Find the cheapest airfare
Saturday, July 22, 2006
When planning a flight, you've always searched for the best deal. This usually means laboring at the computer searching different days, times, etc. The other option involves calling the different airlines directly and trying to swing the best deal. Either way, you're looking at a very time consuming task.
Now there are two websites that can help in finding the best current price for airfare, both using interesting techniques:
1) FareCompare.com: For the first time available to consumers, FareCompare.com offers historical prices for trips in 77,000 markets in the U.S. and Canada. FareCompare displays the lowest prices offered by month for the next 11 months. Included in this information is a "Fare Trend" graph showing whether the lowest prices have been increasing, decreasing or unchanged. They also provide widgets and plug-ins for Google Desktop, FireFox, Dashboard, and Yahoo!. Once you find the fare you want from the airline you chose, they will link you to that airlines site to purchase the ticket.
2) Farecast.com: Now in beta, Farecast.com offers a proprietary system that provides "airfare prediction". The concept of using sophisticated data-mining techniques to predict whether prices for a particular trip are likely to go up or down over the next week seems ideal. However, the only departure cities you can currently search are limited to Boston and Seattle. Farecast has said that it should have most cities included by the end of the year. This really looks promising!
posted by Michael Tavani @ 10:51 AM |
