Originally Posted by
tanzaniancane
I am a FT newbie and recently started looking at farecompare's PPM comparison - however I never seem to find any flights available for the fares that are listed? Am I just looking at dates that the fares are soldout (and is there a way to see if they are available on other dates?)
As I remember it, that's always been FareCompare's sore point (look in the archives here; you'll see dozens of posts bemoaning "FC shows this fare but I can't find it"). They have always shown the lowest fare filed, even long after it's sold out -- that's why FTers use ITA, to see when such fares have availability. However, I always started with FareCompare to get a handle on what to search for -- which markets and which months.
flyingbrick is probably right: the $ is in click-throughs that sell tickets. There's no revenue in just providing reference information. ITA gets revenue from selling its software, ExpertFlyer and others sell subscriptions.