Flying Low

I just discovered Yahoo! Next, which is apparently a sort of Google Labs-like proving ground for developing technologies.

One of the things Y! is cooking up is a service called FareChase, which does a good job of aggregating prices from various airline sites and breaking them out by time/price and other factors. It’s a good idea, especially when the airlines are only offering their best fares on their own sites and not the Tr/Ex/Or triumvirate. However, it needs to search a lot more airlines and allow for more flexible dates (I really like the +/-1 day feature on Orbitz, and like it even better on Travelocity, since you can do entire months, as well as choose non-U.S. destinations.)

What I really want to see is a fare chaser to which I can say “I usually fly from ORD, what’s a good deal right now?” Often, I don’t care about dates, or even destinations. As my friends can attest, I’m open to going just about anywhere.

Which is why I find the whole days/destination prompt so limiting.

Hit Me With It