What is twalaba?

Staying in touch with your friends on Facebook is great, but visiting them from time to time is better. Twalaba helps you find hundreds of cheap flights with one click, and let you enjoy from your network of friends. But Twalaba is more than a flight search engine: Twalaba showcases your facebook friends as you have never thought of it before: Want to go where the heat is? Twalaba’s temperature filter will recommend you friends that live where the sun is shining. You have so many friends, you don’t even know anymore where they live? Click on Twalaba’s world map and discover friends that live in exotic places. You’re on a budget, but desperately want to visit someone? Twalaba will let you know as soon as there are flights available within your budget. Twalaba makes possible what once was nearly impossible: to get in a wink an overview of the least expensive places in your friends network, you can travel to.

How was the concept of twalaba born?

Merely from a simple finding: we have hundreds of friends and relatives on facebook, and every one of them represents a potential travel destination. What we needed was a solution that automates flight search to be able to process hundreds of our friends' locations at the same time to get a quick overview on the cheapest places to visit.

Is twalaba completely free?

Yes it is! twalaba's search engine compares the most reliable and competitive airfare sources on the Internet for free! You don't have to pay anything to use our services.

Do you sell tickets?

Not ourselves directly, but once you find the right flight on twalaba you can easily book it through one of the partners we work with (Opodo or Govolo). Keep in mind that displayed fares ("Indicative Price") are based on historical data provided by the travel agencies we work with (prices are updated a few times every day), are subject to change and cannot be guaranteed at the time of booking.

Are you owned by any airlines or online travel agencies?

No.

How can I update my friends' current location?

Whenever possible, twalaba will try and get this information from Facebook (unless your friend has not shared this information or did not allow third party applications to know his location). If this information is not available you can either: (1) Update it manually, (2) let your friend update it once he joins twalaba or (3) let another friend do it for you! Everytime someone who both shares a connection with you and one friend you have in common, edit the location of a shared-friend, the edit will appear on your profile. So you'll always be kept up to date of where your friends are!

Do I need to find the nearest airport to my friend's current location by myself?

No, you don't! twalaba only needs to know where your friend lives to automatically find the nearest airport to his place. And this works wherever they live in the world!

Do I need to start a new flight search every time I connect to twalaba?

Air fares usually don't change significally within the same day. If you don't want to conduct a new search from the beginning, and if you've already made up your mind on where you want to spend your next vacations, you can use your last flight search and only update the contacts you're interested in visiting. It will save you time to proceed faster to the booking of your flight.

How fast will my flight search results be processed?

Just like any regular flight search engine, twalaba needs to look for and import flight data from third-party sources on the Internet. Flight search can take from a few seconds for a small group of contacts, up to a few minutes in case you have hundreds of friends. While Twalaba is processing your search, you can continue browsing the Internet, as long as you don't log out.

Why couldn't twalaba find me a corresponding flight?

If your flight search did not return 100% results, please make sure to check the following:

- There are currently no flights serving your destination: (1) Try and check if your departure airport is set correctly or (2) try and modify your travel preferences (your travel dates for instance).

- Your friends did not share their current location on Facebook: Try and update their location manually.

How reliable are the weather forecasts of twalaba's Destination Advisor?

Meteorologic data in Twalaba is the result of 30 years of data collection conducted by national meteorological services and provides an estimate of climatic conditions at different locations across the globe. It is currently maintained by the FAO Environment and Natural Resources Services (SDRN). Even though weather conditions are expected to change over the coming years due to global warming, we assume that average temperatures and rainfalls won’t drastically change (maybe a degree or two, but you shouldn’t even notice it).

When will twalaba be available for my smartphone?

twalaba will be soon optimized to be accessible from any smartphone.

What are you doing with my data? What about privacy?

We take your privacy very seriously. Our platform works with the latest security settings, and we don’t access your private info (like your personal phone number) via Facebook, only general location info (city, country). We only collect your gender and birthday only to get some general trends and stats about our users (age, sex and city) because we like stats. And more importantly, we’ll never sell any of your data to an external service. Also, twalaba's activities are controled by the CNIL, an independent administrative authority protecting privacy and personal data, which's main tasks are to protect privacy and personal and public liberties.

Find more details about our privacy policy here .

I don’t want my profile to be active anymore - where is the exit?

We’re sorry to hear that. At any time, you can deactivate your profile in your personal settings . If you want to completely delete your account, you can do it here . We hope we can still be friends :)

I'm having troubles with my plane ticket. Where can I complain?

twalaba does not sell tickets; we only help you find the right one. We recommend you to contact the airline company directly or the online travel agency (Opodo / Govolo) who sold you your ticket. And we hope you’ll solve your problem rapidly!

My question is not listed above. Where can I contact you?

We’d love to hear from you and get your feedback. Please use the "Feedback" tab on the left side of your screen and we’ll make our best to answer you rapidly.

I almost forgot. Does the name "twalaba" mean anything?

Yes it does! twalaba is actually derived from the French exclamation "Toi là-bas!" which litterally translates into English by "Hey you there!". A fun way to remind us that we all have someone there (or "là-bas") we must visit one of these days.