Historical Air Fares

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

Is there a site that shows historical air fares? If so, what is the website(s)?

Thanks.

[Pit Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pit]

This one does ...

FareCompare

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

I have never been able to get that site to do what I'm thinking other people say it can do.

I've been trying to figure out how to determine when I might be able to find the lowest price for BOS to KOA for a trip in June. I can see the current best prices, but not the historical information so that I can estimate when the prices for such a trip will be lowest.

Can someone give me some detailed instructions?

Thanks in advance.

Sue

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

One of the members sent me this link:

Find the best times to travel with Hotwire's Tripstarter

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

Thanks for that link. My travel dates are fixed so finding the least expensive time to travel isn't my objective.

What I'd like to find out is how to determine when the best time to purchase airfare for my trip would be. For instance, are prices for June travel generally lowest 2 months before, 6 months before, 12 months before, etc. Maybe I'm asking more than what's available, but I was hoping that historical databases might help.

Last year I bought a business class ticket from Boston to London about a year in advance. It turns out that the price then was nearly the lowest for the entire year leading up to the trip. Was it a fluke? I don't know. I'd like to make an educated guess instead of crossing my fingers and purchasing.

Thanks,
Sue

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

2 year historical matrix for BOS-KOA

Woof!

Pat

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

Thanks a bunch, Pat. I still don't know how you got that, but it's exactly what I've been looking for ever since I first heard about Farecompare.com.

Sue

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

How do you do the historical comparison?

[Pit Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pit]

From the home page, put in the departure and arrival cities, then click the little circle next to "Research Cheapest Airfares", then click the "Find Airfares" button.

Once that page loads, find the graph near the bottom of the page, and click the link at the top of the graph "Advanced Historical Graphs". From there, you can explore various time frames and adv purchase fares.

HTH

[EvelynK72 Member Find all posts View Profile Close EvelynK72]

2 year historical matrix for BOS-KOA

Woof!

Pat

At first glance, I thought Wow! this is great. But as I looked at the chart/graph and played with it, I was totally confused. If you look at the graph that Pat linked to - with the "Lowest" and "2 year" tables highlighted, then you see a chart of the lowest price for this itinerary over the 2 year period. This is useful information to evaluate where a current fare stands relative to the lowest fare possible over a 2 year period. However, this table doesn't address the question posted by Falmouth3 - how do you know if the lowest fare to your destination becomes available 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, etc. before your departure date? I, too, find it frustrating to book a flight and then find lower fares 1 month later. Wish there was a more scientific way to determine that!!

Evelyn

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

I read that 4-5 months before is generally the best time to buy. However, within the last week, the fares are higher than they've been since I started watching last July. Sheesh.

Sue

[jrdc Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jrdc]

...This is useful information to evaluate where a current fare stands relative to the lowest fare possible over a 2 year period. However, this table doesn't address the question posted by Falmouth3 - how do you know if the lowest fare to your destination becomes available 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, etc. before your departure date? I, too, find it frustrating to book a flight and then find lower fares 1 month later. Wish there was a more scientific way to determine that!!

Evelyn

There is...sort of.

Unfortunately, trying to figure that out might not be any better than trying to predict the weather, but I've read about (haven't used extensively yet) Farecast which tries to predict what a particular itinerary price is going to do in the short-term (it's only 7 days) based on historical info from a number of different sources. They do have an "insurance" policy you can buy, but it only covers the next 7 days, not the entire time before your departure date.

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

Most mileage runners use spreadsheets to farecast. I personally do it in my head, as I only have a few specific "pet" routes that I prefer. IME, except for mistake fares, most fare "sales" are good only 3-6 months from publication. Farecompare does have the ability to publish such a matrix and I hope they will once moving to a subscription model (it's currently free). I use them and ExpertFlyer (a subscription service) for every flight I book, whether for myself or for others. They've been very, very good to me.

As an example, even though prices are generally up, my pet domestic routes are seeing 3.6-4.7CPM's through early March, so 60 days or so on these "sales", which are similar to such over the last two years.

Pat