I used it a 1.5 years ago, during the competitive phase, for a two destination trip on a different continent. I came away not entirely thrilled by the results of the experts. After paying the fee, what they found was slightly cheaper than what I was able to do independently, but had a funkier itinerary that didn't justify the slight price reduction (that may have been actually offset by the cost of using the service).
That said, I did receive tremendous feedback from Todd. Reading this post has me reassured that he and his team are on the right track.
My wishes—
I wish I had the money and time to seek out such types of fares/trips more often so that I could try the service again. I may have one such trip coming up but I still feel reluctant paying a fee up front for what might not turn into anything.
I wish FlightFox/someone would offer services to deal with the airlines' kerfuffle on multi-destination, multi-carrier flights. I swear, if you have to deal with any inconveniences in a situation like this, it is 100% "Hi, this is ABC Airlines, you'll have to call XYZ Airlines as this leg of the trip is under their control" and vice-versa.
Hi kingnight, our experts will refund you if they can't help or you're not happy.
In the old system, there was always a lot of tension when we'd refund customers, because the experts would have already spent a lot of time. But in the new system, we made it so we (admin) can't actually refund you, only the experts can. This has worked wonders because they now use refunding as a form of segmentation. Often they'll refund after 30 seconds if it's clear they can't help, which is a far cry from the amount of effort they'd previous expend before a refund.
That's interesting about the tension — I didn't really think about it that way, and the new system does indeed sound much better for all parties involved.
Comments
I used it a 1.5 years ago, during the competitive phase, for a two destination trip on a different continent. I came away not entirely thrilled by the results of the experts. After paying the fee, what they found was slightly cheaper than what I was able to do independently, but had a funkier itinerary that didn't justify the slight price reduction (that may have been actually offset by the cost of using the service).
That said, I did receive tremendous feedback from Todd. Reading this post has me reassured that he and his team are on the right track.
My wishes—
I wish I had the money and time to seek out such types of fares/trips more often so that I could try the service again. I may have one such trip coming up but I still feel reluctant paying a fee up front for what might not turn into anything.
I wish FlightFox/someone would offer services to deal with the airlines' kerfuffle on multi-destination, multi-carrier flights. I swear, if you have to deal with any inconveniences in a situation like this, it is 100% "Hi, this is ABC Airlines, you'll have to call XYZ Airlines as this leg of the trip is under their control" and vice-versa.
Hi kingnight, our experts will refund you if they can't help or you're not happy.
In the old system, there was always a lot of tension when we'd refund customers, because the experts would have already spent a lot of time. But in the new system, we made it so we (admin) can't actually refund you, only the experts can. This has worked wonders because they now use refunding as a form of segmentation. Often they'll refund after 30 seconds if it's clear they can't help, which is a far cry from the amount of effort they'd previous expend before a refund.
That's interesting about the tension — I didn't really think about it that way, and the new system does indeed sound much better for all parties involved.