pinniped

Just curious what others here do when they're looking to assemble a cheap coach itin for a group of a few people who don't particularly care about the miles/points/status game.

My example is MCI-FCO, off-peak (winter) travel. Throwing just those cities into Orbitz yields no competitive fares at all. ($1000+ for off-peak.) There's no pressure from Icelandair, Wow, Wizz, Aer Lingus, Norwegian, etc. And even the U.S. legacies don't really compete that strongly at MCI.

So I take a few guesses at where the "bones" of this itin might form, and I find JFK-FCO for $450 R/T on TAP. OK, I can get to some New York airport for $250 R/T without trying too hard...so there's something. I've got ORD-FCO for $550 R/T on Turkish...another lucky guess, could add Amtrak or Southwest to that. (Side bonus of being able to just drive it if there's any IROPS risk on the train or positioning flight.) I've also tried various permutations of itins that force DUB or KEF into the mix, just to see if the ULCC game is on the table.

But is there more of a comprehensive strategy? A site or sites that show a list of the cheapest TATL's at a given timeframe or given date? How do you guys go about doing this?

If it were me by myself, I'd probably just book a single AA fare and call it good. But with 8-10 tickets, there's *some* appeal to put together a multi-PNR itin, even with its drawbacks. The savings become material at that point.

Romelle

Sometimes I try www.rome2rio.com to get my mind further out of the box. In your case it showed some other cities in Italy with an added train ride, plus that other Rome airport (Ciampino).

Kayak sometimes turns up some odd options, when it hacks together legs from different carriers.

When you are searching, if the particular venue has the "nearby" option, it can be worth clicking.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com is very powerful, searching on a month of dates and letting one look at nearby options (varying the range). Also will check specific dates for +- a day or two.

For smaller odd points, sometimes I just do a search on "fly abc - xyz", and that can pick up different airlines.

Hotwire has their "Hot Rate" deals, if you can cast your fate to the winds as to specific departure times and airlines. Too bad Priceline doesn't have the flight bidding any more, as occasionally that worked.

There is the backwards approach of looking for cheaper flights from Rome, and finding one reasonably close to MCI.

I'm sure others here will have some more ideas, but the above might help a bit meanwhile. Your logic and approach is already good - open mind and willing to explore. Getting to competitive points and using deals from there.

I don't know anything about group rate tickets, but maybe somebody else does? I'm thinking 8-10 might not be a large enough group?

pinniped

ITA Matrix is usually what I mess around with when I'm doing these searches.

I often forget about Kayak and Skyscanner (which is what seems to power rome2rio). I will check those out as well.

8-10 would be very high side of what I'd be booking together. More likely I'd be paying for 4-5 on one PNR. I don't expect to be anywhere near the group rate threshold, and I'm guessing any discounts wouldn't apply to these fares I'm looking at...

EmailKid

Matrix will also show and let you search nearby cities. Not as good as it used to be, but still my go to.

I've also had very good luck with Google Flights, including suggesting to book as two one ways rather than r/t

sobe_dude

I start with the ITA matrix when I have a pretty complex itinerary, trying various combinations that interest me. ITA has glitches, but if you are persistent you can make it work. After I find something reasonable, I look it up on google flights, which helps me decide where I should book different flights. For example I was able to between three continents, five different countries in the summer for less than $1000 + 30,000 miles. (I used miles for one segment only that would have been the most expensive.)

TravelingNomads

I keep secretflying's twitter account open and hacktheflight.net. I have them set to auto refresh and have been able to get several flights for $250 - $300. A few weeks ago ATL - FCO was @ $275 RT, so we grabbed 4 seats. The fare was only available for a few hours though, so you have to be ready to book.

pinniped

Cool...I just followed SecretFlying and a couple other similar sites. I have time...and I could pull the trigger quickly if the right deal popped up...so maybe I'll get lucky.

TravelingNomads

Hacktheflight seems to put out more flights/hotels (so more to sort through), but I've also read that they seem to find the deals a couple of hours before SF does. If you see anything in the $300 range, I'd go for it. Also, you may want to sign up now for AARP. I think it's $12/yr and there's a 20% discount code somewhere. They don't verify your age, but offer a nice discount for British Airways flights (including American Airlines legs) & off of some car rental agencies. The deal for us going to FCO was through them, so it saved us quite a bit.

pinniped

Interesting...my wife joined AARP when she was 25 or so. They kept sending her direct mail to join, and eventually she did so for the hotel discounts. I guess it's just a political action committee...they'll take donors regardless of age.

I have never heard of a 20% off discount on flights. That's pretty huge...I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more play around Flyertalk. How restricted is it? There have to be some unusual strings attached, right?

TravelingNomads

The 20% coupon is for the AARP membership. I don't remember it offhand, but I'm sure a Google search will find it.

Here's what it says: "You deserve a vacation, and with over 110 cities served, British Airways is ready to jet you off on a perfect getaway to London, Europe, Asia, Middle East or Africa.

•Save $65 on World Traveller (economy)
•Save $130 on World Traveller Plus (premium economy)
•Save $200 on Club World (business class) and First Class tickets."

TravelingNomads

OP, there are deals right now via United (August - March) to FCO for:
Atlanta (ATL) - $337
Boston (BOS) - $336
Los Angeles (LAX) - $407

pinniped

Ah...that makes more sense! That would explain why we don't have a giant thread about it, although a simple BA discount certainly makes the membership pay for itself it you can use it...

Is there an odd length-of-stay requirement? I can't seem to tease those fares out of ITA, although I can get kind of close for Boston (mainly on TAP).

TravelingNomads

It looks like it's around 10 days. http://www.secretflying.com/posts/su...568-roundtrip/

Secretflying only lists Atlanta and only until October, but Scott's flight deals claims that it's for those 3 locations and until March, but doesn't list how many days you have to stay.