Farecast: Out of beta, but still U.S.-only
Airline price predictor Farecast is officially out of beta today. We've covered the service before and think it's great. New features that have been recently added include FareGuard, which lets you buy insurance on FareCast's predictions (the company claims "predictive accuracy of 74.5 percent"), a "flight quality" selector that lets you eliminate nasty red-eyes from your predictions, an alert feature that will e-mail you when the cost of a ticket to a destination you desire appears at or below a price you specify, and my favorite newish feature, a grid that shows you how the cost of a round trip varies depending on the length of your stay.
Webware editors have personal experience with FareCast, and we confirm that it can indeed save you money. I have an issue with the service, though: It offers fare prediction for only U.S. airports. For me, overseas vacation destinations are more desirable. And since flying to Europe or Asia is also a lot more expensive than a hop to Orlando, I'm eager for the service to go global.
Flexible travel dates? FareCast can tell you the least expensive times to fly.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe.
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