Disclaimer: Since I work for Microsoft I guess I'm supposed to say this is a cool site, but I think it is anyway. Feel free to ignore my biased opinion and just give it a try for yourself. Unfortunately it is mainly covering continental US now, not the rest of the world.
Probably the thing that I am most interested in is the 'Flights' component. There you can select your home airport and one or more destinations, choose how long you want to stay and what your time window is and search for matching results. Farecast prepares a graph like the one below. The intention is to give you an idea of when the cheapest time to fly might be. The table below the graph indicates whether airfares are likely to go up or down. Unfortunately if you've been following US airline news recently you'll already know the answer to that question, but it is handy nonetheless.
It looks like it is better to leave for Chicago in earlier rather than later in June. By the way, airfares are going up.Many of the options are configurable including the length of stay, the exact airport, etc. etc.
The hotels section could also be useful, especially since it includes an option to compare against Expedia, Priceline, Hotwire, Orbitz and hotels.com. I've used some of these discount sites before, but not all at once in the search for the best hotel rate. Hopefully this means I'll really be able to get the best bargain rate for a decent hotel.
In the picture below I'm looking for hotels in San Francisco (I should go visit N & P). Here the hotels are color-coded by whether or not they are significantly discounted from their regular rate.
The hotels section could also be useful, especially since it includes an option to compare against Expedia, Priceline, Hotwire, Orbitz and hotels.com. I've used some of these discount sites before, but not all at once in the search for the best hotel rate. Hopefully this means I'll really be able to get the best bargain rate for a decent hotel.
In the picture below I'm looking for hotels in San Francisco (I should go visit N & P). Here the hotels are color-coded by whether or not they are significantly discounted from their regular rate.
Hotels in San Francisco. Hey, hotel #8 is a bargain (unfortunately it is still $161 / night though).
2 comments:
There's one big problem with this blog entry Col, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you've been taken by the dark side! I ask you: Why in the world would you be looking for hotels in SF when there is a perfectly empty room here in Palo Alto? It's not that far from the city!
Hey Pete, consider that to be 'for illustrative purposes'. Don't worry, I'm sure to take you up on your empty room offer.
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