I am new to all of this, so I wouldn't know what a good fare is if it hit me. I wanna go to Colorado Springs or Denver in either November or December from either Midway(Chicago), O'Hare, or Milwaukee. Whatever is cheapest. I can buy my tickets now if it would be cheaper. I don't know where to start looking, is Priceline any good? What about their $50 off deal that is going on, or is it still going on?What about Best Fares? Anyone have any ideas? I would really appreciate.

Also I want to go from Orlando to Paris for as cheap as possible. I don't really have any specified dates that I need to travel, just whenever is cheapest.

If anyone knows of any deals or has any suggestions, I would really welcome them!

TIA, Priscilla

P.S. I think these boards are great! As you can tell I am new, I have been lurking for a couple days, but finally decided to join in.

Welcome Starbaby84

Try the following site as a starting point
www.travelocity.com

Type in your point of departure and your destination and it will show you the cheapest published fares available, when and what advance notice and other rules go with those fares. They also have an interesting feature called dream map which may be of use. Fare watcher, where you can set up an itinerary that the computer will check for you on an ongoing basis may also be helpful, another site that offers this useful feature is http://www.lastminutetravel.com/

Best fares is always worth trying and check out the airline's web sites for their dot com deals or e saver fares (usually they will send you an e-mail as the offers become available).

I believe the $50 off deal on priceline is over. However, armed with information from the above sites and after visiting the following excellent site
http://pub4.ezboard.com/bpricelineandexpediabidding

run by one of FT's members (I think it is Sheryl) you can start bidding on Priceline if you wish (remember that once you have bid, if an airline accepts, you will not be able to change or return that ticket so be absolutely sure before you bid).

This will get you started but there are many on this board far more knowledgeable than me (do a search on old threads using some of the key words in your post and you will learn a lot).

Another couple of sites to try is http://www.lowestfare.com/cgi-bin/gx...fare.home.Home
http://www.tiss.com/
http://www.cheaptickets.com/

Good luck getting that great fare



[This message has been edited by Mvic (edited 08-22-2000).]

Welcome.

You may also want to try
www.expedia.com

The don't require any initial sign in...

Welcome to the boards.

It's good that you are starting to look for a ticket now. Using some of the tips above, you might want to monitor the prices for the routes you are interested in, to get a feel for the general range of typical prices. The prices could go up and down significantly several times between now and November. When you see the price is lower than usual, you could buy.

Buying this far in advance may or may not be cheaper. As you get closer to departure, within 28 days for instance, that is a pretty fair assumption, that prices will continue to climb as you cross the 28, 21, 14 or 7 day advance purchase. But many months in advance does not necessarily guarantee a cheaper fare than just a month in advance.

My personal perspective (although there are those on this board who differ) would be to avoid Priceline - but that's just cause I like to pick my flight times and don't like playing the roulette of seeing what airlines and times they've picked for me.

Starbaby84,

Check these sites every few days for info on the lowest available fares, and any major fare cuts within the last 24 hours.

From Chicago

From Milwaukee

[This message has been edited by essxjay (edited 08-22-2000).]

Thanks a lot guys, the cheapest that I have been able to find so far is $173 round trip. It still seems like a lot though. What do you think?

I think it's pretty good. The cheapest I found at qixo.com was 204. For exceptionally cheap fares like that, you have to be careful because it probably has a lot of restrictions.

You can set up a free account with YAHOO and on your home page there is a section called "Fare Beater". You can click edit, type in your departure and destination city and it will display the best fare and update the fare each time a fare changes. You'll have to click "Book it" to find the details, such as price, restrictions, etc.. You can also sign up with the various airlines for their weekly e-savers, and upcoming fare sales. Another option,go to SmarterLiving.com, click deal alert, they have a slew of information and deals listed.
When I was searching for a flight to Japan to visit my son, I think I got on every deal alert list and there's a ton of them out there. Good luck and happy trails!!

Europe seat sales are just starting to peek out it seems. I have no idea what airlines fly Orlando - Paris direct, but others here can I am sure advise you of that. Keep an eye on THOSE airlines chat boards, as seat sales pretty well always get a thread started when announced.

That way you can have some choice of dates before they all get booked up!

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~ Glen ~

Granted I don't know your economic situation, but I've gotta say, $173 sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. Anything cheaper than that would start to make me suspicious about whether the offer was even for real.

Welcome Starbaby84.

Agreed that $173 is probably going to be the best you'll get. I advise booking it ASAP. It could be either 1) a special one-day fare sale on that route or 2) a mistake (ask TropicalFlyer about the fare from HNL to CDG (Paris) for something like $200 or so)

My new favorite site for fare comparisons...
http://www.itasoftware.com

It is a very powerful search engine. You can specify to include airports within (X) miles of either your departing or destination airport, and it will break down fares in all sorts of ways.


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

The beta seems to have a long way to go. Some tests produced no routings where there are plenty and ridiculous fares where there are plentiful reasonable fares.