Fare Watchers: On the Right Track?

Just about every Internet travel site these days purports to offer a system that tracks airfares and signals you when a fare matches your ballpark price.

"Set your price," Orbitz says of its DealDetector. "We'll find a match and alert you."

"Fare Alert allows users to track an unlimited number of trip itineraries and receive email notification when the fare meets or beats a traveler's specified price," promises Kayak.com's Buzz Alert.

"When you set up a Farecast Alert, we will notify you via email of the latest low fares available," says Farecast.com. "All you have to do is specify your cities, dates, how often you wish to be alerted, and how long you wish to receive your Farecast Alerts."

Sounds wonderful. But can these alerts replace the proven system of poking around the Internet on multiple sites before settling on -- and booking -- the right flight? We tested five popular sites, and while some perform better than others, there was one overriding result: We'd use them to save time and point us in the right direction, yet none could totally replace a few solid hours of self-directed hunting. Here's how the alerts stack up. -- Carol Sottili

Expedia's Fare Alert (www.expedia.com)

How It Works: Must be downloaded and works only with Windows XP. When it finds a fare that meets or beats your price limit, a small window pops up briefly to notify you. Double-click on the icon that looks like a ball of yarn to see the latest low fare between your chosen cities.

What We Liked: It's easy to check whenever the mood strikes. Also automatically checks for flight-and-hotel packages.

What We Don't Like: Can't search for specific dates. Covers only 46 domestic airports, although the list keeps increasing. Can't search using the Washington (WAS) airport designation, which covers Washington Dulles, Reagan National and BWI. Can designate only one city pair.

Grade: D+ (but shows promise)

Farecast's Farecast Alerts (www.farecast.com)

How It Works: When you do a search between cities, Farecast.com gives you the option to create a Farecast Alert. Search can be set up by specific dates, with departure and return two to eight nights apart, or for weekend-only fares (Friday-Sunday). Can request daily or weekly e-mail notifications, or be alerted when fare drops to a specific amount. Can request it to send alerts indefinitely, or by specific date or number of months.

What We Liked: Most technically sophisticated alert system of the bunch. Comes with lots of extras, including prediction of whether fare is going to rise or drop, plus a graph showing historic fare trends. Weekend searches also available. Very accurate.

What We Didn't Like: Can't search by WAS; instead, must plug in only one of the area airports at a time. Searches limited to 79 domestic cities and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Trip length request must be eight days or shorter.