Here’s a spate of new sites and services to keep an eye on (or use, if you’re lucky enough to live in one of the cities they serve):
If you’ve ever wondered whether you ought that plane ticket now now or wait ’til later and hope for a price drop, Farecast will help you make that decision. The company uses complex modelling algorithms to predict trends in airfares and advises you whether to wait or buy now, along with confidence levels about the accuracy of its prediction.
The downside is that only two cities are being served at the moment, and low-cost airlines like Southwest and JetBlue aren’t included. They offer a dizzying array of graphical analysis and displays (which might need to be simplified for the average consumer). Another site offering related services is FareCompare.
Both these websites are pretty new, but it’s always nice to see another service that creates better-informed consumers.
The way Ryanair operates is to charge a small fee for amenities (like food, checking in baggage, etc.), and to drastically cut any costs and unnecessary features from its planes that it can. It also offers advertising on the side of its planes to large corporations (sort of like an Internet model, where content is free because advertising pays.) Other low-cost airlines in Europe include Easyjet and Virgin Express. Just in case you get tired of using a Eurail pass.
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