Airfare

[sherban]

FYI, my favorite website for checking rates is the ITA Matrix Airfare Search tool, they don't sell tickets they develop software for the travel industry. I like the tool because it gives me a nice monthly fare overview quickly...

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm

[brenda]

Great link! I bookmarked it, thanks!

[sherban]

YES!! We just booked ATL to STT 6/12-19 for $344 PP total with fees on AA.

STJ in June 2013 is a done deal!

[gibber161]

Do most of you book your villas first and then watch for airfare deals or do you try to coordinate booking it all at once?

We booked our villa's first...awhile ago....
Then kept an eye out for good flight prices... It would have been better to find something from our area for that price, but having to drive to JFK night before just make the vaca one night longer...lol

Two weeks ago we saw an unbelievable price on flights from Boston in July, so we booked our flights without having a villa.

[ski2play]

$433 per person out of Roc, this morning to STT. Can't Wait, I think you all understand!

Happy Happy Dance!

[Laura T]

$521 out of Chicago - going in May. On United where I have Platinum (ugh!) status, so no charges for bags. Would have like to pay about $100 less, but didn't want to risk paying $100 more!

[loverotties]

Wow that airfare was bought at a great price wish PHL or BWI prices were that low !! I checked today $501.00 lots of seats left I'm still holding out . . . . .

[bill]

Last month I got my round trip tickets = $381.50 non--stop from JFK in July!

Thought this was a good deal.

Already counting down the days!!!

[HaveToTravel]

We ended up booking a villa before airfare for mid Dec. Now I'm biting my nails deciding when to buy air out of MSP. I'd like to get I at $450 RTor less and tickets now are $560. Debating if I should just buy or hold out.

[piscesgirl0314]

We booked our tickets for June about two weeks ago through US Air for $530.00 per ticket. Best prices flying to STT out of Norfolk we've seen in the last ten year. We normally wait until around March but after our trip to Costa Rica last year and paying over $1000.00/ticket we decided they weren't going to get any lower. Now we just have to wait until June...

[mindehankins]

Sherban, Thank you so much for posting that Matrix site!!! I found terrific flights for less than half what we paid last year. That one is bookmarked forever and ever!

[jmq]

Kayak and ITA are much better pure price search tools than Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity, and since I always prefer to book directly with the airline anyway, they are the only ones I use.
ITA was bought by Google a yr or so ago, so look for it to morph into something else. Kayak is pretty good on hotel and car rental searches too.
Good article on useful travel sites that mention these and others:
http://www.tripbadger.com/smart-travel- ... vel-sites/

Re airfare, good to see that more price breaks seem to be popping up for folks traveling to the Caribbean, contrary to what some predicted here and elsewhere.
We wanted to go back to Virgin Gorda and STJ this year in May/June, and about a month ago, enabled by the Kayak Price Alert function, was able to book "multi-city" JFK>SJU nonstop, then return STT>JFK nonstop for $273 and then Seaborne from SJU to Virgin Gorda @$138 one way which is not too bad if you consider if we went into STT and had to get to VG via ferry it would cost w/taxi etc >$50 anyway. Plus, the BVI ferries seem to be more messed up and unreliable than ever according to the constant chatter and complaints on the TTOL BVI forum.
Starting out with 5 nights on VG then 5 nights on St. John - its been too long...

[sherban]

Sherban, Thank you so much for posting that Matrix site!!! I found terrific flights for less than half what we paid last year. That one is bookmarked forever and ever!

You bet...I don't even remember how I found it way back when, but I love it...mostly because it gives you insight into pricing variation and allows smart selections to get mimimum price....I like minimum price!

[dreamshark]

Kayak and ITA are much better pure price search tools than Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity, and since I always prefer to book directly with the airline anyway, \.

I really appreciated the ita link also. It's the best tool I've seen for surveying a month at a glance (if you're the type who books the airfare first, that's essential). But as for booking on the airline site... I tried and failed utterly. I had 3 different sites begging to book me on that $340 flight, but I thought I'd do it on the AA site and maybe sign up for the Amex credit card while I was at it. Total bust. AA simply would not display discount prices for that flight. I kept seeing links up at the top of the page saying $340 for such and such a date, but when I clicked on them they turned up THE SAME FLIGHT NUMBER at prices ranging from $590 to $740! I finally gave up and booked through Travelocity, which had no trouble finding that fare.

I also found no way to sign up for the credit card and actually get approved in time to use it for this trip, so I dropped that idea and booked it on my Delta Amex card. So AA pretty thoroughly shot themselves in the foot with that web experience. *ugh*

[jmq]

dreamshark - yup that can be an issue.
Ever notice that when you research a fare, click on it, don't book it, but then look at the same route the next day, or even a few minutes later, the lowest fare you found previously does not show up? Thats because web sites definitely recognize your computer from previous visits via tracking "cookies", and have gotten sophisticated enough to know what route and airfare you looked at.

They figure that if you've looked a fare over but didn't like it for some reason, but then come back, then they'll show you the next higher fare, with the thinking that hey, you keep searching for this trip and obviously really want to fly this route, so you'll probably pay more if you think there's a chance the fare may increase yet again.

The airline sites have gotten really good at this, but it can happen with the third party sites like Travelocity also.
So may be advisable to clear your history and cookies from your computer in between searches to help to alleviate price morphing issues. I have also taken to doing the "clean" search with two different browsers open i.e. find a price on Kayak using Explorer, then open Chrome next to it direct book on the airline site. Not saying it cant happen, but using these practices I've never had a legit third party site beat the airline price. That said, I retain the likely outdated view that those third parties would be an impediment and not an advocate to resolving reservation issues or other problems, and would rather deal direct with the end use vendor.