Pick of the Week – Hipmunk

It's been awhile since I recommended a travel tool/app, but I'm back with the website hipmunk. The relatively-new website offers some interesting features when selecting an itinerary. Having an adorable chipmunk on the homepage doesn't hurt, either.

The homepage is simple, yet elegant. Text forms that are larger than other travel websites make entering information easy. The calendar tool is easy to use, and color coding makes viewing your travel easier.

Where hipmunk really shines, however, is its display of the itineraries that it finds. It's easy to see the amount of time each itinerary will take, and layover are prominently displayed. (More information is shown when you click on an itinerary). Flights can be sorted a few different ways. Hipmunk's default sort setting is "agony," which it describes as a combination of "price, duration, and number of stops," but you can also sort by price, stops, departure time, arrival time, and duration.

Is hipmunk my new booking engine of choice? Honestly, I'm not sure yet. But it's definitely worth checking out.

Continental Dumps Free Snacks in Economy

Last week, news broke out that free snacks will no longer be served in economy on Continental Airlines flights. First of all, this isn't really shocking. Continental is busy merging with United, who doesn't offer any free refreshments to economy passengers other than soft drinks. Note that this only applies to flights that do not have Continental's BusinessFirst cabin, so long-haul international flights will still offer free food.

So here's my question. Is this really all that big a deal? Yes, it's sad to see something that's free go away but we're only talking about a snack here, and it's not like Continental promoted its snacks like JetBlue does. (If Continental was still serving free meals in coach that would be a different story.)

What do you think?