<p>For someone without the experience of booking travel on the net, it’s quite possible that they will find a better fare through a travel agent. For someone more experienced, it could make things much easier and maybe cheaper.</p>
<p>Our travel agent started charging a surcharge to all plane tickets booked without a coordinating package (i.e., hotel, cruise, etc.), so most of the time I just do it myself. I am Platinum Elite with American and usually travel first class so booking directly with the airline usually gets me the same rate regardless of who I book it through and saves me a considerable amount of time.</p>
<p>rodney - You sound like an old hand at this. I’ll give that “after midnight” a shot. FWIW, what makes this booking particularly unruly are the constraints: (1) must fly on a Friday before noon, (2) there must be a later flight on the same airline in case the booked flight is canceled (3) must have two tickets, one RT and the other one-way, and (4) return trip must be on same flight as return leg of DW’s Wednesday RT flight. Piece of cake, so long as flights and prices are stable for twenty minutes!</p>
<p>I use kayak.com to look for the best deals on flights. They then direct you to the airlines website to purchase. And yes, cheapest fairs are on Tues and Wed.</p>
<p>I was just on Orbitz a few minutes ago, and looked at their Low Price Guarantee (or something similarly named). If you buy a ticket, then someone else buys a ticket on that same flight thru Orbitz for less than you paid, they will pay you the difference. Sounds great until you realize that the odds of someone buying the exact same round trip as you, on the same days and same flights, is really really tiny.</p>
<p>Virgin has great prices right now. Just booked a flight a few minutes ago for dd to come home for a weekend wedding party, Boston to Los Angeles, for $189, non-stop, flying Thursday and Monday. ( the Sunday return was $100 more.)</p>
<p>When my DD was planning her trip back to school after the Christmas break (flight in late Jan) we were trying to come up with a deal on a more direct route. She already had a Southwest ticket, but we were looking for better flight times.</p>
<p>On Allegiant, I came up with a fare, plus seat fee, baggage fee, online booking fee, etc made it about $90…by the time we went back to book it, it was $150 out hte door, watching it over the next few weeks it went to over $300…the day before her flight it was back to $28 base fare, out the door at $60!</p>
<p>The airlines people told me it NEVER goes down, but it did that time, though we have tried to repeat that since with no luck</p>
<p>Just wanted to report that I waited til Tuesday to book D’s flight home and also noticed that flying on Tuesday was almost half of flying on Monday. So, D is coming home a day later. Thanks, CC-ers, you’ve saved me a bundle!</p>
<p>^^^ I also booked on Tuesday. Rates were reasonable (not great but …). Equally important, they stayed stable for the time I needed to get everyone booked. On the other hand, I checked the prices this morning and they are one-third less. Guess I’ll call the airline.</p>
<p>^ The saga continues. I called the airline … $150 change fee, which is more than the difference. I called the online site through which I booked … they said since it’s within 24 hours, we can cancel. I checked two Web Site, yep the lower price still shows on both. “OK, cancel the reservation.” Done, confirmed. Back to Web Site #1 … all cheap flights now gone, for all airlines not the one I just cancelled. I try kayak and YES, the airline web site is showing cheap seats. Open a new window and go to the airline website. YES, there are the seats at the lower price. SELECT … wait … wait … Sorry, the seats you requested are no longer available. This would be funny if it weren’t so sad.</p>
<p>^ Ah Banner Ad for Che*ptickets. Click it. Multiple good options. SELECT … wait … wait … web site return to flights page. Hmmm. SELECT … “unable to confirm price with airline, please choose another flight” — except ALL the cheap flights have disappeared, and the now cheapest flight is three times as expensive and at an inconvenient time.</p>
<p>On a positive note, this morning I found an American flight for GF for a little less than S’s ticket. Wasn’t there one of the 50 times I checked yesterday. She’s in/out of an alternate airport and will have to spend the last day alone with us :eek: as her flight leaves in the evening and his in the morning, but it looks like it will all work out. I do love that you can put an AA ticket on hold for 24 hours although I did have to call S VERY early his time to make sure I was spelling her last name correctly, because heaven forbid you type in a name wrong it is very costly to change. I emailed the kids the hold reservation and now it’s up to them.</p>
<p>Be careful on those companies that offer last minute travel deals. Airlines will bump you first when they are oversold even though you hold a ticket and a reservation. They will put you on another flight but it can ruin your plans.</p>
<p>I paid for D’s Thanksgiving travel (yay - Alaska non-stop!), because my last year’s experience has shown that prices for Thanksgiving tix had only one trend - up and up. I also scooped cheap tickets for her to go home using the vouchers from JetBlue (grrr, JetBlue).</p>