Superfly brings on former KAYAK CFO Bill Smith to advise its flight search disruption

Last year, we told you about a company called Superfly, that was taking a more personalized approach to finding flights.

Here’s how we explained its unique premise, which is extremely helpful:

Information such as frequent flyer miles, elite statuses, rewards programs, and more are taken into account and Superfly will learn about users’ preferences as time goes on to increase the level of personalization.

Superfly has taken a step forward in disrupting the space, which includes Valley darling Hipmunk, by bringing on KAYAK’s former CFO Bill Smith as an advisor.

As far as its opportunity to disrupt, it seems like Smith has a few ideas up his sleeve. “Travel search is being commoditized. Travelers are being treated like a commodity” he says.

While Superfly might not be for vacation travelers, it might hit the sweet spot for those who travel often. “For the serious and elite traveler, Superfly takes your particular frequent flyer information, incorporates it into search results, returning PERSONALIZED results which provide you the best value – not just the lowest price.” Smith continued.

According to Superfly, the lowest price isn’t always the best flight. I’ve personally found that the worst flights I end up taking are the cheapest.

There’s no doubt that Smith can bring insight learned from his time at KAYAK, which recently inked a deal with Bing to bolster its travel search results.

Smith says that using your existing travel data is the best way to seek out future flights:

Suppliers can now leverage the aggregated traveler data to provide valuable offers and promotions to the highest value travelers. Consumers will receive these offers simply by joining Superfly and searching for travel in a route to be targeted by a Superfly supplier.

The space is packed with competition, so any unique angle that makes a company stand out to consumers is a plus. By putting all of those miles that you might have tucked away in the forefront, it might get people spending more money than they would have before to find a travel destination.

➤ Superfly