Is TripAdvisor getting sloppy?

Expedia’s TripAdvisor business has come in for a lot of stick lately. Some of which is deserved. Some of which – well it just goes with the territory. But I am going to chastise them for failing to do something that in my mind should be relatively easy and straightforward and thus provide a good service to their customers. I am speaking here about SeatGuru.com

As a frequent flyer (OK so I am not George Clooney) – I depend on the network of committed flyers for information. So I was actually applauding Expedia’s trip advisor when they purchased one of my favorite tools – seatguru.com.

However of late I have noticed that there has been little upgrading of the core content. Sure there is now a lot more digital junk on the site – I can hardly see the real content for the distracting and in my opinion thoroughly unnecessary “stuff” that surrounds it. In the past month I have flown or booked on G3, FR, New RG, AF, U2, AA, BA, DL and CO. in each case I have seen that the Seatguru seat maps frequently do not match either the aircraft or the airlines website version of the aircraft product. When doing the searches the discrepancy widens with some aircraft types not present etc etc.

In fairness to Seatguru – the plethora of seat configurations within each airline is astounding. The airlines are not good at standardizing their aircraft. However this is no excuse for Expedia’s subsidiary for getting sloppy and lazy and not giving more and better information to its users. At the very least the chaps at Seatguru should be on the ball working with the airlines to get valid seat maps out there. If I can see this then they can figure out how to get better quality and be useful to their audience.

In my most recent round of searches here are the statistics:

Total flight segments actually booked – 27 (9 plus 1 where I had to change and throw away a segment, 17 segments that I have to do before the end of the year). Total flight seat maps researched 58. Total mismatch in searches between airline seat maps and Seatguru – 24 (note this included absence of seat maps – 11. . Total mismatch between flights selected and actual aircraft configuration seats 8. Note I didn’t check on the airlines seat maps to actual configuration but I recall just one in which case it was a substituted equipment and I was upgraded (thank you Delta). As you can see these stats are not good.

Mind you I am not a normal flyer…. But these are representative of the airlines that I fly and I am sure that there are many other frustrated FFs out there who share the same opinion. Get with the Program Expedia. If not there will be a lot of people moving to other websites. And yes Virginia there are others. Like ExpertFlyer or seatplans.

Cheers