This week, in our regular FOW story we take a deeper look into Bing Travel and a few of its key features that really differentiate Bing Travel. This feature is for US and Canadian departures only.
The Price Predictor
One of the more intelligent tools that makes Bing an effective decision engine is our Price Predictor. The Price Predictor helps users answer the key question of when is the right time to book my airline tickets. Based on more than 175 billion (and counting!) airfare observations, using real pricing and availability information, the Price Predictor helps users decide to buy now or wait.
Let’s see how it works using a sample search (conducted on July 10). From the Bing Travel homepage, enter your cities and dates, and click “search flights.” On the next screen, you’ll see results with specific itineraries, and to the left, an arrow with our buying recommendation.
In this example, the Price Predictor for a flight from Los Angeles to Denver recommends that you buy the listed fare, with a 79% confidence rate that fares would rise $50 or more over the next seven days. (And we were right! The fare jumped $82 during that week.) Click on the “details and fare history link” and you’ll see additional information that makes it easy for you to decide whether to buy now or wait:
· details about the price prediction and confidence rates
· the daily fare history for this itinerary
How do we get all of this data? Every day, Bing Travel gathers millions of potential trip itineraries from a variety of airfare information sources. We track more than 2,500 combinations of origin and destination cities — from U.S. and Canadian departures to destinations worldwide — for trips of up to 21 nights over as long as a 180-day period. We crunch all of this information in order to show you the airfare history and create our price predictions for a given market. It may sound complicated, but it’s all aimed at making your travel search simple — so you can find the best deals and have confidence about when to buy your tickets. And, with the money you save, you will be able to start planning your next trip that much sooner!
The Hotel Rate Indicator
Unlike the Price Predictor, the Hotel Rate Indicator doesn’t project whether the cost of a room will go up or down on the dates you want to stay; instead, it compares the current rates to past rates for that hotel, helping you buy with confidence. Let’s work through another example search for hotels in Las Vegas.
From Bing Travel, search hotels in Las Vegas for your dates. On the search results page, you can filter by the number of stars, amenities, brand or geographical location. Then, click “open map” to see a visual layout of the available hotels for your selections:
In the above example (the search was conducted on July 27), for hotels for Labor Day weekend the pinpoints are colored to indicate value for money:
· the green color indicates a “deal”
· the yellow color shows this hotels has an “average rate”
· the red color indicates the cost per night at this hotel is “not a deal”
Mouse over each property and you can see the specific prices and star ratings. The Hotel Rate Indicator is also great for travelers with flexible dates. Click on the hotel listing to see the average rates for weekends before and after the dates you originally picked:
Here the Rate Indicator shows that you could actually stay at this property for about half the cost, by going the previous weekend. Mouse over the short green bar and you’ll see that the average rate is only $169. Now that’s a deal! Just be sure not to squander all your savings at the blackjack table.
Flexible search tools
Along with Bing Travel’s Price Predictor and Hotel Rate Indicator we also have flexible search tools that can save you money on flights when you haven’t decided exactly when or where you want to go.
First, let’s suppose you’re thinking about a trip to Hawaii in September, but haven’t yet settled on when to go. From the Bing Travel homepage, scroll down to the “plan trips” section, and select your departure and destination cities. On the next screen, you’ll see a graph with the lowest fares over a 30-day range. Under “refine results” in the left column, you can change your dates or your trip length, and compare the fares to those that are available to additional airports:
In this example (the search was done on Aug. 3), we can tell that the lowest possible fares to Hawaii in September are for departures on Sept. 2, 12, 15, 20 or 26. And you can see that the lowest fares are for flights into Honolulu (the blue line), and that fares to Maui (the red line) are generally, but not always, lower than fares to Kona (the green line). If you were to click on one of the circles, you’ll get details for that fare, as well as a link to search for specific flights. It’s that easy to find the lowest possible price to multiple destinations over a range of dates.
Now let’s suppose that you’re truly flexible, not just on when you travel but also on where you go. Say you live in Kansas City, and have a budget of $200 for airfare. Where can you go? From Bing Travel’s flexible search page, go to the left column under “refine results” and select your departure city, a 30-day date range, your desired trip length and even a maximum price. The map displays all of the cities to which there are fares that meet your criteria.
In the above example you could fly from Kansas City, round-trip to Denver for just $129, or all the way to Baltimore for just $168. Check out the arrow next to each fare, which indicates our price prediction over the next seven days, and then click the search link to find and book specific flights.
Until now, you may not have realized just how many places you can go when you don’t have a lot of money to spare. And even better, Bing Travel’s flexible search tools are a foolproof way to make sure you stay within your travel budget — whether you’re searching for sunshine in Hawaii or looking to escape the heartland for the coast.