Anybody who has researched airfares on the web has experienced the frustration of not only trying to figure out if they have found the cheapest fare or not, but also of deciding whether there’s any chance the fare will get cheaper or not. Farecast tries to solve this problem. When you research fares on Farecast, it will tell you whether it expects fares to go up, stay the same or get cheaper. In addition, if the fares are expected to stay the same or get cheaper, they’ll sell you insurance. So for example, I researched fares for Denver to Boston for a random weekend in March. Farecast said the cheapest fare was $219, fares were expected to hold steady over the next week but they recommended that I buy. For $3 I could buy insurance called a "FareGuard." So if I’m not ready to buy but I want to hold the fare, for $3 I can buy a FareGuard. Then, when I’m ready to buy a ticket I use Farecast to look for the cheapest fare and if it’s more than $219, Farecast will pay me the difference. (If the fares are supposed to go up, they just recommend you buy now. They don’t insure "overpayment" which is usually the one that worries me.)
Just the forecast without the insurance is pretty cool.
Not all cities have forecasts yet but they are working on it.