If you haven’t heard of Hipmunk, it’s no surprise. The site only launched in the last couple of weeks, but it’s off to a good start. If you book flights, it’s a site you’re going to want to bookmark. Hipmunk has the potential to make booking flights easy, but it’s not quite there yet. A couple of tweaks, and we’ve got a winner.

Hipmunk was actually started by a couple of guys with no travel industry experience. That is generally not a good sign since navigating the world of selling travel requires some serious insider knowledge, but it also means they can look on the process with fresh eyes. I spoke with co-founder Adam Goldstein and he walked me through their thoughts. I think they’re on a good path. Here’s what the search results page looks like (click to enlarge):

The idea was to create a very simple and clean way to book travel. So to start, they’ve contracted with Orbitz for the feed and they’ve slapped their user interface on top of it. The result looks a lot like what you might find on ITA Software, but with booking capability. The goal was to put as many flights in as small of a space as possible. This set up allowed them to show you all possible options on one screen so that you don’t have to keeping clicking to see more options. It works quite nicely.

There are a few things that really make this stand out in my mind.

• The “Worse” Feature
  On the far right side, you’ll see random scattered “worse” buttons. This is all part of the plan to reduce the clutter on the screen. The worse button automatically hides flight options that nobody would want. I should say, almost nobody. For example, let’s say you’re connecting. There might be an option that has the same connecting flight but an earlier first flight, like this.
  

  That longer layover in Denver might be great if your Great Aunt Mildred lives there, but otherwise you don’t want it. But that’s why they hide it instead of delete it entirely. The info is still there for the rare few who dream of a long layover.

• The “Agony” Sort
  The first sort you see is not intuitive. It’s the agony sort, which right now looks at price, total trip duration, and number of stops.

  The idea is to get away from the straight price sort, and that’s a good thing. But it’s not where it needs to be. Adam mentioned that they were talking about creating a profile where you could sign up and create your own variables for the agony sort. Then anytime you search, it would use those presets. This would be excellent. Right now, the first thing that pops up in the above agony sort is a nonstop but it’s a redeye. I hate redeyes, so I would want to have that in my profile and have it never show up at the top again.

• The “Time” Bar
  You’ll notice there are no time filters here, and that might bug some people, but the filter is actually hidden in the site. On each side, there are black bars that you can drag to be your earliest start time and latest arrival time. It would be nice to have a little more flexibility than that, but with the searches I’ve done, it’s actually narrowed it down plenty.

There are a few bugs here and there, but it’s only been up for a couple weeks so they’ll work through them. Once they have more providers that can provide more robust info, this site will be come even more useful. Like I said, I like where it’s going. It’s just not quite there yet. And that’s why this is a travel tool I might love.

Raise your hand if you’ve memorized the frequent flier number, login, and password for every single rewards program you belong to? That’s what I thought. Many of you may know one or two (I still remember my AAdvantage number because it was also my login for eAAsySabre long ago), but that’s about it. For that reason, I highly recommend AwardWallet.

As long as you don’t have concerns about storing your numbers and passwords elsewhere, this site is just awesome. I started using it a couple months ago and it’s been fantastic.

You set it up program by program, entering your frequent flier number or web login along with your password. Then it goes in and pulls out your balances and expiration dates so you can monitor them all from one place.

Even better, when you have any activity, you get a weekly email update with the details. It also sends you an update when new travel plans are added to one of your accounts. If your expiration is coming up, it’ll tell you that too. The home screen shows your frequent flier number and logins so it makes for an easy reference point. It can even log you in directly to the websites for those programs and take you there.

It’s also not limited to airlines or even travel even general. Yes, I can follow my Starwood, National car rental, and Amtrak balances on there, but I could also look at credit card rewards, and more. Some I’ve never even heard of.

What don’t I love? The pricing plan is really goofy. You get a lot of functionality for free, but the premium version, which includes some bells and whistles, costs, uh, whatever you want. Seriously. You decide what you think it’s worth and pay it. Strange, I know.

But forgetting about that quirk, this site is great. I never remember my frequent flier numbers, so this is an easy way to bring them up. For example, I was flying on Frontier recently and my number wasn’t in the reservation. I looked it up and put it in when I checked in.

It’s also helpful when you’re trying to log in to the different programs and can’t remember your information. This stores you login info even if it isn’t your frequent flier number. So you really can’t lose this stuff anymore.

It also sends you updates when there’s a change to your award balance as well as reminders to check-in and more.

Kudos to AwardWallet for putting this together. It’s a great tool to have.

I’ve decided that it’s time to start a new series here on the blog called Travel Tools I Love. Hopefully these tools are something that readers can benefit from using. With the volcano making finding any seats a very difficult prospect for our Cranky Concierge clients, I thought it would be appropriate to start with the KVS Tool.

I should make it clear that these aren’t sponsored posts, but I have had a relationship with the KVS Tool for a long time. I use it religiously and Cranky Concierge clients receive a 5% discount when they sign up for it.

So what is this tool? It’s like crack for former airline employees. The KVS Tool has a wealth of information all in one place from availability to fares to visa requirements and more. Why do I say it’s like crack for former airline employees? It’s like looking at an old green screen with airline information, and that’s something I hadn’t seen outside of the airline world since the old eAAsy Sabre days.

I should warn you. If you aren’t an airline person, then you’re better off with another tool. Something like ExpertFlyer has a more intuitive display for the non-airline folks. (ExpertFlyer also has alerts for when when an award seat comes available, which are invaluable.) How do you know if it’s for you? Look at this screenshot. If you get excited seeing this, then it’s for you.

You can find flight availability via four systems – Worldspan, Apollo, Sabre, and Galileo. There is also timetable info via Amadeus and fare displays from Sabre and Galileo. This came in handy for us with the volcano blowing ash around. It’s how we uncovered availability to Europe through places like the Azores or Jordan.

If you’re looking for frequent flier availability, you can get it for the three big alliances. You can also see United’s and Cathay Pacific’s upgrade availability.

Some of the more useful functions are somewhat hidden. For example, you can look up the minimum connection time for every airport if you want to build your own connections. You can also look up visa requirements and airport taxes by country.

If you know your way around booking codes and fare displays, this tool is the fastest way to get the info you need. I use it every day.

Good morning from Long Beach. I made it back from New Zealand yesterday, and I had hoped to have a report on the return along with a review of domestic flying in NZ, but I’m just not ready yet. So, instead I’m rolling out a new feature that I’ve been working on for a little while – Travel Tools I Love. Today, I’m starting with the Great Circle Mapper.

You’ve probably seen me use these blue maps many, many times in posts. These all come from the Great Circle Mapper (GCM). The GCM has recently received a makeover, and it’s now even more useful.

You’ll now need to point your browser to gcmap.com instead of the old gc.kls2.com address. There you’ll find a newer interface that is less cluttered and easier to use for GCM newbies.

There are a bunch of things I use this tool for:

• Measuring distance between two airports
• Seeing how far an airplane can go from a certain city (max range), including various ETOPS restrictions
• Measuring distances in entire itineraries for frequent flier purposes
• Looking up airport details and maps
• Finding aviation weather info (METAR and TAF)

This might not sound particularly useful to the casual traveler, but you would be surprised. I am always amazed at how often I find myself coming back to this site for random reasons.

Oh, and yes, the site is free to use. You will see some Google AdSense on the pages, but that’s a small price to pay for getting something great to use.

I first learned about the GCM about 10 years ago when I first met site owner Karl Swartz, and I’ve never found anything that comes close. This new enhancement makes it even better. Take a look for yourself.