Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - Introducing WayAnyWay.com

Dear Flyer Talk Community,

I have received permission from Jabez to introduce you a new web-site that helps in your search for the cheapest airfare tickets: Way Any Way ( http://www.wayanyway.com )

This web-site works similar to Booking Buddy, however it is targeted at more serious travelers and hence the interface is more like of Excel table.
We also provide much more sites to search from. Right now we have 180 sites and over 447 variations of possible search queries amongst those sites: Round Trip, One Way, Flexible One Way, Flexible Round Trip and Multi City. But don't be afraid, we try to filter out sites as much as possible. For example, if travel agent supports flights only from England, then we are not going to show it for flights originating in the US.

We also have support for several languages (currently only English and Russian). Not only Way Any Way can be viewed in English or Russian, but one can view English Way Any Way and search Russian sites.

The main point of our site is that one can compare a lot of different travel agents, aggregators and airlines in one place. You can store cheapest price that you have found on Way Any Way and it will be in that table for 3 days - you can do the same search from any computer and still see that price. Also we support global sites, so one can compare tickets in different currencies (sometimes you can actually save a lot). Currently we are mostly working with USD, GBP and RUB. However, after testing these sites we will be adding more English language sites (AUD, NZD, HKG, ...) and then foreign language sites.

In the following week we will be adding budget airlines.

The way I work with this site:
I first do a flexible date search to find the best day to fly.
Then I open up normal search (Round Trip) and just open up first 10-15 sites.
Get the prices from top 3 sites with cheapest prices and enter those prices into table.
Close all sites and open up another 10-15.
Repeat.

This takes only about 5-10 minutes and usually I can save around $150-$500 on international ticket or $30-$150 on a domestic one.

Please let me know what you think of this web-site and all suggestions and comments are welcome.

Way any way is still very young, but it's growing rapidly.

Again, site is Way Any Way : http://www.wayanyway.com

Sincerely,

Anton

Congrats on your new site. I am all for finding somewhere to save on airline tickets. Unfortunately, my simple flight search resulted in no fares and data overload :( Is this how it is SUPPOSED to look? It seems like it's going to involve allot of work to obtain results :confused:
http://photos.imageevent.com/aladyncal/ebay/websize/farechart.png

Just tried it and couldn't make head or tail of the search result display. You need hierarchical information design and a clear action path.

Congrats on your new site. I am all for finding somewhere to save on airline tickets. Unfortunately, my simple flight search resulted in no fares and data overload :( Is this how it is SUPPOSED to look? It seems like it's going to involve allot of work to obtain results :confused:


The tooltips only appear once and when you click anywhere they should just go away ... it did not work for you ?

Regarding fares: the point of the web-site is to organize your search for fares. It does not look for fares itself, it helps you find a cheapest airfare over a number of web-sites. It tries to simplify the whole process of looking for fares.

For example, usually I look for tickets at kayak.com and then check few more sites ( bing travel, orbitz, skyscanner ) to get the best ticket. I always believed that I could find the cheapest and optimal ticket, but I was wrong. Recently I've bought a ticket: LED(St. Petersburg, Russia) -> NYC, SFO->LED for $682 at a web-site on which I never look for tickets (Hop2) and the whole process of searching for tickets took me about 20-30 minutes ( The most time was consumed by discussing with my wife if we should get these tickets or not :) ). On sites that I was checking before (kayak and etc.) this ticket was running at least $770 ... I think saving about $200 for two tickets is good enough and I don't have any doubts in my mind that I did not check enough agents for the best price ; )



Just tried it and couldn't make head or tail of the search result display. You need hierarchical information design and a clear action path.


So it is very unclear on what exactly you should do to get best fares ? The tooltips did not explain it enough ?

So it is very unclear on what exactly you should do to get best fares ? The tooltips did not explain it enough ?

There is nothing self-explanatory about the results display interface. There is no hierarchy -- everything's the same size. There's no indication where to start. When you click on something, the result is cryptic and does not suggest a next step. Information displays need clear action paths, and they have to be decodable without resorting to an instruction guide ("tooltips"). Nobody reads the instructions anymore, things just have to work.

When you get into an unfamiliar car, what's the biggest piece of instrumentation? The speedometer, because it delivers the most important data. Then other gauges are smaller and on the periphery, then some other kinds of data are communicated via warning lights only, and some data, like the temperate inside the glovebox, is not provided at all because it's not important. That's a hierarchy at work. Your interface, on the other hand, is like a car dashboard with 100 same-sized gauges reporting everything from speed to glove-box temperature to the current stock price of the carmaker. It would be indecipherable and you wouldn't want to drive the car.

Thanks, BearX220, for clear explanation. Now we just have to think of a way to make the interface more self-explanatory ... that's going to be a hard one : (

you definitely should invest in a good UI/UX designer >< the overall layout is way to cumbersome... I was also puzzled at first one the goal of the site... (and I am a dpt. director in that field)

I played with it and figured it out right away. The part that is cumbersome is having to click on each one separate and then putting in the price for each. If you can add a box to click on all the choices at one time and have them search all at once then it would be a lot more user friendly. It is a great idea that needs a little tweeking. Keep up the great work, I would use it!

you definitely should invest in a good UI/UX designer >< the overall layout is way to cumbersome... I was also puzzled at first one the goal of the site... (and I am a dpt. director in that field)

Thanks,

we are currently working on "intuitive mode" - where it would be much more straightforward. We don't have any real designers amongst us, but we wanted to get everything working right before investing in a good designer.


I played with it and figured it out right away. The part that is cumbersome is having to click on each one separate and then putting in the price for each. If you can add a box to click on all the choices at one time and have them search all at once then it would be a lot more user friendly. It is a great idea that needs a little tweeking. Keep up the great work, I would use it!

Great that you liked it! Actually, we've just added that button: it's still a little hidden, because have not tested it extensively, but you can see above each table "Open all at once" - just click it and each link in the following table will open up.



Also, we've added a feature, where one can enter prices right in the same window where the site opens up. It works with most sites, but not all. The price that was entered there will appear in main table within 5 seconds : ) ... You can also mark sites that you like or don't like there as well and this will also appear in the main table.

Good morning!

We have updated our Way Any Way extensively and would love if you would be able to check it out. Major changes:
1. We've added an "intuitive" mode, hopefully it will be easier to understand
2. We've developed a page around the actual sites with prices - so it would be much easier to enter prices

And much more ...

Thanks,

Anton