New Web travel planning site not quite ready for prime time
WorldMyWay.com, a new travel site that promises to allow users to build trips, share them and theoretically get money back, still has some bugs to be worked out. It is not ready for prime time. Users beware.
Here’s the hook for worldmyway.com: If other users end up booking a previously created (and purchased) itinerary that is listed on the site, the person who originally published the itinerary gets a rebate of five percent. If users share their trip with others and other travelers book the same trip using the “ORIGINALLY created” itinerary, users, theoretically, can get an additional five percent back.
Anytime someone books a trip ORIGINALLY created by you, you earn 5% of the full price of the trip (excluding air). Every quarter you will get a big fat check, compliments of WorldMyWay.com.
Not so fast. Don’t start spending that “big check.” There are lots of “ifs.”
1. How many people are going to follow others step by step? There is no clear listing of the terms or conditions that deal with what constitutes a trip “ORIGINALLY created” by another user. In other words, how much of your trip has to be followed? Can it be flights and hotels? Or must it be flights, hotels and tours? Or must it include the same airlines and flight numbers? Nothing is spelled out on the home page.
I tried the site myself and I found several more problems with it.
2. No Frequently Asked Questions/Customer Support section. Go to any other travel site such as Expedia, click on the Customer Support link, and it will give you a list of the frequently asked questions. WorldMyWay has no such help.
3. Limited Live Help hours. Their help is not available 24/7, so if they’re not around (they’re in New York City), you’ll have to leave a message.
4. Misspelling. They spelled sightseeing as Site Seeing. It makes one question their professionalism.
5. Adding a flight was frustrating. The interface is, frankly, clunky. The opening screen asked when I was checking in at my destination and checking out. When I asked to add a flight, it gave me the departure day as the day before my check in date and my return as the day after my check out date. Additionally, it gave my arrival airport as an airport that wasn’t even my destination.
As an example, I gave my destination as Orlando with a check in date of February 14, 2009 and a check out date of February 22, 2009. It gave my outbound date as February 13 with an arrival into Kansas City, Missouri, an inbound date of February 23, 2009 out of Kansas City. I had to use the drop down to choose Orlando International Airport for the flight into Orlando and a “return from” option to depart from Orlando as well as choose the correct date of departure.
Additionally, if users do change their outbound date, they will sometimes have to re-choose their originating airport.
Charitably, some might say that the site was being pro-active. It may assume users want to leave the day before, on the red-eye perhaps, so they can get a full day at their destination. However, remember what many say about assuming. Let the traveler decide if he wants to change the date.
6. Incomplete/Incorrect attractions. When I chose sites [sic] to choose my sightseeing itinerary for Orlando, Disney World’s theme parks were nowhere on the list. What was on the list (as well as other things) was Orlando Airport Round Trip Transfer. That didn’t just appear once. It appeared several times based on your destination, such as International Drive, downtown, and Disney World. I guess the site couldn’t sell tickets to Disney World and they added the transfers in case you weren’t renting a car.
7. Not all hotels are available. I set up an itinerary for Las Vegas. I did a search for Rio Suites. It appeared on the list, but when I selected it, it said that the hotel was not found.
8. Users can’t go back to the list of hotels to change choices. Let’s say a user chooses a hotel. Then the user discovers that the hotel is not available on certain days or they decide to choose another hotel. There is no way to make changes. Hit BACK on the browser, and the site takes the user all the way back to the home page instead of back to the list of hotels.
9. Incorrect item count. This was a minor glitch, but worth mentioning. When displaying a list, the item count starts at 0 rather than 1.
This site definitely needs a lot of work. If anyone is willing to put up with the idiosyncracies and wants to earn that “big fat check” with cash back should someone book your exact itinerary, then this site may be for you. Personally, I am going to wait until they clarify the terms of their offer, correct all the interface issues and add more capabilities to the site. This is one beta that was released too early and one concept that hasn’t been clearly explained to the public.
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