Farecasting - How to Find Cheaper Flights

Farecasting is a powerful new way to reduce the cost of travel, but there are a plethora of sites and applications out there claiming to be the best at what they do. We’ve cut through all the noise to make things easier for you. Below you’ll find a list of the best farecasting services available, with some important information about the features you can expect to find with each:

• Google Flights: This website is a great resource for finding the cheapest available flight on your chosen route. It allows you to compare dates to see when any price drops are happening. What makes Google Flights a real contender is that it assists travellers in comparing seat class as well. This lets you decide between the amount of money you are going to save and whether you are flying economy, business class, or first class.
• Kayak: Another website and a great option for farecasting. Kayak will let you know at what point over the next 7 days tickets will be cheapest. Alongside these predictions, the website offers confidence ratings. For example, one prediction of cost might be rated at 95% and another at 46%. This allows you to gauge the accuracy of prices. Kayak also operates as a standard booking agent, with farecasting being only a small part of what they offer. The only drawback is that on routes which are not very popular there is no prediction of fare price due to a lack of data.
• Flyr: This website is a great option for those looking to compromise between price and other factors such as journey time and the number of changes. Taking a different approach from its competitors, Flyr analyses the data of specific flights rather than overall routes to predict prices. Huge savings can be made using this service, with Flyr offering to cover any unforeseen ticket price rises after booking, up to an amount of 200USD.
• Skypicker: Using data from over 150 different airlines, Skypicker is a great option for predicting ticket prices; so much so in fact that savings of 50% to 90% are not uncommon. Unfortunately, the cheapest flights often aren’t direct, but Skypicker makes up for this by comparing prices between both small and larger airlines, allowing you more flexibility when using their service.
• Hopper: This app is available for both Android and iOS, making it a great option for those who want to farecast from their smartphone or tablet. The comparisons are reliable and the app is intuitive, but the only downside is that some of the major airlines don’t share their data with Hopper, so some flights will be missing from any search. It also doesn’t have comparisons for seating classes, but many of these features will be added over time.