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2012
21
October
The Ultimate All Inclusive Deal Finder v2.0 is now live! Feedback wanted!
21
October
You might remember back in May I asked for your feedback on a test version of a tool I was building, called the Ultimate All Inclusive Deal Finder.
A big thank you goes out to everyone who sent feedback, you have no idea how much it was appreciated! I really wasn't expecting to receive thousands of amazing e-mails containing both praise and ideas for future development.
I'm proud to say that after 5 more months of making improvements, the Ultimate All Inclusive Deal Finder is now officially live, and I think you'll find that the live version is a significant upgrade from the test version.
Here's just a sample of what's new....
- You can now browse more than just the top 3 deals. In fact, you can now browse, sort, and explore *all* of the deals in any way you see fit.
- Map View: Shows where all the deals are using Google Maps.
- Filters: From star ratings to hotel names, to the days of the week that you can depart, the filters let you quickly narrow it down to exactly what you're looking for.
The goal here was to create search technology from the ground up that was not only faster and better than any other travel site in existence, but also build an innovative interface that eliminated all the frustrations and limitations that I've run across when searching for a travel deal.
For example, I've always hated travel sites that limit you to searching one departure date at a time. I wanted to be able to search as wide a date range as possible when searching for a deal.
I also wanted to be able to pick and choose precisely which destinations I may or may not be interested in. Wanting to search for 'anywhere but Mexico' should be easy, not hard.
So please, try out the live version and let me know what you think!
Try it here:
Ultimate All Inclusive Deal Finder
You'll also find the tool now has a permanent home under the 'All-Inclusive Deals' tab at the top of YLWdeals.com
Basically, if you could just try searching for a deal (to anywhere) and let me know if it works well or not for you, I would be grateful.
If you happen to know which browser you're using and the version, that would be very useful to me too.
And just like last time, if you have any thoughts or first impressions on the live version of the tool (good or bad, critiques are valuable!), that would be *really* appreciated.
You can contact me through the form at:
http://www.ylwdeals.com/contact
I hope this is just the beginning of what can be built to make it easier for Canadians to find travel deals, so if you have any feature requests, I'm all ears. What frustrates you the most when trying to find a deal?
And here are the answers to the top two questions I received during the beta-testing period:
What in the world do the 'Deal Scores' mean?
(example of a deal score, 75 out of 100)
If you're like me, you check out the prices on a bunch of different vacation packages, and then read reviews on places like TripAdvisor to see what kind of resort quality you're getting.
I'm always looking for the deal where the price is the most out of line with the quality I'm getting. I always want the most for the least. I want to find the 5 star package for a 3 star price. The trouble is, this can be a very time consuming process, not to mention that prices change all the time. And how do you know which one is *precisely* the best deal?
So I created the 'Deal Scores' to help analyze and compare the millions of all-inclusive package prices out there against the millions of review scores.
That way, a person knows precisely how good or bad a deal is, relative to the millions of other deals out there just by looking at the Deal Score out of 100. Something that would take a person weeks of research to figure out takes a computer just seconds.
The higher the deal score, the better the deal, compared to all other deals.
What about deals to places like Las Vegas? Hawaii? Disneyland?
This first tool was designed to only search true all-inclusive packages. An 'all-inclusive' package is basically just a flight & hotel package that also includes all meals and drinks.
If you don't see the destination you're looking for, the chances are that destination does not offer all-inclusive packages (U.S. destinations for example do not have 'all-inclusive' resorts where meals and drinks are included).
Now that this first tool has been released, I'll build one for regular flight & hotel packages, which would include U.S. destinations like Las Vegas, Hawaii, Disneyland, etc.
So even if you don't care about all-inclusive packages, your feedback is definitely appreciated, as it will help shape the travel search tools that I plan to build. Let me know what frustrates you the most about searching for travel deals on today's travel sites.
Try it out:
Ultimate All Inclusive Deal Finder
Let me know what you think:, you can contact me through the form at:
http://www.ylwdeals.com/contact
Thank you,
Chris Myden
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2012
25
September
Don't fall for the '$128 for 2 roundtrip flights' OneStopTravel scam
25
September
Over the past little while, I've had a lot of people ask me about a deal they've seen pop up on a variety of those 'daily deal' type sites (you know the ones, the Groupon-esque clones that were all the rage last year, and initially had some legitimately great deals but have now all turned into a wasteland of spa treatments and massages you can never get an appointment for).
Read more
2012
17
September
Kelowna to Los Angeles, California - $265 roundtrip after taxes
17
September
2012
1
September
Is it possible to get a good deal on a flight within Canada ?
1
September
*Spoiler Alert*: Not likely, but please don't shoot the messenger.
Read more
2012
12
June
Kelowna to Istanbul, Turkey - from $781 roundtrip after taxes!
12
June
I've been waiting a long time for this! Turkey has always been near the top of my list of places on this planet that I want to check out (and it's a long list). Fares are *never* cheap though, and usually hover around a minimum of $1300-$1400 roundtrip after taxes.
Read more
2012
5
April
Kelowna to Chicago - $348 roundtrip after taxes!
5
April
The WestJet Blue Tag Thursday deals have been kind of ho-hum lately, but they dropped a *really* exciting one today! I believe this is as cheap as I've ever seen to Chicago from Kelowna. Ever.
Read more
2012
16
March
Kelowna to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - $199 roundtrip after taxes
16
March
Air Transat just released a last minute fare to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a pretty crazy price of $199 roundtrip after taxes.
Read more
2011
8
December
Crazy price drops to Central America!! From $429 roundtrip after taxes
8
December
There are some huge unadvertised price drops on American Airlines to Central America at the moment from cities across Canada, including Kelowna. Perhaps the largest overall drop, ever.
Read more
2011
29
November
Kelowna to Belize - $588 roundtrip after taxes
29
November
It looks like there's a really cheap flight from Kelowna to Belize in January, over 55% cheaper than it usually costs to get there.
Read more
2011
31
October
Huge fare war from Kelowna to Amsterdam - $721 roundtrip after taxes - affecting fares up to May 2012
31
October
There's a huge fare war to Amsterdam (AMS) going on at the moment. It's extremely rare to see the major airlines drop a price to Europe like this from Kelowna.
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