Cheap Travel Guide

Yapta.com could save you hidden money on your airfare

Did you know that if you pay for an plane ticket and the airline later reduces the price for that flight, you can get a refund for the difference? I sure didn’t.

But how do you find out if your ticket would be eligible for this price drop refund? Go to the travel site Yapta.com and sign up for their free service.

All you have to do is enter your flight information and the price you paid for your tickets. Yapta will then track that flight for you. If the airline drops the fare before your trip, Yapta will let you know and tell you how to get the refund.

To see how airline fares bounce around, click on the Farecast.com link here or in the column on the left side of this blog. Farecast will let you know the probability of your fare being lowered. Yapta will also let you track flight numbers and they will alert you if the fare changes but Farecast I think does a better job of showing you the big picture by depicting the flight’s price history and probability of change.

One downside to Yapta, which admittedly is in Beta, is that it is only available at this time for Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Firefox and Mac versions are in development however.

The User’s Agreement you have to acknowledge requires that you agree this is for your personal use only, not for commercial use - you can’t resell the service for example.

Once you have signed up (it’s free) you will see a list of airlines and travel sites such as Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity. Priceline is not included, nor are Northwest and foreign airlines. I suppose this will change as time goes by.

I have not tried this service yet but when I have the opportunity to do so, I’ll write a follow-up entry

(c) 2007 Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus Inn

grunberghaus.com