Cheapest place/website to buy plane tickets?

R

RayRayJones

Forum Member
Does anyone have any advice where to buy plane tickets to California? I tried cheap tickets.com and orbitz.com but I havent ever bought plane tickets. So any advice would help!!!
 
The only way to get a deal on plane tickets really is to buy them at the right time. None of the travel deal websites are actually any cheaper than buying straight from the airline, although the travel deal websites are an easy way to find out which airline is cheapest. As far as knowing when to buy, obviously you don't want to wait until the last minute, but too early isn't necesarily good either. www.farecast.com will give you a prediction on when to buy based on others that have bought. You kind of have to mess with it a bit though. If you are flying to LAX you can say DTW to LAX and it will be ok. If you are flying to some little airport in California requiring a connecting flight between two major airports, farecast isn't going to work for the full trip but you can use it for the flight between the two big airports to get an indicator of when to book.
 
Remember, Southwest Airlines doesn't use any of those travelocity/orbitz type websites so you have to check them directly. I used Southwest and was pleased. 2 bags fly free.
 
4 cam tbird said:
None of the travel deal websites are actually any cheaper than buying straight from the airline
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That's been my observation as well. I pretty much fly Delta exclusively as they have the best schedules for non-stop flights leaving Detroit and their prices are similar to everyone else.
 
My mom was a travel agent for a long time. All the airlines cut all commission to all travel agencies. That's why when booking air only on the travel deal websites it's always the same price, they don't have any room to take a hit on commission to make the sale or anything like that. If you only book air through them (no hotel or rental car or any other type of package with it) and they charge no fee for the booking, it was a waste of time for them.
 
easy2cy said:
Remember, Southwest Airlines doesn't use any of those travelocity/orbitz type websites so you have to check them directly. I used Southwest and was pleased. 2 bags fly free.
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This. From my experience, after you factor in one bag Southwest is about equal with everyone else and if you need a second bag they're cheaper.
 
cjmatt said:
kayak.com compares all the sites
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I don't think they include Southwest and I think American is dropping certain sites from searching their flight schedules.

It generally only takes a few minutes to go to SpiritAir and Delta.com to figure out who has the best flight.
 
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