I try Hipmunk every so often, the last time being about a month ago. Every time, Kayak shows more flight options for the same query than Hipmunk, and often cheaper ones. I don't get it, they both use ITA on the backend.
I'd use Hipmunk more often if they actually fulfilled their functionality promise as an aggregator. A pretty UI isn't enough.
Hmm, that shouldn't be the case. If you try again and feel like helping us out, feel free to email the discrepancy to support@hipmunk.com.
Sometimes there is an explanation (e.g. the flight doesn't exist, or has a 30hr layover), and other times we don't have the flight, in which case we want to alert our providers to fix it.
First discrepancy I found was the first search I ran (LHR - SYD one way Mon 3/11) but I'll try to give a more helpful general case answer.
- Consolidators [that you don't have commercial relationships with] have wholesale arrangements with airlines allowing them to sell tickets below the direct/GDS price. I suspect you're more reliant on ITA results than many other portals or meta-search sites and their prices are trivially easy to beat on competitive routes if you have a broader range of partnerships.
- Some consolidators put together logical itineraries not bookable via GDS or even direct with the airline. As an extreme example I once bought a cheap, logical pair of connecting long haul flights with Saudia via eBookers that Saudia's website wouldn't allow me to book at any price direct with them; I'd guess the airline didn't want to market anything involving a 5 hour layover in an under-redevelopment terminal in Riyadh. There are plenty of less glaringly obvious potential indirect itineraries that consolidators (potentially including Kayak as well as their affiliates) can identify with Innovata's minimum connect time file and schedule data[1] and other providers might have a more liberal view on reasonable connections than ITA
- Sometimes other sites' metasearch results' advantages are purely illusory, based on outdated results they've cached or screenscraped. I find Skyscanner LCC prices are frequently out of date, even though the actual ticket price is also usually cheaper than ITA's. Other sites might also create the appearance of more choice by not combining codeshared flights into one.
As for LON-SYD on Monday Kayak has a lot more results under $1000 than you. It's possible their much cheaper ticket prices with SIA are outdated or geolocation specific, but the cheapest flight they show (a Garuda two-stopper that's no more obviously agonising than your cheapest result but 10% cheaper) doesn't show on your engine at all. Then again, the price with Kayak had risen to only 5% cheaper than your best price when I started the booking process...
[1]disclosure: I sell that data, amongst many other things, although not to OTAs
Skyscanner (http://www.skyscanner.net/), who are bigger here in Europe, do the same thing as Kayak, only more-so - they have close to a thousand separate data-sources which they can query for prices, and they fall back on ITA and Amadeus only when necessary, because those queries cost more. Tends to result in better prices for the end-user, because the level of competition between vendors is phenomenal.
I used to use Skyscanner only for intra-Europe flights, but it's quickly becoming my first and last stop when looking for cheap deals. Really fantastic service.
Same here, I think I've taken over a dozen flights, short and long distance in the last two years, and Hipmunk didn't find the best deal for any of the ones I tried. Old Expedia typically came up with the best price, and Kayak and FlightNetwork showed promise. Google Flights is one of my favorites because you can easily browse a calendar and see a graph to find the lowest prices (my dates are always flexible). Also, they have a map, so you can see the prices flying to any other nearby cities or airports to spot great deals you'd overlook. I've never booked through Google though, I just find the flights, then one of the above sites typically finds the same flight for $10 less, so I just go with them because I already have an account. Either way, no luck with Hipmunk, but maybe they work well for domestic US flights, since I have no experience there.
i just used hipmunk to book a stay this past weekend in the phoenix area. they had comparable or better prices to other sites and i was able to book directly on hipmunk (although technically it was done through booking.com). was a relatively integrated experience for me.
I'd use Hipmunk more often if they actually fulfilled their functionality promise as an aggregator. A pretty UI isn't enough.