I am needing some advice on travel details... I have not had to book a flight in more than 10 years! I've been researching flights for 2 weeks now. The prices airlines show change every day, sometimes by the hour! It is so frusterating, because my trip is coming up in 4 weeks and I need to book my flight to Florida! I've been searching on kayak.com, travelocity, orbitz, priceline, cheapflights, fly.com, and MANY more.
The prices that were available 5 days ago was going to be approx $550 for all of us (there are 3 seats needed and this is a multi-destination trip). NOW, the prices are approx $1000- $1800 for the three tickets!!! I've spent 5 hours searching flights today, adn 3 hours yesterday... I cannot seem to find any flights that are less than 1K now!
Do you have any suggestions regarding working with an agent? Is it cheaper or more expensive? HELP! Any suggestions would be great!
Hi. I have post poned trips to central america for exactly this reason. If it's possible to push your trip back a couple of weeks, you can probably still get in on a lower ticket price for your flight. Good luck!
Booking earlier is always better. I have never done the travel agent thing but it has never made sense to me to pay someone to do what I can do on my own. In the past, I have looked at Priceline and Travelocity to find out who has the deals and then went directly to that airlines website. I can usually get a better deal that way. Also, if you are able to travel on weekdays, prices for Tuesday-Thursday travel usually cheaper. Airlines jack up the prices for the weekend travel because everyone wants to travel at that time. Also play with the time of day you travel. It might make a difference in price as well.
I have used travelocity, hotels.com, experian, and orbitz. Each airline offers these companies so many cheaper rate seats and when they are sold out then you are stuck with the higher priced seats. This goes for hotels too. I usually start looking 3-4 months in advance and when I start seeing prices go up I book the cheapest one I can find. We are planning a trip to Florida in August and have already reserved the hotel. I have found that booking the trip myself through these cheaper companies is a lot cheaper than a travel agent. Since you only have 4 weeks left you can call different travel agencies and see what they can offer and try to find a cheaper price. I personally prefer driving over flying because I don't want to pay for a rental car when it is cheaper to drive than to fly for 4-5 people so we have our own vehicle to go sightseeing and get to where we need to go without depending on shuttle busses which they don't have convenient available times--usually one trip early in the morning and return when the parks close so you are stuck there all day. Summer is the peak time for Florida so those flights and hotels book fast.
We just got back from Florida and were able to find cheap tickets on southwest.com. I agree that you should book asap - prices probably won't go down at this point.
Good Morning Jill,
At this point, you really are just going to have to book them. Because depending on the site, if you are within the month of travel, you are going to pay more. And you are hitting the summer travel season.
We travel a lot, and as a matter of fact I just booked tickets to Central America for November. I usually go to Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity check prices and then go directly to the airlines. Sometimes going directly to the airlines can be cheaper. For me this weekend, it wasn't any cheaper (exact same price) but they had an additional flight listed on their site that was NOT listed on Orbitz which was going to make my life a whole lot easier!
Unless you have a travel agent you know personally, I wouldn't use one. We have used a travel agent in the past and had great luck. But I also had a difficult experience with one when we were going to Rome a couple of years ago. *I'm not trying to sound pompous by telling you we went to Rome, but mostly to point out that even on a trip like that I was able to find a cheaper hotel, in a much better location. In that case, I found out later, she had an agreement with Hotel A that gave her a pretty hefty commission for everyone booked and Hotel B didn't play. We picked Hotel B which was outstanding! I don't know how they make money on airline tickets but remember they aren't doing it for free. *This same travel agent on the same trip said there was no way we could get from point A to point B in Europe except this ONE flight. So my husband and I sat in the Nice, France airport for 9 HOURS!!! Not only was there an earlier flight that we missed by just 20 minutes, but we also could have taken a train to our next destination and saved 4 hours!
So the point to telling you all this is that a travel agent may not always be your best bet.
Bite the bullet and book them now. I doubt they'll go down by much between now and then.
Lori K
I agree with the others, generally the earlier you book the cheaper the rate. We just got back from Orlando and flew on a discount airline called Airtran, the plane ride offered only small and I mean small bags of pretzels and small cups of a drink of choice not the whole can. They do allow you to bring food on, but not drinks unless you buy them after security. They fly out of KCI and I was happy with the service and rates were lower than many other airlines, even southwest.
