Website for past air prices?

[phabric]

Is there a website that shows air prices in the past?

[CruiserBruce]

Never heard of one. It would be a tremendous data base, as a given flight might have 20 different fares, then X number of flights that day, and Y number of airlines flying that route. Then Z number of different routes to get the same place. Huge amount of data.

 

If you are thinking past prices have something to do with current prices, they don't. No correlation.

[bUU]

Well, kindasorta. While there are no 100% working analogs, things like when a fares go up/down for a specific route at a specific time of year at a specific time of day do tend to follow similar patterns most years. This is precisely the kind of data we have and take advantage of regarding cruises. However, as you said, there would be too much data to cost-effectively support a free service for flyers to access the data.

[Gardyloo]

Never heard of one. It would be a tremendous data base, as a given flight might have 20 different fares...

 

More like 50.

[TruckerDave]

Just curious as to why one would want to know this. What one paid last week/month/year/decade has nothing to do with what one might pay next week/month/year/decade.

[GICNJC]

I use hopper. It suggests low medium or high prices going forward past on historical data

[FlyerTalker]

At one time, FareCompare had extensive searchable historic data. Have not checked lately, but perhaps one may find something if you poke around there.

[parody]

A website that does much of what you want is http://www.faredetective.com/farehistory/

 

I don't believe you can get fares for every possible fare class but it is extremely useful in showing the historical patterns of average fares over time which can be quite helpful in determining the value of buying a fare now or waiting.

[waterbug123]

Never heard of one. It would be a tremendous data base, as a given flight might have 20 different fares, then X number of flights that day, and Y number of airlines flying that route. Then Z number of different routes to get the same place. Huge amount of data.

If you are thinking past prices have something to do with current prices, they don't. No correlation.

 

Not to mention that to really be helpful, it would need to show how many seats a particular airline actually made available for each fare class on each date on each route, AND tell you WHEN each seat in that fare class was sold. To simply say "these are the fares that were available to go XXX-YYY on such and such date" doesn't really tell you much as far as helping you decide when to buy in tbe future.

[$hip$hape]

Not to mention that to really be helpful, it would need to show how many seats a particular airline actually made available for each fare class on each date on each route, AND tell you WHEN each seat in that fare class was sold. To simply say "these are the fares that were available to go XXX-YYY on such and such date" doesn't really tell you much as far as helping you decide when to buy in tbe future.

 

"As airlines become more adept at gathering and exploiting data, I shudder to think what “interesting facts” of human behavior they will start to factor into their pricing strategies.

Fares will stop being linked to variables such as seats already sold and start fluctuating according to how many times your mom has texted you to ask if you’ve bought your ticket yet, and how guilty you feel that you haven’t.":o

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/06/cookie-monsters-why-your-browsing-history-could-mean-rip-off-prices

Edited December 6, 2016 by $hip$hape