Yahoo Farechase Review for Hotels

I just wrote up the review for Yahoo Farechase for Flights… then I flipped over to the hotel search. It’s ridiculously tasty too. Think of everything that I loved about the flight service and it applies for the hotel search as well, except now that you’re talking hotels (which means static physical locations) you’re also talking maps, JAVAX maps.

The JAVAX maps means you can see where all the hotels are in relation to one another (without having to use some arcane mapping system born in the 1990’s like Mapquest) and to where you need to be.

What do I like?
1. The map, of course! It goes beyond a slick Web2.0 JAVAX map, but what they do with that map. First fiddle with all the refining check boxes until you get the hotel characteristics you’re looking for and then sort by the criteria you want (probably price). Then, look at the map. It has little bubbles for each of the hotels listed in the search results that conform to your specifications. Now scroll the map around and watch the list get updated. If you mouseover the results list, the bubble corresponding to that hotel turns from orange to white. Mouse over the map and a hotel, the hotel information pops up.

2. Sites Searched I put in Boston and the site searched over thirty other sites. I then put in Pittsburgh, also searched thirty or so sites. There is a lot of data out there and it looks like Farechase is pinging a whole lot of them.

What they could do to improve it?
1. Add a method to add your one waypoints on the map, for say the convention center you are going to or your friend’s house. It’d be nice to know, with a little more precision, how far you are from a particular address.
2. Add a smoking/non-smoking preference in the hotel rooms.