Who has used Hotwire to book a flight?

[Anal Annie]

I am having hot flashes over the cost of airfare this week. We are going to DL for a few nights this summer before heading to Aulani so airfare is a major chunk of change. I'd been watching air for awhile (on kayak and airfare watchdog) but I didn't want to purchase it until I was able to hit my DVC 7 month window to get everything booked. Didn't want to put the cart before the horse and I couldn't finish my booking until Monday morning. Just late last week I saw some round trips between HNL and LAX for $454 and there was a one-way from DC to LAX on SW for $186. This week the $454 flight is like $516 or something like that and the $186 one went up to $285!! The cheapest one-way I can find now between DC and LA is $230. The best round trips on the majors are around $350-400ish (and on plane types that I hate).

Anyway, I just did ANOTHER search and there's a deal on Hotwire for $403 between LAX and HNL. Of course the problem is you have NO idea what time the flights are as they list a 12 hour window. I'm kinda picky about that. Is there any way to narrow down which flights they may be for? It's tempting to save over $100 pp. Just not sure I'm comfortable with the idea so I'm looking for someone who's used them for airfare. How did it turn out? Did the flight times suck? How was the experience?

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I would never book a flight where I didn't first know the airline, flight time, and seat availability.

 

[Anal Annie]

I would never book a flight where I didn't first know the airline, flight time, and seat availability.

You are apparently not alone....nobody else seems to have ever tried them for flights either. Today their price was $407 compared to the lowest published fare of $516. Sigh.

 

[rwdavis2]

IMHO, i would never book airfare through a third party site(hot wire, Travelocity,etc). When something goes wrong you end you end up with the agent and the airline pointing fingers at each other. It is not worth the risk.

 

[goofy4tink]

I refuse to book anyplace other than with the airline directly!! I have heard way too many horror stories from people that used a middle man and had nothing but issues. If there is any kind of situation or issue, and you have booked with a third party, you are not going to be able to easily sort it out!!! They have your money, they don't seem to much care about you now.