Friday, October 5, 2007

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas... Some Travel Advice

It would be a rare occasion to have a white Christmas here in the South, which is why we are going to Utah for Christmas! I'm so excited because Mike and Shauna's baby will (hopefully!) be born while we are there, or shortly before at least. So we are very excited! But I thought I would take a minute to let everyone know about some great websites to buy airfare. I spend LOTS of time looking at airlines tickets, whether they are for us or for other people, so I consider myself pretty good at finding deals. Anyway, here are some of my favorites:
Farecompare - This website searches many of the different airfare search engines like Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia, Cheaptickets, and Kayak all at one time, and tells you which site gives the best deal. They also have a "flexible dates" option that I really like.
Hotwire - This site doesn't come up on Farecompare, so you have to do it separately but it's worth a shot. I found some cheaper flights for the holidays on this site than on Farecompare.
Those are my two favorites for now, but don't forget to try Southwest and JetBlue (search engines like Travelocity don't search these airlines, so you have to do them separately). There are also some generic sites like CheapoAir and Travelation, which might be worth looking at if you have time. But beware because when you see the prices they will be REALLY low, because they don't add the taxes and fees until after you click on the price you want (this can be an additional $100 per ticket). But sometimes it's still the best deal. We booked some flights on Travelation last year and when we got to the airport none of our flights had been confirmed, which was a big hassle but thankfully the airport wasn't busy and we still got to our destinations... just make sure you confirm your flights if you have any reason to doubt.
And last but not least, I just discovered a new tool to use when booking airline tickets. BYU has a travel office with travel agents who will help you find tickets. From what I hear, this is especially a good deal if you are flying last-minute, because they can offer you prices that you might have paid even if you had bought them 14 days in advance. For Christmas we are actually going to buy our tickets through them - they have deals with all the airlines and they found us direct flights from Atlanta to Salt Lake City. They were a little more expensive than some flights I found online, but my online flights gave us layovers in Denver, which is never a good idea during wintertime... I figure that the $25 extra we are paying per ticket for a direct flight will be worth it in the long run, especially since a hotel would cost MUCH more than that if we got stranded in Denver.
So there are my secrets... now go buy some tickets!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

There is another great site out there that you might not be aware of called Airfarewatchdog.com.

These guys search thousands of fares by hand every day to come up with the best possible deals. They cover all of the discount carriers as well as specials listed only on airline websites. Plus you can sign up for a daily newsletter which let's you know about the best fares from your city.

Worth checking out...

Mike Martin

Christy and Brian said...

Great advice!