Some of the discount airlines are not listed in the regular online travel agent sites, such as Expedia. If you could make Southwest or Jetblue, or one of the other discount airlines work, you could save a lot of money, so you might want to check on their websites for their schedules and list of cities served.

Also check at www.hotwire.com which, like Priceline, doesn't reveal flight details until you have already paid for it. However, you do know up front how much it would cost. Once Hotwire gives you a price for a flight, you are given a time by which you must either buy the flight or let it go. That is enough time to go to Priceline and bid slightly lower than the Hotwire price. If Priceline rejects your bid, you can then buy the Hotwire flight, as long as it is within your budget. Don't forget to take fees into account when deciding what to bid for Priceline.

Also, if you plan on visiting your father over the weekend, you should check out the various airlines' Internet weeekend specials for the weekend, which will get posted on Tuesday or Wednesday. You might be lucky enough to get an ultra-cheap flight to precisely where you need to go -- or close enough that you could rent a car and drive the rest of the way at cheap weekend rates. The danger in waiting until Tuesday or Wednesday is that Hotwire and Priceline might have less inventory by then, and thus have higher pricing. On the other hand, sometimes airlines dump inventory on the opaque market at the last minute, so prices could get better later in the week. Of course, if you wanted to stay longer than Monday or Tuesday (most Internet special flights require flying out on Saturday and returning the following Monday or Tuesday) then all of this stuff about the airlines' Internet specials really doesn't mean much.


[This message has been edited by amanuensis (edited 05-12-2003).]