Farecast Beta Provides Airfare Predictions

Farecast Beta is a website that allows users determine when to purchase airline tickets, as long as you live in a major metro area. It’s all about the timing and everyone likes a good sale. With destination and date input, the site will predict when your requested airfare will be the most affordable. It lets you know whether you should buy your tickets now or wait for a sale. If you fly frequently, as most business travelers do, the average saving of $40 per fare can really add up. Making bi-monthly business trips, that could be over a grand throughout the year. That is certainly worthwhile.

Not all cities are available for prediction tracking. At this time, only larger metro airports such as LAX and Newark are available. I tried to predict flights from Little Rock (my home town) to San Diego (not for any particular reason) and neither were available for prediction. Should this be the case, Farecast is still a pretty decent fare aggregator for the major US Airlines, similar to Orbitz or Priceline. I did vote to add the hometown to the list of trackable cities and would suggest everyone do the same. I think this type of service could make a larger difference in smaller metro areas with higher priced airfares, such as Little Rock.

Farecast has DESTROYED in the “Best Of” website categories for 2006, with honors by PC Magazine, Popular Science, Time and Businessweek. Those people obviously all live in areas in which fare predictions are available. I think it’s a really great service and I’m sure they’re working hard to bring it to the rest of us who aren’t in the top 10 largest cities in the U.S. Once that happens, I’ll be their biggest fan.

NOW IF ONLY SOMEONE WOULD DO THE SAME THING FOR CAR RENTALS