Website listing best dates to buy specific tickets/itins?

There's a website that uses a tracking database that can tell you when
is the best time to buy a given ticket for a given flight based on
past history of how the fare changes prior to the date of the flight.

Anyone know what that site is?

Fly Guy wrote:

There's a website that uses a tracking database that can tell you when
is the best time to buy a given ticket for a given flight based on
past history of how the fare changes prior to the date of the flight.

Anyone know what that site is?

Eightballforairfares.com?

Fly Guy wrote in :


There's a website that uses a tracking database that can tell you
when is the best time to buy a given ticket for a given flight
based on past history of how the fare changes prior to the date of
the flight.

http://www.yapta.com/

--

John Godwin wrote:

There's a website that uses a tracking database that can tell
you when is the best time to buy a given ticket for a given
flight based on past history of how the fare changes prior to
the date of the flight.

http://www.yapta.com/

I've already seen that.

What Yapta seems to do is to track the prices of a given flight and
alert you if it detects a price reduction. I was interested in a
certain NW flight, but Yapta does not track NW flights. Yapta may
tell you that the price of a ticket for a given date has dropped in
price - but will it tell you that the price has likely reached it's
lowest point?

What I'm talking about is a web site that was started (I think) as an
off-shoot of a university computer science project that analyzed a lot
of historical price data and could tell you in advance when the price
of a given ticket would likely be at it's lowest and hence you should
wait until that time to buy it. I heard about this a month or three
ago as a news item (radio or TV, I forget).

In other words, I already know I want to fly from A to B on a given
date. The question is, should I buy that ticket 2 months in advance,
or 2 weeks in advance? There is not usually a linear relationship
between the advance-purchase-days and the price, and it seems that
each flight has it's own days/price profile.

farecast.com, but note that they do not forecast out as far as 2 months that
you suggested.

TEP wrote:

farecast.com, but note that they do not forecast out as far as 2
months that you suggested.

Yep - that must be what I was thinking about. But I don't really see
any forecasting from their site.

I am interested in a certain NW return flight from DTW to MCO
(saturday departure) in November. The farecast.com 45-day history for
that city pair shows a high volitility in the price (from a low of 119
in early August to a high of $204 on Sept 17. In fact, it went from
$125 on thursday Sept 13 to $204 on Monday sept 17 and currently it
pulled back to $166. What I'd like to see is the full graph, extended
out to the travel date in Nov, but I guess they won't show it... ?

I notice that they will show a graph of daily air-fare costs (lowest
cost) for a certain city pair, but not of a particular flight or
carrier, and they don't extend that graph into the future (they only
show the previous 45-day history of the daily lowest fair).

Their 7-day prediction is to wait - "Lowest fares Steady or Dropping"
- which isin't really a prediction - it's more of an observation. So
despite their name (farecast) I don't see anything of a predictive or
forecasting nature from them.

You can do that on Travelocity.com among other sites. Just say your
dates are "flexible".

Chris Christensen
Amateur Traveler podcast
http://AmateurTraveler.com

On Sep 17, 8:12 pm, Fly Guy wrote:
There's a website that uses a tracking database that can tell you when
is the best time to buy a given ticket for a given flight based on
past history of how the fare changes prior to the date of the flight.

Anyone know what that site is?

"Fly Guy" wrote in message ...

There's a website that uses a tracking database that can tell you when
is the best time to buy a given ticket for a given flight based on
past history of how the fare changes prior to the date of the flight.

Anyone know what that site is?

You can work it out yourself (to a degree). What it comes down to is when
will everyone else travel? The times when the planes will be full anyway
are when the fares will tend to be highest. On most transatlantic routes
that means Tuesday and Wednesday are when you're most likely to find the
cheapest fares. Cheap fares don't necessarily mean empty planes.
Airlines will often fill those seats by putting groups on board at hevily
discounted fares - better get some money than fly the seats empty.

Graham Harrison wrote:

What it comes down to is when will everyone else travel?

You're missing the point.

I know when I NEED to travel. The question is - when will the ticket
be offered for the lowest price?

Is it 2 weeks prior to the flight? Or is it 20 days, 35 days, 42
days, xx days in advance?

"Fly Guy" wrote:
I know when I NEED to travel. The question is - when will
the ticket be offered for the lowest price?
Is it 2 weeks prior to the flight? Or is it 20 days, 35 days,
42 days, xx days in advance?

Somewhere in the bowels of the airline's corporate offices, there's
a computer that beeps, some committee that meets, and suddenly
a sale commences to fill seats that aren't selling fast enuff otherwise.
It'll pronb'ly happen just after bought your tickets. IOW, the God's
know, but it helps to know when the low-season to your destination
occurs.