Originally Posted by whlinder
There is a small company called Hamlet, based in Seattle and founded by a professor of computer science at the U of Washington, that is trying to replicate airline pricing patterns in algorithms in an attempt to be able to predict prices and tell a customer "the best time to buy." I'll see if I can find an old news article. Very interesting, though I don't know how they plan to make money...
I've read a similiar article where fares were tracked for the past three years or something. Based on those patterns the software could tell you in a general sense when a good time to buy was.
I try to track fares and graph them against time. After a few weeks, typically you'll be able to see trends (high, low and common prices in between). Also, it gives a sense of the volatility. If a fare changes rapidly, I don't sweet it when the price goes high, because it will likely come down, of course the opposite is true as well. The info helps get better fares, though I can't say it's helped me get a killer deal or see the future
