Several innovative companies have been working to improve information about (and access to) low airfares in recent years. We’ve seen the widespread acceptance of aggregators like Kayak, SideStep (reviewed here last year), and the growth of fare watching/predicting services like FareCompare and FareCast.
So what’s next?
The tech world went ga-ga over Yapta (Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant) recently. And if it’s the real deal, then it could be a great service.
Unlike existing fare alert tools, Yapta also tracks the fares on your trip after you’ve purchased, in order to take advantage of low-fare guarantees and fare-drop voucher policies. If your ticket’s fare drops after you’ve purchased, you get a refund in the form of a voucher. The site is in closed beta right now, and was supposed to open up for public beta this week.
The idea is a good one. One possible snag: Not every airline (or booking site) guarantees their fares in case of a fare drop. If more than 24 hours have passed since the time of purchase, getting a fare-drop voucher is increasingly rare. (For example, United still does it, but US Airways apparently abandoned their fare-drop policy after they merged with America West.)
Perhaps the best of all possible worlds would be 1) using Farecast to get a reading on whether the current fare is a good one, and whether to wait or buy now, then 2) using FareCompare to get e-mail alerts when fares drop (even hours before those fares even go on sale), and finally 3) using Yapta to track fares after you’ve pulled the trigger, so you can collect vouchers or refunds if fares drop further. Sounds like a great combination to me. (If these three companies merge, e-mail me for the address where you can send the finder’s fee for brokering the deal.)
I certainly appreciate all the effort, venture capital, and sheer computing power that goes into giving consumers better access to low airfares. It’s a big reason why airfares are as relatively low as they are today, despite recent fare hikes in light of high fuel costs.
But I’d love to see similar effort put into tracking hotel rates. I know, there’s more variation between hotels, and then more variation between rooms within each property, so it’s harder to make comparisons, but I’m sure there are some clever, entrepreneurial programmers who can figure out a way.
Yapta promises to introduce a hotel tracking feature in the future, and I’m looking forward to testing it. Fingers crossed.
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May 17th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Kayak and Sidestep have value to both customers and suppliers in that they refer traffic to suppliers (low cost) and provide unbiased results (customer value). They also have audience share.
Farecast is demonstrating that it can develop unique ways of looking at data – and give customers confidence in their purchase (customer value) and will drive people looking for bargains to book earlier – thus allowing suppliers to raise fares closer to flight dates (airline value).
cFares offers targeted unpublished discounts to individuals who register – again value of airlines and for customer.
Yapta doesn’t offer anything that Expedia or the others couldn’t turn around and offer w/o much trouble (no competitive advantage – long term); has no audience, and if airlines drop fares by much more than $10-$15 domestically, will likely cost suppliers more than the value of having customer book directly.
Additionally, the market doesn’t seem to have much room for more than 2-3 big metasearch companies. Kayak/Sidestep are in the 2-4 million uniques – but its a huge step down to the rest of the crowd. Even if Yapta can draw an audience, all its likely to do is steal share from those already in the space.
Taken the the extreme – what Yapta proposes is a world of flat fares – airlines wouldn’t survive in this environment.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
One of the problems that I see with this that greatly devalues the service for me is that I generally buy only very low fares (relative to all the fares available–e.g., an expensive fare for me is $350-400 and that’s rare). So even if the fare drops, after paying the fees ($50-100 or more) for the change, it’s rarely a profitable effort. Even if there is some gain, my time is probably more valuable than the $20 or so it would net me.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Thanks for this thoughtful comment. I think that the benefit that Yapta would theoretically provide the airlines is to lock in customers for future purchases. Their management suggested this in an interview with Business 2.0, here:
There’s something to that. If you’ve got a voucher in hand for, say, United, then you’re going to try to use it. So United gets your money twice: once for the original purchase, and once for the second flight, which will inevitably cost you more than the voucher.
I am not sure how this model would scale, but I can see the logic behind it. Theory, and practice, however, are very different…
May 18th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
This is a good point, too. Who is the market that Yapta is after? Since they’re targeting people who book their own travel, they’re presumably not going after the major corporate contract market. If it’s individual leisure travelers, then those folks, like you, are already aiming for the lowest prices when they purchase a ticket in the first place. The voucher game is rarely worth playing if you’re already at rockbottom fares.
I’m also wondering how many airlines this would actually work with in the first place. I know that United offers free vouchers when there are price drops. But others require change fees, and you are essentially cancelling your old ticket and buying a one. How large is this voucher “market”?
So again, while a good idea for consumers in theory, it’s not clear how it plays out in practice.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:10 am
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August 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Once again, another great post. I linked to you over here:
http://www.mahalo.com/How_to_Book_a_Cheap_Flight
Mahalo for all the great information you put out!
June 24th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
[...] Yapta, which tracks fare drops and alerts you when the published price goes down, Orbitz will [...]
July 30th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
[...] • The New York Times: How to Fly As a Courier (February 17, 2002) • Upgrade: Travel Better: Track airfare before and AFTER you buy? (May 16, 2007) • FareCompare: Same Day Cheapest Airline Ticket Refunds – Hype or Hope? • [...]
November 20th, 2008 at 5:23 am
[...] – Track airfare before and AFTER you buy? – Check in the mail: Orbitz refunds airfare price drops, but is it [...]
February 7th, 2009 at 11:34 am
From the UK you could try http://www.cheaponlineflights.com or for the low cost budget airlines like ryanair or easyjet Skyscanner.net is the best I have found so far.
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
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November 10th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
[...] Yapta, which tracks fare drops and alerts you when the published price goes down, Orbitz will [...]
November 10th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
[...] what I wrote when it was rolled out: Unlike Yapta, which tracks fare drops and alerts you when the published price goes down, Orbitz will [...]