Paid Too Much For An Airline Ticket? FairFly Can Find A Better Deal, Get Refund

Traveling is fun; planning a trip is not, especially during the summer peak season. Every detail of a trip can take hours to be decided upon and can leave you with a headache. And this frustration starts with the first step of any trip: Buying an airline ticket.

By Meital Goldberg, NoCamels 

The cost of any plane ticket will fluctuate from the moment the flight becomes available until the flight takes off, but most people don’t bother to find out if the fare has changed. According to FairFly, an Israeli mobile and Web app dedicated to helping you find the best possible fare after you’ve booked, 88 percent of people don’t check the cost of flights once the ticket has been bought.

Many people have heard the trick that buying a ticket on a Tuesday afternoon for a trip in six weeks’ time will get them the best fare; another rumor says booking exactly five months in advance will do the trick. But, unfortunately, there is no magic bullet.

$100 billion in overpayment 

Overall, people overpay roughly $100 billion a year because they don’t check the prices after they booked an airline ticket, according to a 2015 report by Business Insider. Fortunately, the founders of FairFly were aware of the situation and decided to find a way to help people save money.

Using FairFly is a simple process. Once you’ve booked your flight, you need to send a copy of your itinerary to the FairFly team at trips@fairfly.com. They will immediately put your flight into the system and start scanning for lower fares. You can add as many flights as you want.

Car tech fast lane? Why automobile makers are rushing to Israel

Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and others are seeking out technology and expertise from the Israeli automotive startup scene.
By David Shamah for Tel Aviv Tech

Israel probably isn't the first place you'd think of for car technology. But it's a big player in the Internet of Things, and as cars become more automated and connected to the cloud, Israel is also emerging as a hub for automobile technology.

Nearly all the large Japanese manufacturers, and many American and European car makers, are opening R&D centers in and around Tel Aviv.

And as part of that process, manufacturers are discovering that Israel is good at other things, too. Honda Silicon Valley Lab ‎senior program director Nick Sugimoto says on a recent visit he's been looking at "a lot of interesting tech in a wide variety of areas: battery technology, materials technology, IT, connected vehicles, and more. Israel is very good at all of these, and more".

Honda is just the latest car company to take an interest in what Israeli startups can do to give them an edge in the evolving connected car technology ecosystem.

With more cars sporting internet connections, either onboard or via Bluetooth or USB connections to a connected device, there's been a growing demand for apps to keep drivers connected, but in a safe manner.

At a hackathon in Tel Aviv, for example, top Ford executive Scott Lyons said while the company wanted good apps, safety is a priority, both in terms of driving and from a cybersecurity point of view.

Ford's AppLink is probably the richest mobile app platform currently available. The company decided to run a hackathon in Israel because of developers' expertise both in connected IoT tech, and cybersecurity, another area where Israel excels, according to Lyons.

Other companies that have held hackathons or development events in Israel over the past year include Toyota and Hyundai, and like Sugimoto, they were first attracted to Israel by two locally-developed technologies that have now become more or less standard for drivers and vehicles: Waze and Mobileye.