USVI-On-Line

Okay, starting to look for plane tickets for June.

I'll take any and all suggestions on how to get the cheapest fares. Anything from,

- Best time of day or night to look for the cheapest rates

- Best days of the week to travel

- Best websites to find the cheapest rates

- How not to panic and be patient that they will get get cheaper (or will they)

- any other pointers

Thanks in advance,
nothintolose

p.s. I am sure this question has been posted before - just want the most recent advice

Almost two years ago I was looking for tickets for July '06. We had already used FF miles for my husband's tickets, so I was waiting to pounce on the a specific flight as soon as I saw a fare I liked. Early one Sunday morning in May, I checked the airlines's site (US Airways) and it came back with a fare of $31.50 round trip. When it asked me to select my seats, only the first class cabin was available for that fare (Look around; expect to see the Candid Camera guys somewhere...). Anyway, I purchased the tickets not expecting the transaction to go through, but it did - my credit card was charged $31.50! It turned out to be one of those mistakes you hear about that happens when they update the database - the base fare was $0; taxes and fees $31.50. A couple of days later I called USAirways to make sure I really had tickets and they said they would honor it - I had first class tickets for $31.50! It was a VERY nice flight

I have since read that database updates are often made during the the night on weekends and occasionally people catch mistakes. I doubt I'll ever see anything like that again, but I still check individual airline's websites for our favorite flights early in the morning on Saturday/Sunday - it can't hurt! Good luck!

I usually take a look at www.kayak.com,they check most of the larger TA's as well as the direct price from the airline. They also have a trend chart that shows what the price for that particular flight been doing. They are not always completely accurate so I 'll check them against a couple of TA's as well as the pricing from the airline websites.

If you have a layover to get to STT, check the pricing in booking two seperate flights. Example: For our upcoming trip to St John I had started checking airfare about 7 months bfore our trip, at that time fare was about $600.00/pp. Went up to almost $900.00/pp than dropped to $761.00/pp about 5 weeks prior to trip.

Spirit Air was our cheapest @ $761.00/pp out of Detroit with a layover in Fort Lauderdale. Just for kicks I checked pricing if I bought a RT to FLL and a seperate RT from FLL to STT. If I did it this way price dropped to $521.00/pp. Couldn't believe it, almost a $500.00 savings if you count both of us.

We will have to fly down to FLL on Friday Night and spend the night instead of doing the whole trip on Saturday for this to work, but still quite the savings even with the hotel bill. Plus we won't have to do that get up in the middle of the night and be a zombie once we arrive thing. Also makes me feel a little better about the chances of our luggage getting lost with having two direct flights.

Hope all of this makes sense. Good luck in your research.

Thanks you guys for the tips!

Ccasebolt - that is AWESOME - I will look for a $32 flight, but doubt I will find one .

nothintolose

We are looking for June too. I'm so anxious about it. Just want those tickets purchased already! I signed up for the alert system on farecompare.com. It's come across with some great deals but not yet for June. I also have my TA watching the fares. Good luck to us both!!!

I signed up for farecompare also. Cheaptickets. com has had the cheapest prices so far (think Kayak uses them too) and American Airlines.

Chrisn, where are you flying from? Do you think your rates will go down at the same time?

We bought our tickets for June a couple of months ago directly from the American Airlines site. We fly out of DC, stop in San Juan but do not change planes, and then off to STT. We paid $333 round trip including taxes. We are traveling on Fridays.
My sister swears that if you shop for tickets on Tuesdays in the wee hours of the morning the prices are less. If you are up, its worth a try!

I've heard that too about fares being "reset" at midnight Tuesdays.
Assume you have fare alerts set up. If not, you should. The fare alert at kayak.com is pretty good. The alerts from travelocity never seem to pan out with any availability. Spirit has sale alerts, but tough to actually score that sale price when/if it pops up.
And, of course, always cheaper to fly midweek.

nothintolose wrote:Chrisn, where are you flying from? Do you think your rates will go down at the same time?

We fly out of Salt Lake City. Last year we paid $535. I am hoping for the equivalent or less. I coulda got $182 through March but we need June dammit! Airfare times 4 is a Bi*ch!!!

Another trick is to look for codeshare flights. These are flights that are sold under one airline but actually use planes from another airline. For example, on my recent trip to Norway I was looking at a United flight to Oslo through Munich. Both the Chicago to Munich leg and the Munich to Oslo leg had United flight numbers but the Munich to Oslo leg had a little note that said "Operated for United by Lufthansa". I looked at the same flights but chose the Lufthansa flight from Munich to Oslo and back and the fare dropped by $200. This doesn't always work out, but it's worth a shot. I know that some United flights to STT from Chicago are actually US Air flights so that may be true for other cities and airlines.

Airfare Watchdog is another good site. They have an alert feature that will send you low fare updates for a particular city.