Publications

On June 27th, Farecast announced the Public Beta launch of Farecast.com, the first and only airfare prediction site on the Web. Their predictions are based on data-mining methods originally developed at the University of Washington by Prof. Oren Etzioni in collaboration with his student Alex Yates as well as Dr. Craig Knoblock and Rattapoom Tuchinda of USC.

Farecast.com helps online travel shoppers save money by answering the question: should you buy now or buy later? The company utilizes data-mining algorithms to search for patterns, in over 50 billion airfare observations, which are associated with significant price changes. Extensive simulations have shown these patterns to accurately predict future prices, though the company is not releasing details of its simulations. Farecast's prediction technology and its proprietary features, functionality, and business processes are patent pending in both the U.S. and multiple international markets.

The predictions are currently available free of charge, on Farecast.com, to anyone traveling out of Seattle and Boston to 120 domestic markets with expansion to the rest of the country and to international flights next on the company's agenda.