name you own price flights - times?

[BonSchwe]

Has anyone ever named their own price for airline tickets - the ones that won't tell you your itenerary until the tickets are purchased? The price is good but I hesitate to use them because I'm not sure what to expect. Any experience out there with these?

 

[inkkognito]

We use Priceline extensively for hotel rooms and rental cars, but not for flights. Don't do it unless you are VERY flexible. Often, you will arrive very late and have to leave very early. If you don't want to potentially miss a day or two of your vacation, it's better to just book plane tickets the convention way. For more info. check out www.biddingfortravel.com
Barb

 

[Dopey & Grumpy]

We've used Priceline for our Vermont trips because we're flexible there but I would never use any web site that doesn't give you the time of your flights until you book it when we go to Florida.

We just got a great fare from Pittsburgh to Orlando for $262.80 for both of us on My Yahoo web page. This is for January and they're showing dates out to the middle of February. We had to leave a day earlier but, hey, this is Florida and I'm sure we'll find something to do. <a href='http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb008_ZSxdm163' target='_blank'><img src='http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_1_112.gif' border=0></a>

Go to this site and scroll down the page until you see Best Fares on the left hand side. Just put in the airports your flying from and to and the number of passengers. Another page comes up with prices. I'm not sure if you have to get an account with Yahoo or not but the account is free and we've gotten some really good air fares there. We're flying Continental so they're major airlines and we've never had a problem.

 

[treloarf]

I'm trying to get to Tampa for Feb 6 & it seems the fares are over 200 - but I want to go Fri - Sat. I'd like to come back Sun. but it's over 250.

I'm wondering if I should go ahead & book?

 

[Kevenswife2]

I went through Hotwire for my air tickets. I did not know which carrier or times until after purchase. Thankfully my flights are a straight shot on Delta. No stops or connections. We arrive at MCO at 6:20 pm, which isn't too late. What I don't like is my 6:40 AM trip home. That's too early for me, but I am happy with my tickets. Delta's website had the same itenerary for over $100 more each, and saving money always makes me happy!

 

[NotUrsula]

For a vacation, the best way to work Priceline or Hotwire for airfare is to consider your travel days a total writeoff, rather as if you were driving. If you NEED those days to be part of your vacation, then you are better off not doing an air auction, unless you can auction a pkg.

So, if you want to take a 5-day, 4-nite WDW vacation, plan to be gone from home for 6 nites. As an example, if your vacation is Saturday thru Wednesday, you should plan to fly down on Friday and fly back on Thursday. Calculate the extra time off work, if any, into the price you are willing to pay.

These services work great for rentals and hotel nights, but not nearly as well for air tickets. Not only are the times sometimes bad, but the ticket restrictions can be brutal. I've only bought air tickets once this way, and due to a situation with airport security, we missed the outbound flight. Because we bought it on HW, AA would not less us standby for it: it cost us an add'l $1000 to get on another plane for that trip, and that solution was only offered after we spoke to 3 supervisors with our sobbing toddler in tow, and essentially begged for all we were worth. (The trip was to California.)

 

[Kevenswife2]

Hmmm...the above post doesn't make me feel very good. Guess that's another reason to arrive at the airport extra early.