Nutzz

Just wondering what type of MR's that people have run into searching at night and finding that last minute deal on a single day RT... and then boarding the plane in the morning???

Is it possible??? (looking more so on NWA) any direction would be appreciated! Even if it is a two day trip, my job is very flexable for this!

Thanks!

VPescado

I am not an expert on NW, but I would think that this would be fairly unlikely due to how tickets are constructed (with the exception of last minute fair sales that a lot of airlines do on the weekends - but they tend not to allow one-day trips).

Here is why: In order for you to get a low priced ticket that was not available in advance, there must be a low priced fare in the market on your airline. Additionally there must be inventory available in the applicable fare bucket for the fare in question.

If the airline realizes that they have a glut of seats they may open ups some inventory (ie sell a seat in a lower fare bucket than the had previously offered it). This will reduce the cost a bit, but also consider low cost fares tend to have significant advance purchase requirements - so even with inventory opening up prices tend to go up as the departure date gets down to a handful of days.

So unless the airline suddenly creates a cheap fare that has no advance purchase requirement (or a one day requirement) and they do it the day before your trip, you will not do much better than you would have a couple of days before.

jpdx

It's a matter of luck on fares that do not require advance purchase. I recently bought a trip PDX-EWR 4 hours before departure, for $219 all in. The applicable fare bucket just happened to be available. Obvious downside: good seats are usually gone, and upgrades have been assigned, so you may find yourself waaaay in the back. Also, bumps are extremely unlikely.

Not easy to find these deals; often last minute offers on Travelocity etc can be pretty decent value, if you add a cheap car or hotel room.

LucWise

I did this in December a couple years ago.. I needed a couple thousand miles to requalify for Silver on NW. I got lucky and found a flight on Friday for under $200 and left the next morning. Had lunch and returned home that afternoon. It was not a great deal as far as miles go, but it served its purpose.

cdnpilot

I too did this a four years back in orfer to requalify with NWA. At the time I thought it was worth it.... even if I did have the middle seat in the middle row on a transcon. It seems though nowadays with capacity cuts and increases in tickets (in general) closer to the departure date, it may be difficult. Best of luck!

rkm

Agreed that the Site59-type deals can be great at the last minute, but the OP is looking for last-minute day trips. Site59 packages usually have a two-night minimum stay.

Last-minute web fares offered by each airline (E-Fare, NetSaaver, etc.) can be reasonable, but these tend to apply only to nonstops and require an overnight stay. Two strikes against a good MR.

Standby4321

I don't know about other carriers, but Northwest has never been a great one for finding cheap, last-minute deals. Fares tend to escalate as the departure date approaches. There may be exceptions, but that is what I've generally seen with Northwest.

Nutzz

Thats what I figured or when searching found out NWA was not all that for good last minute flights. I have actually been booking many through Cont., as they are still on NW flights numbers for sometimes 20% to 40% cheaper compared to NW.

I just noticed some poeple say they have gotten some great last minute fares. My time is pretty flexable so I would have that chance if it presented itself to me!

I will keep my eyes open, just in case!

spurg

Never hirts to stay dilligent -- but this is a tough market right now for next day flight.

wanaflyforless

During low season, one might find an OK/poor mileage run (cost/mile wise).

During the summer I would be VERY surprised if anyone finds a last minute MR with a good cost/mile.


A very good MR gernerally requires two things: An excellent fare from A to XYZ, coupled with an extensive routing available on that fare /from XYZ. The chances of these co-inciding last minute in peak season are very low, except for mistake fares.

karthik

Booking the night before? Come on, that's no fun... you're supposed to book it over the phone on your way to the airport after the website cuts you off for trying to booking too late!

I found a nice last-minute MR on Song last fall (JFK-SFO-JFK, so not quite a true MR.) I could've booked in advance, but the prices stayed low until the day before and I didn't know when I could travel until then. This was during a period of double flown DL miles from Amex plus a 10k Song transcon bonus from Delta, so I knew in advance that the RDM would be worthwhile (even if I just got the 10k bonus; but I got both and more!)

Making it even better... My outbound flight was cancelled, so they rebooked me on the next one, 1 hour later. I had a 45 minute turn in SFO, so they rebooked me SFO-JFK as well since I'd miss the connection with the new outbound (ended up with a 35 minute turn.) Both segments rebooked into Y. Ended up being quite lucrative with the three bonuses combined! The Amex double miles stacked on top of the 50% full-fare Y bonus. (And I was an FO at the time, so that was just with a 25% base RDM bonus rather than a 100% bonus as GM, which stacked on the 50% Y bonus as well of course.) Plus the 10k RDM to top it off...

I've gotten a few nice deals from Site59. Not great MRs, but great prices for the last minute flights+car (usually to visit friends for a weekend, so flight+car works best for me generally.) I remember one that worked out to $240 all-in BOS-DTW-BOS, which was great with the car included; NW wanted $1200+ for the same non-stop flights that I took. What's that you ask, non-stops!? Such heresy! Yeah yeah, I wasn't a mileage runner yet at the time so I went with the non-stops.

wanaflyforless

I have booked flights at the last moment before, but I wouldn't call them mileage runs.

Mileage runs are about maximizing, and while karthik did do a nice last minute mileage run, had it been possible to plan farther ahead, more miles could have been had for less money (taking advantage of those specific promos).

So yes, mileage runs can be done last minute. But the lowest cost per mile cannot be had doing last minute mileage runs.

sllevin

It's much easier to do this if you are travelling midweek. Sometimes the airlines will release inventory at the last minute (often, with the intention of allowing people to change travel plans as much as anything else) but if there's a zero-day fare out there in your market, you can end up scoring.

It's much much harder on weekends, though.

Steve

DTW-HomeyFour

I've had pretty good success with NW booking last minute trips. They don't always end up being great MRs, but I don't often see great fares out of DTW. Once I had a great T fare to LAS departing in 2 hours (I was already at the airport) so I called it in. The TA on the phone only saw an H fare, but I told her I saw the T fare and that it had availability... she said "oh yeah, I see it NOW" and sold it to me.

jamiel

I had an interesting one several weeks ago. Ended up buying ATL-DTW <24 hours before traveling. Ended up on US Airways on an ATL-CLT-RIC-PHL-DTW routing for $140. As is always the case with me and US...the RIC-PHL flight was delayed and would cause a misconnect so I ended up ATL-CLT-RIC US then RIC-ATL-DTW DL (in Y class though so nice boni)

OT: Does US ever complete their flights---3 of my last 4 efforts to fly US have come a cropper because of delays, bumps, ...