Budget Travel - travel help!!!
pinky42598
Jan 5, 06, 1:10 am
i thought that traveling on a sunday would be cheaper but all fo the trips to cun from ewr are about 500 plus per ticket. having a new baby of course i cannot afford that. i got the hotel booked but now i can't find a cheap flight. someone told traveling on a sunday would be cheaper that's why i booked the hotel on that day but i'm trying to find the cheapest flight possible. anyone ever use priceline name your own price. how did it work and did you get a good deal. please helpppppppp!!! :confused:
Friday and Sunday are generally considered to be fairly "peak" times for flying, and harder to obtain a cheap seat on - mid week is normally the best time for cheaper flying. I suggest you hit whoever told you that over the head :)
Aviatrix
Jan 5, 06, 7:04 am
Airlines generally make a set number of cheap seats available on every flight - this number is different for different flights, and will often get revised as the departure date draws closer.
On most short-haul flights the most difficult times to get a cheap seat are Friday night, Sunday night and Monday morning - when you have high demand both from weekly commuters and from people going away for the week-end. In my experience (but that's mostly based on European travel) Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning aren't quite so bad - in fact Saturday afternoon is often quite a good time to travel.
My suggestion would be to try looking at Saturday - the hotel may well be prepared to let you move your booking by a day, but even if you end up paying for an extra night this may well work out cheaper if you can save money on the flight.
Good luck!
emailkid
Jan 5, 06, 9:11 am
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My suggestion would be to try looking at Saturday - the hotel may well be prepared to let you move your booking by a day, but even if you end up paying for an extra night this may well work out cheaper if you can save money on the flight.
By and large, the most expensive "cheap" tickets are on Friday and Sunday. Reason being, that's when tourists fly to take advantage of a weekend getaway or else to try to maximaze a vacation by adding the weekend to the five days off in between.
A good example is if you look at Travelocity, and use flexible dates search for lowest fare, and what you will generally find is that the Monday-Thursday is least expensive. Friday-Sunday is anywhere from $30 to $50 more. Of course I've also seen Tuesday-Thursday as well as Monday-Thursday AND Saturday as the lowest fare option.
I suspect if you can fly Saturday and find a hotel for that night (should not be too difficult), you'll save some money.
EmailKid
i thought that traveling on a sunday would be cheaper but all fo the trips to cun from ewr are about 500 plus per ticket. having a new baby of course i cannot afford that. i got the hotel booked but now i can't find a cheap flight. someone told traveling on a sunday would be cheaper that's why i booked the hotel on that day but i'm trying to find the cheapest flight possible. anyone ever use priceline name your own price. how did it work and did you get a good deal. please helpppppppp!!! :confused:
I agree with all other posters that a Sat night stay will get you the best deal.
Priceline does work on the routes I use ex-USA to UK so I suppose it will work on domestic too:
- start really low! You will be prompted to increase until it reaches the minimum acceptable fare
- beware the Priceline fees make a big difference to the total price
- it also work on hotels but for US hotels deals try Hotwire (http://www.hotwire.com)