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What's New In Travel Search

Search Engine Watch reviews Farecast and FareCompare, two new travel search engines. Farecast actually tries to predict airline prices by looking at 115 indicators including pricing, scheduling, and availability to give travelers an idea of when to book to get the best price. For each flight search, Farecast tells you if it thinks prices will rise or fall over the next seven days, and by how much. Next to this indicator is a fare history chart that shows consumers fluctuations in pricing over the last 45-90 days and the average lowest price ticket during that period. Farecast makes over 90 billion airfare observations to build its fare predictions and histories. Farecast launches today in "limited beta," only serving search results departing from Boston and Seattle to all major destinations. It will add new markets throughout the year. FareCompare, the second newcomer, analyzes travel from a price-driven perspective for flexible leisure travelers. It doesn't predict prices like Farecast but rather empowers consumers to make more informed buying decisions. It's more of a price comparison site that lets you know about how much you should pay for travel between two cities. As reviewer Brian Smith says, FareCompare is "not as polished looking as Farecast, but it provides a ton of flight pricing data which made me feel smarter." It's especially useful for comparing international travel prices based on seasonality. Farecast has the better idea, but with only Boston and Seattle on board, it will take a while before the site becomes really useful.

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