Yapta’s Glitch-Filled Launch On the Web

Distribution, Fares, JetBlue, Northwest, Technology, United

Has anyone had the chance to check out Yapta yet? The site originally launched as a way to see if the price of a ticket you had purchased had gone down. Since some airlines will give you a credit if the fare goes down, this could be a handy little tool to help you save some money. When it first launched, it required you to download a browser plug-in to work, but now you can get Yapta on the web. Unfortunately, there were some kinks that made the site unusable initially, but while some of those have been fixed, there’s still a ways to go before this is a helpful tool.

I decided to go to Yapta (Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant) and put in four itineraries I had already purchased to see what I could find.

Northwest to Indianapolis
This one ended before it started. You can’t check Northwest flight information on Yapta (maybe they won’t give you credit for a lower fare?), so I moved on.

United to Indianapolis
By entering my confirmation number and last name, Yapta originally told me that fare had gone down, but that’s because it saw our total price (for two people) as the per person price. Bzzzzt, no good. Now that’s been fixed, and it’s saying that the fare has gone up from $242 to $349. That’s still not quite right. I go on to United.com and it tells me that the price is $370 for that flight right now. So I’m not sure where this is coming from. True, the outcome is the same, but it won’t necessarily always be that way.

JetBlue to San Jose
I figured the third time would be the charm, right? Not quite. Yapta came back saying that the price has gone up from the $109 we paid to $149 per person so there’s nothing to gain here. But just out of curiosity, I checked JetBlue.com and the price is actually $139. Still nothing to gain, but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when the fares are not accurate on every itinerary I try so far.

Alaska to Seattle/Portland
This one I thought would be interesting. I’m flying out of Long Beach, going to Seattle, and then flying back from Portland to Orange County. This time, it was just me traveling so there was no issue of viewing two fares as one accidentally. The result? It says that the fare has gone from $310.57 all the way up to $744. Whoa, not so much. I did pay $310.57 (with a % discount certificate), but the current fare is $324. For those keeping score, Yapta was 0 for 3 in getting the correct current price of the ticket. Not good.

Bottom Line
The site has a great idea, but man are there problems. I’m glad to see they’ve worked out the kinks on the fare initially paid. That’s working perfectly now, but every single time it returned the wrong “new” fare that was currently available. Both components need to be right for this site to be successful. Without that component, I still find myself going to the airline website to double-check to actual fare, and that makes Yapta not very useful. Once they solve these problems, it’ll be worth a return visit.

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5 comments on “Yapta’s Glitch-Filled Launch On the Web

  1. I’ve all in all had pretty decent luck with Yapta. I too have my complaints, but all in all I’ve found it to be a useful tool.

    My biggest complaint is that it seems to track the flights in your itinerary and not the itinerary itself. Sure, you put in your confirmation code, but god forbid the airline changes the flight numbers (thank you Delta). Eventhough the confirmation hasn’t changed, it is unable to adjust to the new flight numbers.

  2. While you’re not able to track Northwest fares by entering your ticket confirmation info, Yapta can track Northwest fares that are delivered as part of its flight search results. (From my perspective, adding flight search is a big win for Yapta over it’s previous version.) So far, the pricing updates I’ve received from the site have been on the mark. I routinely cross-search a number of sites (including NWA’s) and have found the same airfares as on Yapta.

  3. Yapta is NEVER accurate!! Not with Delta flights anyhow. For weeks they show Delta flights from the States to Cancun as being $200 some, then when you click to purchase it takes you to Delta and shows the tickets costing well over $900.

    Makes no sense!!!

  4. After visiting the Yapta website and setting up a price watch, I thought Yapta was an answer to prayer. However, I’ve found that when I visit the website and click to update the listed fare price, it gives me a new price – and then when I go to the airline’s website, the price is always differenct, and so far always more. When I go back to Yapta and click to update the fare again, it gives me a price higher that on the website! This is within a period of a minute or two. Yapta isn’t working right, and until it does, it is useless.

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