14

Yesterday I saw a documentary where some showed software that predicts developments in airfares. Similar to weather and traffic predictions a user would get a prediction of price developments when airfares for a specific connection are searched. Based on these prediction you could make an educated guess if you need to buy now, or better wait some time.

Since watching that documentary I have been searching for a booking site that uses this prediction feature. In the documentary they mention that such a webservice is not yet available in Europe, but since the Internet is more then Europe only, I expect to find a working example. No luck so far.

The documentary was a Dutch documentary, where they explored the actual costs of flying an airplane from Amsterdam to London. The objective was to find a reason for the fluctuating real airfares asked.

|improve this question|||||
7

The only website that I know is Farecast, that now seems to be called Bing Travel.

This seems to be more or less successful, as they state by themselves:

According to a third-party audit of our predictive technology, we’re about 75% accurate and on average, customers will save over $50 on a typical round-trip transaction.

I never used it by myself, but friends of mine recommended it.

|improve this answer|||||
  • Clicking on farecast took me to bing.com/travel - is that correct? – nsn Sep 13 '13 at 14:13
  • @nsn Yes, Microsoft purchased Farecast back in 2008, and it has since been integrated directly into Bing Travel. – choster Sep 13 '13 at 15:40
6

I ran into Hipmunk. This online airfare aggregator has a graphical airfare predictor. Exactly what I have been looking for.

|improve this answer|||||
6
+500

If you perform a search for flights on Kayak, it will sometimes show an airfare predictor in the top left-hand-corner of the results window, showing whether prices are predicted to fall or rise in the next 7 days (and therefore, whether you should purchase the ticket now or wait).

This only seems to happen when enough people have searched for that route through Kayak, so I assume they are doing the predictions based on their own historical results.

|improve this answer|||||
  • came here to say this. – Mark Mayo♦ May 1 '13 at 2:22
-1

New answer for old question - check out flyr at www.getflyr.com - they currently have a beta tool that gives you buy-wait predictions on domestic flights, like Farecast/BingT used to have.

|improve this answer|||||
  • If you are connected, in any way, with that app, please disclose it in your description or any recommendations of it. – CGCampbell Nov 13 '14 at 20:12
-1

I have used Farecast in the past with varying degrees of success. I suggest giving it a whirl. Michael Hosto

|improve this answer|||||
  • Hi and welcome. Are you in any way affiliated with the company? – JoErNanO♦ Jan 30 '15 at 11:42

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy