January 21, 2007

Farecast’s Price Guarantee on Flights Goes Live

Michael Arrington

22 comments »

Seattle based Farecast moved its price guarantee product out of beta tonight and onto the live site.

Farecast is a service that predicts airline pricing in the future (U.S. domestic market only), helping customers decide if they should purchase a flight now, or wait. They’ve been testing a product which allows users to lock in a price found on the site for up to a week. For $10, customers will be protected against any price increases for that flight. This is, effectively, the purchase of an insurance policy against the risk of future price increases.

They have a detailed description of how it works, and how they mitigate their risk, on the Farecast blog.

We’ve liked Farecast since we first covered them, but note that some of the most competitive airlines, including SouthWest, don’t allow services like Farecast to access their flight data and sell tickets. We recommend using Farecast and other sties to look for exceptional deals, and then compare those prices to SouthWest and other discount airlines to determine the best ticket for them.

Sphere It

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Online Bulletin

January 22nd, 2007 at 2:57 pm

Farecast Takes $12 Million More

January 30th, 2007 at 10:59 pm

Innovatorz.org Home (Test) » Blog Archive » Farecast Takes $12 Million More

January 30th, 2007 at 11:33 pm

Microsoft Acquires Farecast For $115M

April 17th, 2008 at 4:48 pm

D.I.A Free News Online 2008 » Techcrunch: Microsoft Acquires Farecast For $115M

April 18th, 2008 at 4:34 am

Comments

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Duncan

January 22nd, 2007 at 12:08 am

ashame they only cover the US.
Say No to Crack

January 22nd, 2007 at 12:16 am

Do fares often go up from predicted levels? It’s been a couple years since I’ve been a “road warrior” and flew frequently, but I always remember prices coming down drastically about 4-8 weeks beforehand when the airlines realized the flights would be empty.
Fashion06

January 22nd, 2007 at 12:59 am

I remember seeing a site similar to this but users vote on deals and they are ranked accordingly to which are the best plane ticket deals…it was pretty cool
Adam Benayoun

January 22nd, 2007 at 1:44 am

After reading your post last week about the weather cast, and now this. I do ask myself if insurance policy against future risk is a growing trend in the internet.
visible.mobi

January 22nd, 2007 at 2:17 am

I wish they had service in India…
Adrian Keys

January 22nd, 2007 at 7:06 am

Yes…great product. Those airlines refusing access now will rue their decision later.
Robert Dewey

January 22nd, 2007 at 7:28 am

Wow, a real business model? What’s next, the antichrist??
Mike Watson

January 22nd, 2007 at 7:53 am

I travel to Asia a lot, I wonder when something like this will be available internationally. The pricing structure going to Asia is crazy at best.

http://www.whatshottoday.com
markus941

January 22nd, 2007 at 8:27 am

I’m not sure this will really take off (no pun intended) - but I guess the market will decide that.

A few times Farecast was plain wrong plus my buying window is usually more than a week, but other than that they are a pretty good source. Worth searching anyway along with Farechase, Kayak, more
http://blog.auinteractive.com/.....ingle-time
Ronald Lewis

January 22nd, 2007 at 8:32 am

This is the next big thing in travel. Watch it soar.
Rajeev Vashisht

January 22nd, 2007 at 8:55 am

Necessity is the mother of invention. Today customers are value driven and hunt for best bargains and make reasearch and arbitrage before getting onto buying a product or service.

http://blogs.ibibo.com/TechnicalJournal
Yan

January 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 pm

Just 7 days, are you kidding me? This looks more like a game…
Stanmiller

January 22nd, 2007 at 4:38 pm

Good grief. What I’d like to see is a “ChangeGuard” service which protects me from the fees associated with changing flight times. That’s something I’d like to gamble on.

With a maximum benefit of only $200, and a slew of conditions, this doesn’t seem worth the hassle.

Their predictive data mining machine has found what we all already know; that most folks won’t follow through and redeem their claim.

-Stan
Rocky Agrawal

January 22nd, 2007 at 4:48 pm

It’s not as bad a deal as an extended warranty, but pretty close.

From a consumer perspective, it’s a terrible value that’s full of loopholes:

http://redesign.wordpress.com/.....-airfares/

If you believe their predictions are accurate, there’s no reason to buy it.
Tim Peter

January 22nd, 2007 at 6:57 pm

I’m not sold on this one, Mike. The folks who stand to benefit most from this, leisure travelers, tend to reserve air travel more than a week in advance. Self-employed business travelers might benefit, but airlines could influence greater reservations on their direct sites by offering similar types of “float down” pricing. Airlines already provide advance purchase fares with restrictions. What’s stopping them from tightening the restrictions and adding this feature?
Kim Walbridge

January 23rd, 2007 at 3:02 am

Am spotting a trend myself… that TechCrunch comments made within the first day (or so) of a new post (i.e. replies 1 - 8 above) are mostly uninformed rubbish, with everyone subsequent having something useful and thoughtful to say. May our future have more of the latter!
Mike

January 23rd, 2007 at 8:53 am

Hi Tim,

The Fare Guard service allows you to protect the lowest fare for your specific search for seven days. You can search for departure dates up to 90 days in the future (not limited to seven days in the future). Thanks for your comment.

Mike