Seatswap

Swap your seat on the fly.

1 follower

Swap your seat on the fly.

1 follower

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Launch tags:iOS•Web App•Travel

Launch Team

Render Sandboxes: a computer for every agentGive every agent its own machine. Starts in under a second

Promoted

Rendez

Maker

Seatswap lets you swap your airline seat in an anonymous, simple and reliable way. Don't like where you're sitting? Dying for an upgrade? Want to sell your business class ticket? Use Seatswap to sell your own seat (a downgrade) or to purchase someone else's (an upgrade). All it takes is 3 simple steps: 1. Go to https://getseatswap.com on any device 2. Place your seat / Search for a seat 3. Swap and earn some extra cash / upgrade your seat at a good price. No match? No worries, we'll notify you when a seat becomes available. We use seat numbers only: no personal details are exchanged at any time. Notifications go via plain-old SMS/text messages, so no data connection is required (e.g. when you're abroad). Seatswap works on desktop and mobile. It's proudly built in Amsterdam, and available worldwide. Want to get in touch? Have ideas about how we can improve? Email me at willem@getseatswap.com or call me on +31 20 7000 000.

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11yr ago

Swap Ideas

@guensberg so what is the break through growth idea? Tap into trip advisor?

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

@tribaling Hi there. We're not sure yet. Could be TripAdvisor/Booking/etc. (integrations), airliners (incentive at booking/check-in), a social element (referrals, discounts, etc), oldfashioned marketing at airports, or something completely different. Would love to hear your thoughts Elia and PH community.

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11yr ago

Swap Ideas

@guensberg I would start investigating the APIs for trip adviser/ booking etc and see if you can somehow connect with people traveling airlines

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11yr ago

This is a really great idea. It's painful to watch airline attendants struggle to put couples, families, or friends together. Never really thought about how such a simple concept to fix all that. I have some questions/comments: 1. I didn't know what an IBAN number was so I had to look it up during registration. Not a common term for the US. 2. I stopped my registration at the IBAN request because I don't prefer to use my bank account for things like that. Will you introduce a PayPal or credit card type option? Since I didn't create an account, can you explain a couple of more things? 1. If I want to do a $0 swap, do I simply put a $0 amount? 2. How do you guarantee that the person holding the seat reservation on your system is the actual ticket holder? Is there an escrow system that lets me validate that I have in fact been able to swap seats at the cost determined? 3. Is the model for generating revenue going to be based on taking a small portion of the seat cost? If so, what's the backup plan if $0 swaps are the most popular type?

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

@marcuscoh Thanks Marcus. :-) Thanks for the note on IBAN numbers. We will definitely include other payment methods, based on users' feedback (exactly like yours, so thank you for that). Sorry to hear it made you stop, we'll work on getting this resolved for the non-EU market! Moved a few notches up on our prio list now. ;-) To answer your questions: 1. Yes! Almost sounds too easy, huh? But yes, that's how it works. :-) 2. We cannot and do not guarantee that. We're trusting people's honesty and for those that are dishonest, we have an escrow mechanism in place like you suggest. It works like this: the 'lower value' swapper transfers the money to upgrade to the 'higher value' seat. We hold the money in a separate account until 5 minutes before the flight takes off. This is because you (often) have to switch off phones before flying. During this 'grace period' any one of the swappers may cancel the swap, in which case the other person will be notified via SMS and the swapp is off and the money returned. If neither cancels before the grace period ends, the swap is on. 3. Yes it is. There is no backup plan for $0 swaps: we think not many people will downswap (e.g. from business to economy) for free. ;-) Really appreciate your time on helping us think Seatswap through!

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11yr ago

@guensberg i never fly business class so i don't have any experience in seeing how swaps work in that section. in the cheap seats, however, swaps happen all the time. when couples or families are separated, the attendants try to help put them back together. a window seat swaps for another window seat, for example. since these are typically a crappy seat swapped for another crappy seat, i see those going $0. however, let's say i'm in a window seat and i offer my seat for $5. i would accept a $0 swap for another window seat but would want $5 for a middle seat swap. does seatswap today offer a way to do conditional swaps? i love this idea. i'm really looking forward to seeing this gain momentum.

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

@marcuscoh We 💜 the idea too! We don't (currently) offer conditional swaps like you're describing. Good idea, but maybe makes it too complex? Our aim is really to keep things as simple as possible. Good one to validate with our user group (I know what you'll answer already...).

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11yr ago

How can this be enforced. What happens when there is a disagreement, and someone pays but doesn't get the upgrade?

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

@pykler Hi Hatem, great question! This is exactly the reason we implemented a 'grace period' that starts when you swap and ends 5 minutes before the scheduled departure. We hold the money in escrow and once the grace period end we transfer it. At any time one of the parties can cancel the swap, with or without reason, via SMS. This will immediately revert the swap and we'll transfer the funds back to the original payer. In addition, if both parties 'OK' the swap at any time, that will make the swap defninitive, thus ending the somewhat uncertain grace period immediately for both swappers. Again, all of this goes via our central SMS number (to avoid data roaming costs): at no time will either swapper know anything more about the other person than their seat number.

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11yr ago

YouTube to Facebook

Awesome concept! I would suggest removing the flight time as mandatory and add "Airline" as a search field. It should be enough to know the date and flight path. Search should reveal all flights that day.

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

@benjaminefox Great suggestion Ben. This one is on our list and should be one of the features of our next release. Ideally keying in your flight number (including carrier code) and date, will suggest the right flight(s) for you immediately.

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11yr ago

Feature Suggestion: A social network amongst passengers to chat with each other during the flight! Thoughts regarding this matter will be appreciated!..

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

@jay_bee12345 Awesome suggestion JB, we'll consider how that could work for the next release. First thoughts are that we think our swappers appreciate the anonimity, so we'll have to come up with a way to tackle that.

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11yr ago

@guensberg Cool. I look forward to hearing more great news to come for your venture's success! I completely understand the anonymity functionality.. If I may address, this could be an anonymous chat where passengers can chat with their peers and disclose any info at their discretion.. Marketing this would be as simple as promoting the fact that some people for life long bonds over plane rides :) so why not be able to speak to everyone?! (Topics would include take-off/destination/flight quality/random/etc..) Anyways I really enjoyed the your innovative product and I look forward to using it! Thank you.

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

@jay_bee12345 Thank you too JB. Cool suggestion. We may venture into the whole 'social flying' realm, and don't know whether this is the right direction to go to yet. Chatting would probably require some data functionality which may not always be available on your flight. Nonetheless, interesting thoughts! Please keep 'em coming.

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11yr ago

@guensberg No problem! Sure! Here's another one for you.. Airplane bathroom facility scheduling feature suggestion.. So basically a virtual line up for the bathroom in the airplane! You may need participation of the airline to authorize this though.. I'll keep thinking ;)

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

At 99 upvotes we'll post a picture of how we visualized the concept during the design phase! Happy hunting! 🎯

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

As promised! On to a hundred! 💯 And especially for @eduard4u: http://share.peakfijn.nl/343S1o1...

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11yr ago

@guensberg Looks like the number is over 100. Time to deliver on your promises.

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

@ramtorn Of course Dan! Maybe you missed my previous reply? We added the photo to the 'Media' section above AND posted a tweet about it: https://twitter.com/getseatswap/.... Awesome to see our community so eagerly following us though! 👍

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11yr ago

Zengo wallet

the challenge is to get users to know the app when they actually need it...

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11yr ago

YouTube to Facebook

@ourielohayon Agreed and will airlines actively try and discourage it's use. However, it's an excellent concept, well done! I hope you find a way to push mass adoption. Perhaps partnering with someone like a Kayak.com that could propel this to be a Stubhub type offering.

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11yr ago

Rendez

Maker

@benjaminefox @ourielohayon Absolutely Ouriel and Ben, agreeing with you both. As often, adoption is key for our platform to have value. Partnerships are definitely an option we're 'actively investigating'. Partnering with Kayak-like parties could be interesting, as could working together with the airliners themselves. Yes: the may not be able to charge current prices for attractive seating, but Seatswap offers a great opportunity for the airline companies to offer the value that customers want (and, perhaps, have more and more come to expect nowadays). Look forward to hearing what you think.

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11yr ago

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