Introducing Compare Flights - Flexible Flight Search Website

Hello, dear OzBargainers!

I'm excited to introduce you to CompareFlights

I asked the community about their feedback on my previous flight comparison site YourFlights.com.au and I received some great feedback. Please refer to this previous forum to read more about that here https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/490118

While YourFlights.com.au focused on simplifying the flight search process, CompareFlights.io takes it a step further by offering flight recommendations. Just by entering your departure and return airports, along with criteria such as minimum and maximum nights to stay OR a date range, you can discover various date combinations that meet your requirements and find the cheapest flight prices for those dates.

Key Features of CompareFlights.io:

  • Flexible Search Criteria: Set your preferred airlines, total budget, maximum stopovers, and more. These are optional criterias.
  • Currency Conversion: View prices in your preferred currency, whether it's AUD, INR, USD, or others.
  • Family-Friendly: Specify the number of adults, children, and infants, along with your total budget, and the site will search for the cheapest flight combinations for your entire family.

I'm reaching out to the OzBargain community because your feedback is incredibly valuable to me. Your input helps me improve the site and tailor it to better meet your needs. If you read my previous posts, you will realise how much I love your recommendations (positive and negative) and always try to improve my site.

Please visit CompareFlights.io: Take a look around, try out the search functionality, and see if it meets your expectations and provide your feedback. Thank you for taking the time to check out CompareFlights.io. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions!

I have put together a quick youtube video to show how this works so please take a look https://youtu.be/eM0YD5baHKg?si=aqT9m7vxHv1ekGL- I would request you to only put Departure airport, Destination airport and min/max nights AND/OR date range and see the broader result before you can narrow down the result with more strict filters e.g. budget, airlines, max stopovers etc.

Related Stores

compareflights.io
compareflights.io

Comments

  • My search spooled for over a minute without any results, so I gave up.

    Also, an option to fly into and fly out of a different airport would be helpful.

    • Thanks for your feedback. I am aware that business class and first class is taking bit long time. Economy class shouldnt take a long time. I will still take a look. It would be really helpful if you can only put the mandatory criteria to get the broad search and then narrow it down by putting more filters. It is possible that there is no result available if you put too tight search criteria. For example, if you put Syd to DPS and put total budget of $100, it will not show any result. This is just my thinking but I may be wrong so I will definitely look for any error. Here is a quick video that we put on youtube to show how it works https://youtu.be/eM0YD5baHKg?si=aqT9m7vxHv1ekGL-

      • I was searching for economy flights from Sydney to Auckland. Only basic information entered. There are just too many other flight search options available to bother with one that takes 2+ mins to return a result, if at all.

        Good luck though!

        • I agree. There are many options but believe me they are very helpful to do real good specific search. For example, if you only search for Syd to Auckland and put 7 to 10 nights (without actual date range like July-August), most results will be from tomorrow onwards so you won’t see what’s available in your preferred month of July- August

  • Feel like "Departure Airport" and "Return Airport" mean the same thing. Maybe change it to "Destination Airport"

    • Thanks. Great suggestion. I have implemented it now.

      • You may want to fix "Please enter Departure and Return Airport along with min/max nights and/or date range to get best flight deals for your search criteria" as well at the bottom of the search screen.

        • Oh yes. I missed that. Will change it soon

  • +1

    It would be good if the return date automatically adjusted to the correct month that you are departing from.

    • Great suggestion. I will try if I can do it. Thanks

    • FYI, this is now fixed. Thanks for your suggestion.

  • Receiving the below error.

    504 Gateway Time-out
    Error encountered as described by the above status code.

    Please contact your system administrator.

    • Thats interesting. I just checked and didnt see this error. Is it loading at all or not ? Is this error comes after you search for flight or even before that?

      • The page isn't loading mate!

        • That is so strange. i just checked on https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/compareflights.io.html and its showing perfectly alright. I am sorry for the inconvenience. I will keep looking for any update from my host to resolve any issue.

          • @yourflights: Blocking access from VPN or data centres maybe?

            • @jrvb42: It was CDN issue and I am sure its fixed. Please let me know if you can access it now or still having issue.

    • Please try again, preferably from different browser. So sorry for the inconvenience. My host (Hostinger) has some issue with CDN (it was pure coincident) and that could be the reason. I have disabled CDN now and tested on all browsers and its working at my end. Thanks

  • Loading…

    This page isn’t working
    compareflights.io is currently unable to handle this request.
    HTTP ERROR 502

    • It's been OZBargaind

      • Are you sure? Its a good thing for me though.. I just checked and it works perfectly fine for me. Also checked using VPN from various other locations and couldnt imitate the error. Let me talk to my host and see what they have to say.

    • talking to my hosting company now. They couldnt imitate this error at their end but checking the load now. They are promising me to allocate more resources to deal with the traffic.

    • Please try again, preferably from different browser. So sorry for the inconvenience. My host (Hostinger) has some issue with CDN (it was pure coincident) and that could be the reason. I have disabled CDN now and tested on all browsers and its working at my end. Thanks

  • Of my searches, often just spins and never returns results.
    When it does return results, clicking on the price directs me to kiwi.com every time, never any other supplier.

    • Thanks for the feedback. I am using Kiwi in the backend to get the result. If you want to check price on other websites/suppliers, please visit the home page and you will be able to search once and have all links ready for you to research/book from almost 15 different supplier/sites.

      • do you receive any revenue for directs to Kiwi?

        • Yes, I am affiliated with Kiwi and will get commission. I am putting the disclaimer on the footer of the website soon. If you dont like them, you may decide to at least get some ideas about the dates and then booking it on your preferred website/supplier/airline website directly.

          Edit: Disclaimer added on the footer now. Thanks for pointing that out.

      • what is the benefit of searching with Yourflights rather than Kiwi if it is the same result?

        • You are right. Home page of compareflights is more or less similar to Yourflights however the deal finder function on compareflight is the difference. Also, it has currency selector so you can see the price in any currency for flights originating and reaching to any country in the world.

  • I find a min/max nights AND a date range confusing. I tried Syd/YVR in August for business for 2 adults and I waited for a few minutes and then closed the page down because it's still thinking about this very simple request.

    • I am completely aware of the delay in business and first class. So sorry for that. it is actually delay from API response and I tried my best to fix it but couldnt yet. I will keep trying. Please wait for some more time, especially with Business and first class. Economy should be fast (less than 10 seconds).

      Also, please try broad search to begin with. e.g. SYD/YVR from 1st August to 31st August range for 2 adults and see what comes up. You can then add min and max nights to make it more specific. Thanks for the feedback. It is very important and I am already thinking about how to remove some of the search criteria from the form. I can do it however I want to give more and more filters/search options for people to get the really specific outcome they want.

  • +1

    Looks like it was thrown together in a few hours and as such the big comparison sites feel allot better and more professional.

    • Thank you for the feedback. really appreciated. Let me be honest with you. I am not an IT professional but an enthusiastic and learner (forever!). I know that skyscanner, google flights can do better job in terms of look, feel, speed and professional look however I couldnt find any website or tool which can tell me which 50 date combinations are available for a very specific need e.g. I want to go to New York with my wife and a child and an infant anytime between Nov-January for a holiday of around 2-3 weeks. I do not like more than 2 stop overs and my total budget is max $5K for the entire trip. I am flexible with dates as far as its within Nov-January. I prefer Qantas, Singapore or American airline only

    • i agree completely that there are design issues. No doubt about it. Will try to improve on design and instructions (what fields are mandatory and which are optional etc. ) as much as I can to make user experience better. It is indeed the most important thing to consider.

  • Wait, whats the difference with this and Skyscanner?

    • Skycanner is the shark in flight comparison market and this site is just not close to that. I have only considered flexible search option which I couldnt find on other sites. Here is the example I shared with other commenter above e.g. I want to go to New York with my wife and a child and an infant anytime between Nov-January for a holiday of around 2-3 weeks. I do not like more than 2 stop overs and my total budget is max $5K for the entire trip. I am flexible with dates as far as its within Nov-January. I prefer Qantas, Singapore or American airline only

    • +3

      Skyscanner can deal with heavy traffic to their site

      • +1

        That is 100% true. They are big and have lot of resources. My site is small and its on shared hosting. Hopefully, I will get tons of traffic so I can afford dedicated server. Every big thing start with small thing. Isnt it?

  • This site can’t be reachedCheck if there is a typo in compareflights.io.
    DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN

    • so sorry to hear that. Can you please try to access it via different browser. I have been informed by other poster that this may be firefox specific issue. I am working to fix this with my host.

    • @m a c9 Please try again, preferably from different browser. So sorry for the inconvenience. My host (Hostinger) has some issue with CDN (it was pure coincident) and that could be the reason. I have disabled CDN now and tested on all browsers and its working at my end. Thanks

  • using firefox-Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site.

    We can’t connect to the server at compareflights.io.

    • Oh so looks like this is firefox specific issue. thanks for pointing that out. I am so sorry. let me talk to host again as we couldnt figure out the problem as I and the host were able to access the site alright but we both were on chrome.

      • the host

        Hostinger US 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

        • yes, correct.

    • Please try again, preferably from different browser. So sorry for the inconvenience. My host (Hostinger) has some issue with CDN (it was pure coincident) and that could be the reason. I have disabled CDN now and tested on all browsers and its working at my end. Thanks

  • Anyway to filter out an airline? Would also love the ability to filter the stopover location e.g if I want to travel from Sydney to east coast of America, I don't want results with a stop in Melbourne.

    • Thanks for the feedback. I can put extra filter to exclude some airlines e.g. cheap ones with lots of odd stopovers. However, as per the feedback above, there are already enough filters and I dont want to confuse people by adding more filters. I have alternative suggestion. Please instead put your preferred airlines in Airline filter (to include only those ones in search) e.g AA,QF,SQ so you will get results from those airlines only. You can also decide to put 2 as stopovers so it will only show flights with one stop over between Sydney and East coast and it is very likely exclude those cheap ones having more stopovers. Please try and let me know. thanks

  • +1

    How is your site different from Skyscanner or Google flights? What's the value proposition?

    • Thanks. Skycanner and google flights are biggest names in flight comparison market and this site is just not close to that. I have realised that there is slight gap in the flexible search option which I couldnt find on other sites. Here is the example I shared with other commenter above e.g. I want to go to New York with my wife and a child and an infant anytime between Nov-January for a holiday of around 2-3 weeks. I do not like more than 2 stop overs and my total budget is max $5K for the entire trip. I am flexible with dates as far as its within Nov-January. I prefer Qantas, Singapore or American airline only.

      With SC and Google flights, you can see weekly or monthly dates with different prices but then you have to click on each of them to see the final price. Instead of that, this site scans and provides those date combinations ready to see or book. Of course, you can then decide to check price on other sites and you can use the flight search form on home page where you put the search criteria once and it will give you links from 15 sites - ready to see, compare and book the cheapest..

  • Used it for a couple of searches and a few comments:

    1) When search for an airport - for eg: MEL; what is the drop down showing options like VAN and Djerba?

    2) The cheapest result I got was with 5 stopovers with separately booked low cost airlines taking nearly a week to get to the destination. It'd be nice if the results showed total travel time in each direction so you can ignore the really long ones.

    3) The stopover filter does not seem to work. When I chose 1 stopover; it came back with zero results. When I chose 2 stopovers, it came back with a couple of results. However, same search on Kiwi.com came back with results for 1 stopover that were cheaper than the results for 2 stopovers.

    4) Tried a MEL-MIA search for July 2024 and the cheapest option was nearly $4500. Same search on another engine came back with a JAL option for $3200.

    There is potential; but the results need to improve as its not really finding the best options for the broad searches that I have tried.

    • Thanks for your detailed feedback. Really appreciated. I will respond to all four questions one by one as soon as I get some time from work.

    • 1) It is using autosuggest function from publicly available API. I will try to change the autosuggest function to start from 4th letter instead of 3rd letter so it may only show very relevant airport names. Will also explore other autosuggest functionalities which are publicly available.

      2) I will try to add one additional column in result table to display the total travel time. It may be difficult because I am already strugulling with existing 4 columns to have responsive display on mobile devices. Desktop is totally fine with 5 columns in result table but in mobile, it may look too crowded. I may explore to put a second line for each result and see if I can do that better in terms of responsiveness.

      3) When you put '2' as stop over, it is total stop overs for entire journey so it should display onward journey and return journey with 1 each stop overs or onward journey with 2 stop overs and return with zero. I will test it for different combinations and try to fix it it doesnt behave that way. If you put '1' stop over, it will only display a return journey if there is one direct flight and return is with max 1 stop over or vice versa. Reason for not showing too many results with 1 stop over is it is likely that there is a same stop over on both sectors so if you put 2 instead of 1, it will give more options.

      4) I tried same search (without keeping min/max night and just having 1st July to 31st July in date range and I could find few options in total $2230 and $2282. They are not the best trip though as they may multiple stopovers. I think you found a really good deal if you can lock a good itinerary on $3200 from other engines with JAL. I will try to play with different filter selection and see if I can find the better deal somehow.

      7/21/24, 15:45 7/30/24, 15:21
      JQAS
      2230
      7/21/24, 15:45 7/30/24, 15:21
      JQAS
      2282

      • Thanks for looking into the feedback.

        1) I dont think trying 5th character will help as I usually use 3 letter airport codes. So, I would type MEL for Melbourne or DFW for Dallas. No idea why some of the suggestions are coming up - they dont have MEL in the name or are anywhere near Melbourne (Australia or Florida).

        • Thanks. I was referring to fourth character and not fifth. I am in dilemma. There will be few people who prefer to put three letter IATA airport code e.g. MEL and expecting to have Melbourne selected. However, there will be many people who may not be aware of the IATA code (e.g. DFW is for Dallas) so they may start searching with full word e.g. Dallas.. rather than DFW. It is currently set up in a way that as soon as the person type the three letter e.g. Dal, it autosuggest and that may include very unrelated locations however I am thinking to change that behaviour to 4th character so when someone types e.g. Dall.. it will autosuggest and very likely that Dallas will be shown. Sorry if I am not able to explain technically. I will still consider your feedback as very valid and try to figure out best possible solution. Thanks mate.

    • +1

      Just want to let you know that I have changed max stopover field now. If you choose 0, it will show direct flights. if you choose 1, it will show flights with max 1 stop over in onward and return flight (e.g. Syd to Singapore and Singapore to London etc. ). If you choose 2, it will show up to 2 stop over itineraries in each sectors e.g. Syd to Sin and Sin to Kul and then Kul to Del). I hope its better now. Please check and provide feedback again.

      I have also added sort by as new filter. By default is price but you can change it to duration, quality and date. Please test it and let me know if it works.

  • I checked randomly for tickets from CBR to BNE and price I got is $1328. That doesn't seem right as other places, prices are $250-$300.

    Not sure how it is comparing.

    • Can you please check if filters are selected alright. I just did a quick search and here are some dates I found. Plenty options around 300. I would recommend to check the min/max night and from and to date range and change them to see if you get more specific result.

      Dep Ret Airline Total
      3/30/24, 17:25 4/9/24, 13:35
      JQ
      290
      3/16/24, 17:25 3/23/24, 14:00
      JQ
      290
      3/30/24, 17:25 4/6/24, 13:55
      JQ
      301
      3/16/24, 17:25 3/21/24, 14:00
      JQ
      301
      3/19/24, 17:25 3/23/24, 14:00
      JQ
      305
      3/30/24, 17:25 4/4/24, 16:50
      JQVA
      305
      3/23/24, 17:25 3/31/24, 13:55
      JQ
      316
      3/30/24, 17:25 4/4/24, 13:55
      JQ
      322
      3/31/24, 17:20 4/9/24, 13:35
      JQ
      322
      3/30/24, 17:25 4/3/24, 08:50
      JQVA
      327
      3/13/24, 17:25 3/23/24, 14:00
      JQ
      328
      3/31/24, 17:20 4/10/24, 13:55
      JQ
      333
      3/31/24, 17:20 4/6/24, 13:55
      JQ
      333
      4/4/24, 17:20 4/11/24, 13:55
      JQ
      333
      4/4/24, 17:20 4/13/24, 13:55
      JQ
      333
      4/4/24, 17:20 4/9/24, 13:35
      JQ
      333
      3/23/24, 17:25 3/30/24, 14:00
      JQ
      337
      4/3/24, 20:20 4/11/24, 13:55
      VAJQ
      338
      4/3/24, 20:20 4/9/24, 13:35
      VAJQ
      338
      4/3/24, 20:20 4/13/24, 13:55
      VAJQ
      338
      3/30/24, 17:25 4/3/24, 16:50
      JQVA
      338
      3/30/24, 17:25 4/4/24, 08:50
      JQVA
      338
      3/30/24, 17:25 4/4/24, 19:50
      JQVA
      338

      • I tried for 3 nights randomly from 8th to 11th march.

        Prices are increased now. But when compared with Google flights, could find some flights with better price than yours.

        You may need to enhance it a bit more.

  • Worked fine for me in Firefox. This has great potential.

    BUT….. the American Date Format sucks. And most flights are by Jetstar…. risky.

    If you must, at least use Alpha system for the Month.

    Will it also have 'View By' options? By Departure Dates as well as Lowest Total cost?

    Then, will it be choose by many options… Lowest departure $, or return, or dates etc?

    Keep at it… it is what I was looking for, for a few Asia trips this year.

    • Thank you for the feedback. I have now fixed the date format. It is American style in the form and result. Please check.

      I have also added sort by as new filter. By default is price but you can change it to duration, quality and date. Please test it and let me know if it works.

      I can put Airlines to exclude as new field but then it will be too many form questions. Do you think Airlines to include (e.g. QF,SQ,AA) is more important or Airlines to exclude (e.g. JQ,TR)? I think Airlines to include is more important for many people so I have kept that option. If you want to not see Jetstar flights, you have two options. first is you put your preferred airlines in this format SQ,AA,QF so it will only show you results from these three major airlines. Alternatively, you can sort with quality or duration so it will filter out cheap ones. Alternatively, you can put stop over 2 (which is default) so most likey cheap ones will be filtered out automatically as they mostly have more than 2 stopovers.

    • …….and now the spinning wheel of death! Reboots, reload, etc, dead.

      • Can you please elaborate. Are you doing a very narrow and specific search with lots of filters? If you can tell me what are your search criteria, I can imitate at my end and see the issue. I just tested and its doing alright.

        • Bugger… it functions correct again today, and fast.

          FYI. BNE - CNX, 21-40 Nights, 23Apr-28Jun,1 Adult.
          Did not enter/change anything from your standard search on page opening, every time I search, I use same same parameters..

          BTW, I did not want this… it is as it was… and we want AU style, not US." I have now fixed the date format. It is American style in the form and result. Please check." Day / Month / Year.

          I tried the trip planer for a Return trip, BNE-KKC-BNE, it said 'Too Hard'. go find it myself or Travel Agent. That was a waste.

          Did the 'Home Page' search, exact same dates. Price Best flight: $956, yet the AI Deal Finder lists $885.00.

          Starting to worry….

          Then after playing within the site approx 15 min, the std search resulted in the spinning wheel of death….again….and again….

  • I have tried again and tried to be more open minded about your site and more simplistic in my requirements but, man, you don't make it easy. The site is clunky and clumsy and hard to read and the information is minimal you have to click through to even see what flights they are. Suggestions:
    - You have a mix of date entry, Australian style at the top and US style in the results, very confusing, use one or the other, not both.
    - If you enter all your details and press search and then realise you made a mistake (date for eg) there is no way to stop and adjust any information your only choice is to reload the whole page and start over.
    - Results show in dollar value and there is no way to change that so if you don't want to fly Jetstar for example I have to suggest which airlines but if I don't really know all the airlines flying to the destination it renders the whole purpose of the site moot, unless i'm missing something.
    - If the search can't find flights on a certain airline (because the airline may not fly there) it doesn't error out and let you know nothing could be found, it just keeps spinning and spinning
    - Appears to be only rendering results if you select one airline, if you put in two you don't get any results (or maybe i'm just not giving it time but 2 minutes seems long enough)

    I could go on but honestly you have an idea which is quite good but your site just can't handle it. If you need feedback maybe ask for Beta testers but in it's current state I can't see it being a success.

    • This feedback is pure gold. Your feedback is so relevant. I will work on these one by one and try to fix majority. I was testing myself again and again but never relayed that what I think is simple is not simple for normal users. You gave me task to work on this tonight. Let me see how many of these things I can fix tonight. Rest will be fixed in a week max. Thank you so much. I will appreciate if you can please review this again in few weeks time and provide me another feedback.

    • Here is the update from midnight.

      • You have a mix of date entry, Australian style at the top and US style in the results, very confusing, use one or the other, not both.- This is fixed now. Please check. Its US style now at both places.

      • If you enter all your details and press search and then realise you made a mistake (date for eg) there is no way to stop and adjust any information your only choice is to reload the whole page and start over.-I have put strict form validation now so it is very likely that you wont make mistake. It will give you alert. I will still try to think of a solution to stop the search in the middle when it is already searching. it will be tough one to achieve

      • Results show in dollar value and there is no way to change that so if you don't want to fly Jetstar for example I have to suggest which airlines but if I don't really know all the airlines flying to the destination it renders the whole purpose of the site moot, unless i'm missing something. I have added new sort filter - duration, price, quality and date so if you choose correct filter e.g. quality or duration, it will mostly filtered out cheap ones. I would recommend to search with quality or duration sorting and see how it works

      • If the search can't find flights on a certain airline (because the airline may not fly there) it doesn't error out and let you know nothing could be found, it just keeps spinning and spinning It should display the error now. No result found. Please change the search criteria and try again.

      • Appears to be only rendering results if you select one airline, if you put in two you don't get any results (or maybe i'm just not giving it time but 2 minutes seems long enough) Please use this format to put preferred airlines e.g. QF,AA,SQ. Two words IATA code for airline separately by comma without any space. I will try to put some instructions below each question however i am afraid that it may make the form looks more crowded

  • Can you put in an option for multicity destinations?

    • +1

      Thanks. That will be a good one to have. Isn it? I think its beyond my limited skill but I will still give it a go after I fix the design issue with this normal return itnarires. Rather than putting it on the same page, I may put it on different page as it will have lot of new questions and I do not want to make the existing form too clunky by adding more question.

Login or Join to leave a comment