Here’s some interesting new sites in the world of figuring out air fares. I suppose the sites, especially the Fare Compare one would qualify as Web 2.0 … whatever that really is.
Fare Compare … http://www.farecompare.com/
will make a guess at where you are connecting from (surprising how few web sites even try … America’s lack of education in geography at work again .. and let you enter a city you wish to compare fares to. You see current ‘best fares’ and get a twelve month history to help you plan the best time to travel. Interesting to compare seasonal trends, interesting to see how much difference there is between some US city start points, and interesting to see just how much premium one pays for flying direct into Cebu that flying to Manila and using Cebu Pacific to get to Cebu.
Fare Compare also gives you fares on a nice map-based interface … those ding-a-lings who advocate going to Singapore and back to Manila can see just how far out of the way they are really going.
The second offering is for future reference only. Farecast http://www.farecast.com/
is still in beta. It only gives data from two US cities at the moment. (Boston and Seattle). But wow, what data it gives. The best (as it can find the fares I know exists) search engine I’ve seen and it shows the routing available on all airlines … much better than many “big name” sites that will actually weight things to United or American or some other big name. Did you know you can fly BOS – DEN via Airtran? And for not too bad of a fare … although not the lowest. It’s not the best routing but my view is a good travel site should present you with the information and let you make the choices, not force you into their mode.
The graphs and other trend data provided on FareCast are great … let’s hope this moves out into the world of international travel.
