[FretDancer]

Hello forum. I wanted to know if any of you have experience regarding last minute flights? I hear they can come incredibly cheap, as of 50% from regular flight.

Any help on how to find these without much hassle and make the best of them without relying on luck?

[Vicious]

These days there really are no price drops on last minute flights. It's a myth.

Stand by tickets with greatly reduced prices exist but you have to have some affiliation to an airline to get a old of those.

[InternationPlayboy]

(01-28-2012 06:03 PM)Vicious Wrote:  

These days there really are no price drops on last minute flights. It's a myth.

Stand by tickets with greatly reduced prices exist but you have to have some affiliation to an airline to get a old of those.

Plus with those stand by flights you gotta be careful if you're traveling around the holidays. My roomate got tickets to Argentina for $800 over Christmas on stand by, which was huge cause they were going for about 2k. Only problem was he couldn't get home for over a week after he wanted to leave. He ended up missing his first week of school this semester.

[FretDancer]

Damn, so much for high hopes....

I hope I'm still alive when the day plane tickets stop being so damn expensive

[Cincinnatus]

(01-30-2012 11:09 PM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Damn, so much for high hopes....

I hope I'm still alive when the day plane tickets stop being so damn expensive

If you live long enough, and those studying climate change and peak oil are right, you'll probably see the demise of airlines entirely...

[T-Mac]

A few weeks ago I purchased a last minute flight through priceline (day prior) and saved over 50% off anything I could find on the net. I used the "name your own price" tool. There are negatives as you can wind up with miserable flight times, long layovers, etc. This is why I have never used it for international flights. So it certainly isn't for everybody. Also, I heard priceline may be doing away with this very soon.

[IVth_Element]

If you haven't already, find a budget airline close to you and sign up for their membership club. I get email specials almost every day from Spirit for the $9 flight club. I signed up a few weeks ago and it paid for itself on the first trip. In my case, I drive 3 hours to Atlanta and fly to Ft. Lauderdale and can hit the DR, MX, El Salvador, Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, etc within a few hours. My trip to Mexico City last week cost less than $300 roundtip and the same for my trip to Medellin in 2010. I could have went to the DR or El Salvador for the same price. The key is waiting for the specials and jumping on them. Often you have to book within 48 hours.

Also, for domestic flights, I second using the priceline "name your own price" tool. Yesterday, the best price I could find on a ticket from CLT to LGA was $384 RT. I bid $180 on priceline and got direct flights both ways for $207 RT with tax. No layovers, and no crappy departure or arrival times. Of course, YMMV.

[chyamor]

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/