Where to get the cheapest yet reliable airline tickets

[amanbhai]

Where do we get the most economical yet reliable airline tickets, any website or anything that someone want to share with the rest.
regards

[Craig H.]

A related forum is www.flyertalk.com, an interesting site.

[tomvehoski]

Flyertalk is a great resource and I participate there quite a bit, which has now caused enough insanity for me to do a mileage run (flying just for the miles and/or status) as described in a USA today article earlier this week.

In short, I would check expedia, orbitz or travelocity to see what carriers are offering the best deal. You can usually find the same price at the airlines website, without the $5-$10 fee.

I personally don't use them, but you can also try the bidding sites (hotwire, priceline). If you want to go that route, check out the bidding forum on flyertalk or www.biddingfortravel.com for pointers.

Where are you going from/to, and when?

[little__cee]

Let me state up front that I am NOT a travel agent.

The last time I booked a flight for my boss, I searched the internet and found a price of ~$600 for his flight - just for fun I called a local travel agent - same flight, times, flight numbers, everything - they booked it for me at $250 AND delivered the paper tickets to our company. I couldn't believe it.

Don't forget the local travel agents!

[Hershal]

For me, I have the airlines and hotels I tend to stay at.....but for rental cars I use Priceline.....it works well and I save money (which gets billed back to the customer).

www.priceline.com

Hershal

[Helmut Jilling]

Originally Posted by amanbhai

Where do we get the most economical yet reliable airline tickets, any website or anything that someone want to share with the rest.
regards

I spend way too much time in airports and hotels. I use Orbitz or Travelocity to see a spectrum of what is available, but I usually don't book there. I usually book on the actual airline or hotal website that I selected.

If you are collecting the points or miles, sometimes you don't get them if you book on Orbitz or whatever. Also, I find I get deals just as good on the primary sites themselves.

The next step is to try a few variables. If I quote a ticket, and the price is too high, I will try different flight times, classes, and so on on, until I find a price I can live with. Usually, it works.

[tomvehoski]

Originally Posted by hjilling

I

If you are collecting the points or miles, sometimes you don't get them if you book on Orbitz or whatever. Also, I find I get deals just as good on the primary sites themselves.

Orbitz, expedia, travelocity and the other sites SHOULD allow you frequent flier miles. Usually you only lose them if you get a packaged vacation or ultra low special fare. Priceline might not allow them. Some airlines might only give 50% of the status miles for low fare classes - Continental is one.

It could be an issue of Orbitz not pushing your frequent flier number over to the airline. Always make sure your FF# prints on your boarding pass and keep your boarding pass until your miles post to your account (usually a day or two if you check online).

Agree the airline/hotel website is usually the best. They often give bonus miles/points for booking there, plus waive any booking fees.

[Helmut Jilling]

Originally Posted by tomvehoski

Orbitz, expedia, travelocity and the other sites SHOULD allow you frequent flier miles. Usually you only lose them if you get a packaged vacation or ultra low special fare. Priceline might not allow them. Some airlines might only give 50% of the status miles for low fare classes - Continental is one.

It could be an issue of Orbitz not pushing your frequent flier number over to the airline. Always make sure your FF# prints on your boarding pass and keep your boarding pass until your miles post to your account (usually a day or two if you check online).

Agree the airline/hotel website is usually the best. They often give bonus miles/points for booking there, plus waive any booking fees.

Orbitz has my account numbers. I got the Continental Miles, but lost the points which counted as legs. So, I end the year short of enough legs to make status on Continental (although I've had platinum on Delta for years, so it's no big deal. It would just make the Conti website easier to navigate.).

With hotels, I noticed a trend toward not granting points for rooms booked on Orbitz, because they classed them as prepaid. So I stopped doing that also.

Don't know what the story is on rental cars, because I always use the prime Hertz web and don't even consider other car chains.