Any tips on finding reasonable flights?

[RadioNate]

We've never had a problem booking flights for less than $300 a person before. However we just booked a trip for 7/15-22 and we can't find flights less than $350 and those are at horrible times with massive (3+ hour) layovers.

Unfortunately with kids in school and husbands with strict work schedules this is the only time the group can go.

We need 11 tickets and at $400 a pop and next to no deals from disney our budget is maxed out. Any hints for finding lower fares?

ETA we can fly out of San Antonio or Austin TX and I'm not opposed to flying into Tampa or Clearwater/St Pete if the savings are worth it.

 

[Kitty-chan]

It sounds like you're experienced travellers/shoppers, so you've probably already tried kayak.com, sidestep.com, and cheaptickets.com?

It seems to me that the industry is in a long-predicted shift. The airlines are making fewer of the deep-discount seats available, and generally raising prices a bit. I travel a lot for work, and I'm not finding as many cheap tickets as I used to; for example, last year I was regularly finding Boston -> LA for about $270 on major carriers, whereas this year I'm not finding many flights below $340 for that route.

 

[PB'sMOM]

I just did a quick search for you on your dates at Southwest website and if you can fly out of Houston into Tampa you can get RT for $194.10 pp. You can only book up to 8 reservations/seats at one time on the website-but there were at least 8 available when I checked on several different flight times. Hope that helps.

Cindy

 

[RadioNate]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I ended up finding a fare for $208 (including taxes) out of Austin so we jumped on it. The times are not ideal but for the savings we can make it work.

Unfortunately with gas prices on the rise and the airlines already in financial trouble it looks like we are going to have to get used to paying more.