Like a magic eight ball for airfare

August 21, 2006 9:30 AM

Buying a plane ticket? Farecast, which went nationwide today, can help (even though it's still in beta). Just tell it where and when you want to go and it'll try to predict the cheapest time to buy. "When looking across all airfare predictions in all markets, Farecast has on average around a 75% accuracy level. And, yes, the percentage of the time we are right continues to improve."
posted by camcgee (22 comments total)

Doesn't cover Canada. Pity.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:42 AM on August 21, 2006

They don't even cover most of the US. "Nationwide" means 55 home airpots. Still, being in seattle, it's a pretty great service.
posted by rschroed at 9:49 AM on August 21, 2006

The site states it is still a beta product, but I like the site design and the information seems like it would be useful when I plan some trips.
posted by tgrundke at 9:51 AM on August 21, 2006

Awesome, I've been eagerly waiting for this site to launch, as I have a few trips to do this fall. I've heard nothing but good things from the beta reviewers and so far it seems to work as promised.
posted by mathowie at 9:56 AM on August 21, 2006

At the very least you feel a bit more informed. The thing that I hate hated most about buying flights was the feeling that as soon I as clicked "buy now" the price would drop by $50. Now the what I hate most is the fact they we need a site like farecast to feel ok about our purchases.
posted by rschroed at 10:01 AM on August 21, 2006

That's weird, I swear this was a double. Anyway, I've liked farecast for a while, I don't know where I first was linked to it. They've done some great work on the interface of their site— ajaxy flashy stuff done in subtle, but really usable, original ways makes me all excited.
posted by blacklite at 10:05 AM on August 21, 2006

Hey I can't get it to give me any arrows or nothin'. I see the words "fare history" but no history is apparent. Nor can I click on said words.

It reminds me of Zombo...
posted by Mister_A at 10:05 AM on August 21, 2006

Nice start. I wonder if predicting fares will become asymptotically more difficult as FareCast adds additional, "second-tier" cities -- Pensacola, Sarasota, Chattanooga, Milwaukee, etc. If they do, expect to see heavily traveled tourist destinations like Myrtle Beach, SC before less frequently sought-after places like Fairbanks, AK. And the no-Canada-yet thing makes me hope they try adding more non-US cities -- I'd like to see whether the fares from London or Buenos Aires to Cape Town ever vary, for example.
posted by pax digita at 10:21 AM on August 21, 2006

Hmph, I tried to suggest they add Manchester Boston Regional, but the suggestion form throws an unspecified error. Beta indeed.
posted by schoolgirl report at 10:28 AM on August 21, 2006

Is it interesting that the cheapest fares on the two searches I did were on 9/11?
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:39 AM on August 21, 2006

You mean 9/11/06, I assume? I guess there are potential flyers who wouldn't take flights that day. Probably including people who escaped from the attacks, not that you'd think that they'd be a big enough group to sway flight prices.
posted by imperium at 10:47 AM on August 21, 2006

I'm curious if airline insurers charge higher premiums to airlines for running flights on 9/11, or during certain times of the year?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:52 AM on August 21, 2006

If it works well (and if the airlines don't manage to make it useless, which they'd certainly have every reason to do), Farecast could be really spiffy.

I worry that the "75% accurate" figure could be misleading, though. The rule I currently use (and assume most other people use, too) is just to assume that the fare will always go up. This works pretty well, and it's a lot easier than going to a website. So to be useful, the figure that really matters isn't overall accuracy, it's how often they correctly predict that the fare will go down (along with how often the fare goes up when they predict it will go down, and how often the fare goes down without their predicting it). Does anyone know these numbers?
posted by moss at 10:55 AM on August 21, 2006

Hey I can't get it to give me any arrows or nothin'. I see the words "fare history" but no history is apparent. Nor can I click on said words.

Did you search for a flight within 90 days?
posted by eddydamascene at 11:02 AM on August 21, 2006

I guess there are potential flyers who wouldn't take flights that day. Probably including people who escaped from the attacks.

Not me. I'm thinking, "Rematch."
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:03 AM on August 21, 2006

Everybody, please vote to put Traverse City, MI in the list. Also, Marquette, MI would be great as well.
posted by NoMich at 11:19 AM on August 21, 2006

I would love if they added non-USian cities someday.
posted by birdherder at 11:28 AM on August 21, 2006

I'm flying this coming Sep. 11th. Fares don't seem particularly cheap to me. I'm buying in the next 48 hours. Thanks camcgee for the post!

And if a Chicago-to-Atlanta flight goes down on Sep. 11th, remember me as a kind man, a decent man ...
posted by intermod at 12:25 PM on August 21, 2006

intermod, you going to Chicago for the Touch n Go party? I'll be flying from Chicago back to Raleigh on the 11th and my ticket was pert near cheap.
posted by NoMich at 1:55 PM on August 21, 2006

Brilliant idea, the layout is a bit overwhelming at times but I can't wait until it's completely launched.
posted by blim8183 at 2:27 PM on August 21, 2006

And if a Chicago-to-Atlanta flight goes down on Sep. 11th, remember me as a kind man, a decent man ...

intermod, you going to Chicago for the Touch n Go party? I'll be flying from Chicago back to Raleigh on the 11th and my ticket was pert near cheap.

Damn, that is weird, I was just checking on flights from Chicago to Seattle on Sept. 11.

(This is a pretty neat site.)
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:40 PM on August 21, 2006

I flew on September 11th 2003 from Amsterdam via Heathrow to Canada and all flights' were overbooked. They offered me money to take the next days flight, but I declined because I didn't have a house anymore and all my stuff was in shipping container somewhere on the Atlantic. And people were waiting for me in my new country. They told me a lot of USAsians flew over Canada. Apparently transatlantic flights to the US were rather empty that day.
posted by kika at 9:40 PM on August 21, 2006