pbz

Greets to all FT'ers. New poster here so I hope this is in the right forum. If not someone please do what needs to be done and have mercy on me. I have done some searches and haven't found much so here goes.

Mrs. z and I are to celebrate our 5th anniversary in Hawaii -- Kauai to be specific -- in early September '06. We are from ORD-land but are stopping in SFO for a couple days on the way (another wedding) and we figure to kill a few days in Honolulu on the way back since we'd have to do a connection there anyway, so we are planning on going ORD-SFO-LIH-HNL-ORD with UA. (all nonstop flights, cool.)

The W tickets we are looking at are just below $1000. We have never shopped travel to Hawaii before and so we are just wondering if we can get any advice as far as whether to buy now or just keep waiting. Have been watching for a couple weeks and not much movement. Is it a decent price? Are there fare sales for Hawaii expected anytime soon?

Thanks in advance (& aloha..)
/pbz

slippahs

Welcome to Flyertalk! Glad you found on the Hawaii forum.

Have you considered stopping through HNL and connecting on Aloha or Hawaiian Airlines? Usually that helps to bring the price down.

You may also consider using a fare software such as http://beta.itasoftware.com or www.kayak.com to assist you in your fare searches.

I'm not too keen on the fare--I honestly will admit that I don't know how much a stopover in SFO will cost you on a single UA itinerary (whether it's included in the fare or not... perhaps this is something our more experienced UA flyers can tell you); however, I'm pretty sure an interisland connection will lower the price somewhat, so that may be something to look forward to.

UA does offer fare sales later in the year for post-summer travel. Though again--you take that risk that it may not happen, or that all the seats on your preferred flights will be sold out. For a 5th anniversary, I probably would secure the seats, though that's only my own opinion.

Good luck!

pbz

Ah great to hear from the famous slippahs. Thanks for the response partner.

I had considered a connection in HNL on the way to LIH but in my experience adding a connection to save $$ usually isn't worth the cost in time/frustration/lost bags. I'll certainly check it out though.

I am overall pretty gung-ho on a direct flight back from HNL since it'll be a long red-eye -- and direct means either UA or AA which is fine. I was hoping to keep things simple by keeping the whole trip on one airline. I guess there might be a cost to that too, which I'll have to think about.

Most of all I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that while the fare isn't great there's a big risk in it going up and/or running out completely. That would be a disaster way more important than the potential to save $100 or so. @:-)

Thanks again.
/pbz

PETEFLYS

well we live in DFW and go to hawaii every summer. I fly AA and can only give you history on flights from here. The flights usually are on sale for after labor day weekend and can be had for about 600 or so. I am always able to rollover my fares but am unaware of UA policy. I would wait a little if you are not going in peak summer months of June July or August.

philfna

Just got back from Kauai, and flew r/t from MSN to HNL (had to buy tickets from HNL to LIH for about $150 each). We bought A-Fare First Class on DL for $1000 each. UA has HNL for sub $700 r/t right now. No reason to think this will go away soon. BTW Kauai is amazing Lihue1k live in paradise.