You’ll want to tell Hipmunk that you are flying out of LAX on Swiss Air 41 with a connection in Zurich. It’s only when you get to the FROM column that things will get a little bit trickier. It should never need anything else it’s always best to do this first, before we move on to the more complicated bits.Įntering ITA codes into the search engine. The easiest way to begin is by inputting the destination and date of each flight segment in the TO column. What you’re basically doing is hardcoding the exact flight numbers and stops into the search engine so that it knows to look for those specific flights. In fact, you’ll actually want to keep hanging out in Hipmunk’s multi-destination search, with the only difference this time is that instead of just putting in airport codes and dates, we’re going to tell the search engine exactly what to do. This, folks, is where the Hipmunk voodoo starts happening. For example, it’s possible to recreate the exact itinerary in Hipmunk through this method on Priceline for $971-about $50 more than what was quoted-but that’s only one way to do it.
Flights like these are sometimes easily replicable in Kayak and Hipmunk using a multi-destination search, so it’s always worth it to try to book there first before you attempt recreating it with this method. I’m just going to go ahead and pick a flight spread out over several airlines, with an inbound flight to Istanbul and a departing flight from London that returns to and originates from Los Angeles for $919. Your search should return several results with at least a few open jaws. Basically, all you’re doing is signaling to the search engine that you’re looking at all possible routing combinations with the airports you have listed out to get the cheapest price. When you’re first searching for flights on Google ITA matrix, don’t be afraid to drop in a couple of extra airports to your main destination just like this. To make things “complicated,” I’m going to use an open-jaw flight as an example. These can be complicated flights, but Hipmunk can book any flight itinerary that go against a normal search engine's instincts. Likewise, open-jaw trips-flights that depart from another place from which you arrive-allow some flexibility if you’re planning a less linear route. For example, a 17-hour layover in a place like Zurich might not seem appealing until you realize it’s a pretty cheap way of squeezing in a brief tour without having to pay for the extra stop. Sometimes it as easy as chugging a pair of flights into Kayak after running an ITA search, but sometimes you might want something a little bit more complex. Hipmunk, however, does a great job of recreating any combination of flights, regardless of how complicated it is. Unfortunately, its main downside is that it can be a little bit tricky finding a place to book the flights. If there was ever a showdown between Kayak and Google ITA Software's matrix, Google ITA would win hands down.
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