Yahoo! Messenger Blog

Travel planning with Yahoo! Messenger

May 15, 2007 on 9:03 am | In Features | 5 Comments

The internet has changed how we book travel but one thing that hasn’t been solved is how two people can plan trips together online – until now. With the new Yahoo! Flight Planner plug-in, you and a friend can look up flights together right in the IM window. It’s powered by Yahoo! Farechase, one of the best online sources for great deals on flights.

My friend Amy and I have been thinking about a trip to London, so I IM’d her and invited her to try the plug-in. A window opened up next to our conversation, displaying a flight search box. I entered our destination, London, preferred travel dates and hit the search button, all with Amy looking on from her own computer.

Search results quickly appeared and we began browsing through flight options. Amy realized we wanted nonstop flights only, so from her side, she selected the ‘Refine Results’ option and made sure only nonstop flights would appear in the results. As soon as I found a good flight, I clicked the “Chat About It” button, which automatically sent the details to Amy for consideration:

There are also some handy features like selection indicators. Everytime Amy would click a flight she liked, a thumbs up icon would appear next to it so I knew instantly what she preferred. And when I clicked the “Book it” button, it launched a new browser window with the first step of checkout, and sent Amy an IM message from me that started with “I want to book this flight…”.

The next time you need to arrange a flight with a friend or just want their input on your summer travel plans, invite them to use the Yahoo! Flight Planner plug-in on Messenger. Plug-ins are available for the Windows version of Yahoo! Messenger (8.1).

…Speaking of traveling, Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister of Singapore, visited Yahoo! headquarters last week. Our own Matthew Skyrm was lucky enough to demonstrate some of our Messenger products to Mr. Loong, like Yahoo! Messenger for the Web, as well as some that are in development like Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista. Head over to the NBC11 website to see a short video clip of the visit (enter “Singapore” in the Search Videos box to access the video clip).

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager