New fare tracking tool
 

Some Seattle people have launched a new fare tracking tool that looks pretty interesting - www.yapta.com. Apparently it's able to track both purchased and planned itineraries and sends you an email if the price goes down - even if you're due a refund. It also tracks prices returned on some of the online travel agencies like Orbitz or Expedia.

Read about it here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...2_yapta22.html

Gardyloo, I saw your post and decided to try this service out. I tagged several flights on different airlines from Atlanta to New York (LGA) in July for Christmas travel (12/25-29) At that time the flights were $318 roundtrip.

I have had several notifications of lower prices, and today was the lowest yet: $240 RT on American, with good non-stop flights at the times I wanted.

Since our group grew to 11, however, I went through the group sales at Air Tran last month and got round trips for $220.00. Nevertheless, I plan to use it for future flights. The Yapta tracker is easy to use and does exactly what it is advertised to do, and is free. Thank you for posting about it. :)

Has anyone been able to actually purchase the tickets at the lower price? I've tagged some flights for Mom coming from DAB to BDL for thanksgiving, and I've received numerous notices of a drop in price - but have not yet had any luck in actually <b>finding</b> the lower price to buy.

Am I doing something wrong

<font color="green">Cyn</font>

Cyn, when I got this latest email from Yapta I was curious about that, too, so I followed the link and went through the whole process as though I was going to buy (although I didn't, we'd already gotten tickets). I could have purchased them at the price in the email.

The email had just arrived, though...I would say that you'd have to jump on the link immediately to get the fares.

I have used it as well but I find it does not tag some international airlines.
Lufthansa for example is one. Any hints?
I have booked using it and it worked fine but I wonder just how your going to fare trying to get a refund anyone tried that
if the fare was lowered?

Because of yapta, many airlines are revising their rebooking rules. So, it actually hasn't been good news for the frequent flyers that were aware of the possibility of getting refunds before there was yapta.

unfortunately, it looks like the tagger only works for people using windoze and internet explorer - I am on a Mac using firefox. Has anyone else not on a windoze machine/software had any luck?

rkkwan -- do you know if UA has revised their policy of giving a voucher if the price drops? I have feared that a revision in their policies might happen once Yapata entered the picture.

I am not familiar with UA's policy, but there was an article on WSJ about 2 months ago listing all the refund options from US airlines, <b>and</b> recent changes that add the fees.

Thanks -- I'll check out the article. I am getting conflicting answers from UA--no surprise there!

I have never had any success with any of the fare tracking programs. Generally the e-mail is time stamped very early AM -- maybe 1 or 2 AM, and when I access around 6 or 7 AM, the fare is gone -- if it even existed. I have no way of knowing.