I consider myself to be pretty savvy when it comes to finding plane tickets online. That being said, I have a last-minute trip to CA coming up and I need to get the cheapest price possible. Thus far, the best deals I’m finding are just over $300. I know I paid $100 less than that every time I flew from the bay area to Denver before I moved here. Has something changed? Did fares go way up in the last 9 months?
Anyhow, I have always been leery of priceline. I’ve used hotwire successfully before, but even hotwire seems to be failing me now. Has anyone had good luck with Priceline? I have to be back on a certain day and I prefer to fly out after work on Friday next week. I think this is what’s keeping my flights so high sigh.
I’ve used priceline a few times. First two times, I saved quite a bit, but the last time, I paid almost $400 to fly from Boston to Washington and back. Saved a little bit, but not as much as usual. The one problem with Priceline is that you have to be a bit flexible to really get a good deal usually. Good luck!
This is an awsome search engine and always finds the lowest rate for me. It requires a small downloaded program that is spyware free and very clean .Don’t be afraid to use it!!! It searches many different search engines like orbits,cheaptickets etc. It’s the best around!!
I’ve only had luck with Priceline for getting hotel rooms. For plane tickets I’ve had better luck with Hotwire and Orbitz. Before you buy on Hotwire, check out Orbitz. I know they’re the same company. Some times Hotwire can beat out Orbitz price, sometimes it can’t.
It doesn’t hurt to put in a bid through Priceline. Just remember that it doesn’t include the taxes, which tend to rack up.
I’ve had great luck on Priceline for car rentals. A little less luck with them for airline tickets, but still not bad…went from New York to San Francisco at $94.00 each way last January.
Another decent-but-not-great engine is at qixo.com. They allow you to enable an agent that searches against trip parameters and reports back after a period of time you specify.
Problem is, none of the typical internet sites is going to give you a good deal at the last minute; it’s just the way airlines structure their fares. And yes, the prices have gone up a lot in the last year, and many of the incentives and special deals have been cut back.
Kieras is correct, though, about the package option. Expedia (for example) offers combinations that, under certain circumstances, save you quite a bit of money if you buy air plus hotel versus what they’d cost if you bought them separately. You might check into that.
Thanks for your input, everyone. I think I’m going to wait and get Frontier’s deal for the weekend (I’m going next weekend). I’m just wary of being stuck paying for something that I don’t have any control over–I do have some restraints for times, which is why I didn’t go with hotwire.
Try southwest.com - all the times I’ve flown recently, they were cheaper than any of the “discount” services. Then again, I never bought last-minute tickets.
