Farecast (acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

and rebranded Live Search Farecast in 2008, then Bing Travel in 2009, and finally MSN Travel in 2015, when its underlying technology had been discontinued) was an airfare prediction website in the

computer reservations system Computer reservation systems, or central reservation systems (CRS), are computerized systems used to store and retrieve information and conduct transactions related to air travel, hotels, car rental, or other activities. Originally designed and ope ...

industry. It launched in beta in 2006 and premiered to the public on May 15, 2007. Until 2014, it offered predictions regarding the best time to purchase airline tickets.

History

Farecast was founded in 2003; Farecast's team of data miners used airfare observations to build algorithms to predict future airfare price movements. Founded by

Oren Etzioni Oren Etzioni (born 1964) is Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of Washington, and founding CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2). Etzioni is a co-founder oVercept an AI startup. Etzioni is the found ...

, it launched in beta in 2006 and premiered to the public on May 15, 2007. In April 2008, Farecast was acquired by

for $115 million. Microsoft officially integrated it as part of its

Live Search Microsoft Bing (also known simply as Bing) is a search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service traces its roots back to Microsoft's earlier search engines, including MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search. Bing offers a ...

group of tools in May 2008. On June 3, 2009, Microsoft officially rebranded "Live Search Farecast" as "Bing Travel" as part of its efforts to create a new search identity with

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

. In 2009, there were allegations that Bing Travel had copied its layouts from

Kayak ] A kayak is a small, narrow human-powered watercraft typically propelled by means of a long, double-bladed paddle. The word ''kayak'' originates from the Inuktitut word '' qajaq'' (). In British English, the kayak is also considered to be ...

; Microsoft denied the allegations. In January 2014, the airfare prediction feature, which was previously the flagship feature of Farecast, was removed from Bing Travel. In May 2015, Microsoft rebranded "Bing Travel" to "MSN Travel" and, for some time, redirected the Bing Travel website to MSN Travel. In August 2015, however, Microsoft shut down its MSN#Discontinued apps, MSN Travel app, and the MSN Travel flight search pages changed from being powered by

to competitor

Skyscanner Skyscanner Ltd. is a British search aggregator and travel agency based in Edinburgh, Scotland and operating since 2002. History The company was formed by three information technology professionals. The Edinburgh office was opened in 2004. In ...

. Microsoft later shut down the MSN Travel website entirely, but as of 2025,

retains
Bing Travel
search section on its website.

References

External links

Archived website

Bing Travel
American travel websites Transport companies established in 2006 Internet properties established in 2006 Travel ticket search engines {{travel-website-stub