New fare tracker website

[pcgirl54]

Read this in the Boston Globe travel section
www.farecompare.com

shows top 50
lowfares non stop destinations from your home city-click on "my airport map" a google enabled feature

zoom in feature to see lowest price for a particular state

[copper]

SWEET!!!! I just saved $80 on a RT to MCO.

Thanks for the link

--------------

After additional checking the site is useful but the fare shown for my search does not include US Passenger Facility Charge, US Transportation Tax or US Flight Segment Tax. When those fees are added in they are back to the same price I got directly from UAL.

So... I'll add the link for places to check, along with the other places I already check for cheap tickets

[sun starved Gayle]

Thank you for posting! What a wonderful link!

Gayle

[Cathyb]

Have you figured a way to do a multi-trip?

[techteacher]

Thank you! This is a wonderful site.

[riverdees05]

Thanks for the website. It looks good, will try it and see how it does.

[MULTIZ321]

Thanks for posting this site - looks like a good one.

I did a check for prices between Fort Lauderdale and any of the New York City area airports. Farecompare.com provided some good fares but the travel dates
were from mid-March to the end of March, 2006. To the best that I could see, I was not able to check for fares for the end of April, 2006 which is when I would like to travel.

It appears I will have to wait a few weeks and see if some bargain fares are posted for the time-frame I'm interested in. Does this sound accurate or perhaps I missed how to fully use the site advantageously?

Thanks

Richard

[Hoc]

I tried a couple of the links (like a $148 trip to Kansas City that actually was $760 when I clicked through), and found that they were not particularly reliable. This is kind of like Travelocity's Dream Maps feature, though Dream Maps is a bit more accessible, and a whole lot more reliable.

[camachinist]

A bit like Kayak's "Buzz" finder, but more like the Dream Maps without the map and similar to some scripted workarounds FT'ers have come up with for the dream maps...

http://www.homezonebc.com/fares/index.html?

http://www.kayak.com/h/buzz

http://dps1.travelocity.com/dreamMap...062006&LANG=EN

Personally, I still like ITA and my paid access to the GDS better, but the fare finder tools do have their good points. Happy shopping!

Pat

[Deer Path]

Only works for US trips.

Judy

[Enrico]

Originally Posted by Deer Path

Only works for US trips.

Judy

Good point...the first thing I noticed.

Results look like Orbitz without the dates.

[pizzagirl]

I have read here where people say they downloaded the ITA software. I went to that site and din't see that I had to download anything to check flight fares.....just create a log-in name and password. Did I miss something??????
TIA

Cathy

[camachinist]

Originally Posted by pizzagirl

I have read here where people say they downloaded the ITA software. I went to that site and din't see that I had to download anything to check flight fares.....just create a log-in name and password. Did I miss something??????
TIA

Cathy

That's what you do. Everything takes place on or through their servers. Even my GDS access is remote. That said, ITA is an extremely powerful and complex search utility. You can learn more on how to use it on the Mileage Runner forum on Flyertalk. I've been using it almost two years now and am still learning the intricacies of the coding language. I've read that United will soon be adapting ITA technology for their rollout of a new reservation engine. I hope so.

Try it out and see what you think. It's free Pay special attention to the multi-city functionality. Some incredible fares/routings can be found through careful manipulation.

Pat

[stewyvr]

Originally Posted by Enrico

Good point...the first thing I noticed.

Results look like Orbitz without the dates.

The homezone link is based on travelocity dream maps, and should work for all locations, not just US. I designed it as a was not able to access the dream map fcuntionality behind my corporate firewall. I hope you find it useful.

[camachinist]

And a hearty "thank you" to Stewart for coding this and adding the cool new interface with quick links to good travel info. That's what FT is all about.

Pat

[cheter]

Maybe it's my firewall. When I log on to the page I get a blank page, and done appears at the bottom?

[camachinist]

Originally Posted by cheter

Maybe it's my firewall. When I log on to the page I get a blank page, and done appears at the bottom?

Likely a javascript error. Try a different browser.

Pat

[Linda74]

I love ITA....but also use: www.mobissimo.com

[Enrico]

So many fare search engines out there to use. Are there really any unique features that others don't provide? It's all the same stuff/information, just packaged differently. Go Orbitz, Travelocity, Hotwire, Cheap Tickets, Mobissimo, etc., and you get the same results. Then go to the airline's own web site and get it $5 to $10 cheaper per ticket.

[stewyvr]

Originally Posted by pcgirl54

Read this in the Boston Globe travel section
www.farecompare.com

shows top 50
lowfares non stop destinations from your home city-click on "my airport map" a google enabled feature

zoom in feature to see lowest price for a particular state

If you are using firefox as a browser ( which you really should try ) then there is a plugin for farecompare that allows you to prepram routes that you might be interested in, and then you can check the cheapest flights without even visiting the site. As with all of these types of sites the flights are not necessarily always available, but still cool.

[tzoid]

Someone brought to my attention that we were getting hits from TUG BBS and I started looking around and found it quite interesting. If a few people will give me feedback on how we might tailor a set of pages specifically for the needs of Time Share Users (of which I am one), we would certainly do so.

More recently we have added International to/from U.S./Canada and also Historical review of prices.

We are in the process of doing a set of tailored pages based on feedback provided by FlyerTalk.com community.

Cheers,

tzoid

[Werner]

Originally Posted by tzoid

More recently we have added International to/from U.S./Canada and also Historical review of prices.

tzoid

The historical review of prices going back 2 years is very interesting. It gives a good sense of highs and lows and provides good target prices to wait for. It also shows seasonal pricing patterns that may be useful. Many of us make our timeshare reservations a year in advance and then play Russian Roulette with the airline ticketing system to get good fares. Your site should be a big help.

What are you going to do if the Gov't lets airlines fake the published prices by excluding surcharges as the major (read: high priced) carriers have requested? That will make much of this competitive price data useless.

[Werner]

Originally Posted by tzoid

We are in the process of doing a set of tailored pages based on feedback provided by FlyerTalk.com community.

tzoid

If you look at the headings in the "Resorts" section of the Tug BBS you can see how the TUG Timeshare world is divided up. Hawaii and the Caribbean are major timeshare destinations. You already have the Caribbean in considerable detail. A page for the 4 major Hawaiian Islands would be a useful addition.

Also a multileg capability mentioned above would be helpful since many Hawaii trips involve more than one island.

[tzoid]

Originally Posted by Werner

The historical review of prices going back 2 years is very interesting. It gives a good sense of highs and lows and provides good target prices to wait for. It also shows seasonal pricing patterns that may be useful. Many of us make our timeshare reservations a year in advance and then play Russian Roulette with the airline ticketing system to get good fares. Your site should be a big help.

What are you going to do if the Gov't lets airlines fake the published prices by excluding surcharges as the major (read: high priced) carriers have requested? That will make much of this competitive price data useless.

We get the raw data the same as the online travel agencies and reservations systems (Sabre, Worldspan etc). Our U.S/Canada prices include the base fare + surcharges + 7.5% sales tax (exclude PFC, Security Fee, and Segment fee, because we don't know the flights yet we estimate them and the end after availbity is checked).

We are about to add the surcharges as well for internatonal.

I guess the bottom line is that we have access to the raw quote data for purchase so these new rules don't effect us we can do apples to apples comparison.

tzoid

[tzoid]

Originally Posted by Werner

If you look at the headings in the "Resorts" section of the Tug BBS you can see how the TUG Timeshare world is divided up. Hawaii and the Caribbean are major timeshare destinations. You already have the Caribbean in considerable detail. A page for the 4 major Hawaiian Islands would be a useful addition.

Also a multileg capability mentioned above would be helpful since many Hawaii trips involve more than one island.

Ok thanks for the heads up, we will start the beginnings a special section in the next week or so. Any and all features mentioned are likely to be implemented.

Regards,

tzoid