Crazy Airfare Sales

[MrMon]

Okay, let's start a rolling thread of crazy airfare sales. You see something incredible, pass it on here. Those picking up ideas, know that some of these will expire VERY quickly, so act on them when you see them, otherwise you'll miss it.

My tip for the day, subscribe to Southwest's Ding! service at their website. Until 9 PM tonight, you can get great fares to Columbus, OH and Detroit, and from there, on to the rest of the country. You'll wind up with some screwy routings, but some incredible deals. I just booked from St. Louis to Columbus for $15 + tax, then from Columbus to Las Vegas via Midway for $30 + tax. Wound up with a total of about $76 including tax for a one way ticket. No way back yet, but Southwest is going to be running all sorts of looney sales for their anniversery, so sign up now and see what you can come up with. And since you can cancel Southwest tickets and reuse the funds (within limits), you can book all sorts of things one part at a time, hoping to pick up the rest of the journey later.

Some of you east coasters should be able to get the same deal, with a $15 or $30 fare to Columbus, then on to Vegas for another $30. Looks like if you're anywhere near Albany, Baltimore, Buffalo, Hartford, Long Island, Manchester, NH, Norfolk, Philadelphia, Providence, Raleigh/Durham, or West Palm Beach, you can get to Columbus. And they've got plenty of other West Coast destinations other that Vegas for the $30. Works the other way too, just route everything through Columbus until 9 PM tonight.

Remeber, this is a Ding! sale only, you need to download the software to have access to these fares.

[john voight]

http://www.southwest.com/ding/

[MrMon]

Thanks. Forgot to add that.

[60Vauban]

http://farecast.com/

[Keyser.]

Dockers is having some promotion where if you spend $125 at JCPenney before June 9th, you get a free round trip flight to one of several good locations. Check it out here: http://dockersfreeflight.com/

[PartysOver]

semi derail/rant:

i was doing airfare and using travelocity.com (i like it because of the +/-3 day interface. They offered me some flights for $155 and upon going to checkout, i got a message something to the effect of "we're sorry the price has increased" and then it showed a new price more than double the listed one.

I assume this was because i booked near july 4. i used cheaptickets.com and got the originally listed price... good luck

[WhoIam]

Really, really good idea for a thread. This will be great when we finally get the travel forum back.

[MrMon]

[ QUOTE ]
semi derail/rant:

i was doing airfare and using travelocity.com (i like it because of the +/-3 day interface. They offered me some flights for $155 and upon going to checkout, i got a message something to the effect of "we're sorry the price has increased" and then it showed a new price more than double the listed one.

I assume this was because i booked near july 4. i used cheaptickets.com and got the originally listed price... good luck

[/ QUOTE ]

There is almost never a reason to buy tickets through a travel website. Use them to check airfares and compare, yes. But then go directly to the airline site to buy, you'll save the travel site fees and sometimes can even find even better fares. (This is especially true for hotels lately, where a lot of the chains are offering exclusives only through their sites.)

On occasion, the travel sites will have some really creative mixed routings between airlines that for some reason the airline sites won't find, but this is rare and generally only occurs with international routings.

Also, yes, airfares can change that quickly. Smart travelers generally learn what the normal prices are so they can snap up any bargains they see. Fat finger discounts can disappear in minutes, it pays to know how to spot them and act before they are corrected.

[MrMon]

[ QUOTE ]
Dockers is having some promotion where if you spend $125 at JCPenney before June 9th, you get a free round trip flight to one of several good locations. Check it out here: http://dockersfreeflight.com/

[/ QUOTE ]

This seems like a pretty good deal if you are very flexible as to when or even where you want to go. I'm suspicious of what they would charge you for a companion tickets, however. That I would book elsewhere after you get the freebie.

Nice pickup though.

On a similar note, I saw Mandalay Bay was offering a free return ticket to Vegas with every stay. Not sure of the details, and it seemed like only one ticket per room, but it might be worth checking out.

[MrWookie]

This is why farecast is always the first website I check for airfares. They don't make money by collecting fees when you purchase. They datamine the websites of the airlines themselves, along with a few of the travel sites, and then rather than booking through farecast, they just link you to the site of the airline. It works great, and their interface is easy to use.