MSN Travel (website)

MSN Travel

Bing Travel homepage
Type of site
 Travel services
Owner Microsoft
Website www.msn.com/travel/flights
Launched September 15, 2010 (2010-09-15)

MSN Travel (previously Bing Travel, Live Search Farecast, and Farecast.com) is an airfare prediction website in the computer reservations system industry. Bing Travel premiered to the public as Farecast on May 15, 2007. MSN Travel offers predictions regarding the best time to purchase airline tickets.[1]

History

Logo of Farecast.

Farecast was founded four years before its launch in 2003; according to Farecast, it had collected over 175 billion airfare observations as of 2007.[2] Farecast's team of data miners used these airfare observations to build algorithms to predict future airfare price movements.

In April 2008, Farecast was bought by Microsoft at a price believed to be around $75 million to 115 million.[3] Microsoft officially integrated it as part of its Live Search 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.[4]

As of May 2015, Microsoft has rebranded Bing Travel to MSN Travel. The link now redirects to the MSN Travel website.[5]

In August 2015, MSN Travel flight search pages changed from being powered by KAYAK to their competitor Skyscanner

Controversy

In 2009, there were allegations that Bing Travel had copied its layouts from Kayak.com. Microsoft denied the allegations and stated that "Bing Travel is based on independent development by Microsoft and Farecast.com, which Microsoft acquired in 2008. Any contrary allegations are without merit."[6] By January 2013, Bing Travel results were powered by KAYAK.com, as noted by this copy at the bottom of search results: "Results powered by KAYAK.com".

As of January 2014, the fare prediction feature had been removed.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mohl, Bruce (2006-06-04). "While other sites list airfares, newcomer forecasts where they're headed". boston.com.
  2. ↑ "Farecast.com Launches Airfare Deals Based On Science, Not Marketing". Farecast.com. 2007-03-13.
  3. ↑ "Microsoft buys travel search site". theregister.co.uk. 2008-04-18.
  4. ↑ Johnson, Nathania (1 June 2009). "Bing's Best Features are the Ones You Didn't Know Existed on Live Search.". Search Engine Watch.
  5. ↑ O'Neill, Sean (20 January 2015). "Microsoft all but closes Bing Travel, expands MSN Travel.". TNOOZ.
  6. ↑ "Kayak to Bing: Stop Copying Us! - Update". wired.com. June 24, 2009.
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