below…
Of particular mention are the following features:
- Least Price Search- If you wanted to fly from, say, Bangalore to Ranchi ( Ashish & my hometown
), you can choose Air Deccan/IndiGo for the Bangalore to Kolkata / New Delhi leg and then MDLR for the New Delhi / Kolkata to Ranchi leg, and pay lots less for it since iXiGO does all the permutations & combinations for you. You do not need to pay more for a JetLite flight from Bangalore – New Delhi – Ranchi, as is the “recommended” least price on Yatra / Cleartrip / Makemytrip. - Least Duration Search- With flight combinations, there is the additional complexity of wait times at stops. I’m sure some of you might be ready to bear Rs. 500 more for a reduced wait time of 2 hours? iXiGO has added a nice sort by feature on the “stops (time)” column to help you make this trade-off visually
- Usability Improvements – A swanky new icon legend below the “filter options” will help first-time users.
If you hail from one of smaller towns / cities in India, I’m sure your cheap flight search for a trip back home has been quite a daunting task till now. Take iXiGO for a spin, search for some “exotic” flight routes (say Coimbatore – Guwahati) and see the difference in fares.
On a side-note, ever since iXiGO has launched 2 months back, they have been releasing new features every 15 days odd. Each of these features is a gap that is not being serviced today by the Indian OTAs, but essentially not new in the travel search domain per se (check out farecast, farechase to see what I mean). However, it still is really heartening to see the entrepreneurial & innovative spirit in these folks, and it remains to be seen how long does this steam last
Poaching OTA loyals from their favourite flight search sites is the mantra for success in the crowded Indian travel domain. And the issue is very real. In-fact quite a few senior folks in my office were not aware that flight combinations is not provided by their Yatra, MMT, Cleartrip, etc today!!!
What next?
- Price comparisons within a date range, Customizable low fare / deals alerts, etc from an earlier post
- Completing the search – purchase experience on the mobile phone. iXiGO & OnYoMO have launched least price flight search on the mobile a month back, but if I have to get on the internet to purchase tickets, why would I want to search on the mobile!!!
- What do you think iXiGO should be doing next? Leave a comment here, I’ll make sure they listen
Wow – this is a really cool site. Thanks for the information about it.
tamal – do you know when is iXiGO launching international flights ?
I travel often from Delhi to Madurai – and iXiGO seems to be giving me a deal 8000 Rs. cheaper for return fare. I never knew about this difference until i checked today !
Everyone – iXiGO rocks !
On this very post there is an ad from yatra on the google ads. It says – Get tickets for as low as Rs. 2 – no hidden charges.
Yeah, right
. We all know better. Why dont these portals stop their misleading ad campaigns?
@Raj: Thanks a lot for the encouragement. We love to see ecstatic users. International flights is still a bit far out on our product roadmap, but it definitely is on the agenda.
@Preetam: I think all portals want to build a perception of having the cheapest airfares available on their portals. As far as iXiGO is concerned, as long as the airline/OTA sells it for the cheapest price on its on website, we will have the cheapest fare. The travel industry’s inherent structure prevents any player from claiming to always have the cheapest airfares. Which is why iXiGO’s mission is to help users discover where these cheapest deals might be.
With three players in the online travel search space, I wonder who is the leader. Zoomtra.com has taken a good lead and then tolmol.com also offers travel search services. Can someone do a comparison among three players in this space..
Ashish – Are you serious ?
Apart from iXiGO I dont find any other startup with focus and commitment to their consumers.
tolmol seems to be doing too many things at the same time, with none of them good enough to be the best.
Ashish – Are you serious ?
Apart from iXiGO I dont find any other travel search startup with focus and commitment to their consumers.
tolmol seems to be doing too many things at the same time, with none of them good enough to be the best.
frequent flyer, you have avoided commenting on zoomtra? Tolmol.com surely has wide offering to the users but zoomtra comparison with iXiGo will be apple to apple
Ashish – There is a comparison I saw recently of all Indian travel portals – You can see it on http://trak.in/Tags/Business/2007/08/26/indian-travel-airfare-ticket-search-startup/
I think pluggd.in should do something similar, but given your writing experience in this space, much more qualified and comprehensive (statistically significant) – the time is ripe for it.
Fail to undertand why these trak.in guys keep spamming ur site…i hv seen enough of these links. why dont u mark them as spam? i had a look at the url and am surprised to see their analysis…plain duck
Was wondering if the Indian online travel sites can benefit from Amazon.com’s online book selling model where they show listings from other book-sellers (mom&pop, individuals, other book stores). Our travel sites could similarly aggregate the offerings of local travel agents. So when you search for a flight and price, offers from local travel agents will also be listed allowing the users the choice of picking up the tix themselves.
There is great advantage to the first-mover in this space (local travel agents will be quick to jump on to get online exposure) and the travel site can earn a buck just for making the connection.
Food for thought – hope some travel site is reading this
-Unmesh.
Founder, SadakMap.com
SpotMeUrl: http://www.sadakmap.com/spotme/unmesh
If ixigo is suppose to be so good then why dont they display any OTA’s on thier site. I heard they were begging to MMT and Yatra to bo on thier site. OTA’s dont provide to any of the Metasearch engines as they try and make money from advertising. Zoomtra is far better then ixigo as you get to see different functionality and lots of choice to filter fares. Also sites like Yatra.com offer additional discounts by paying with different payment types unlike the airlines which ixigo shows.
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nice searching and comparing of fares between different companies, there is one more latest entry in the industry of search engines thats is
http://oxyshopping.com , indian search engine where we can search all over indian shopping and choose the best products with lowest prices. This site gives uas many other tools like forum discussion, weekly offers posting, stores etc. And alots of more…
So take a look at http://www.oxyshopping.com