Three friends and I are planning a ten day trip to Honolulu, Hawaii sometime in July. I have been searching for the cheapest possible ticket on multiple websites, but I feel so lost. We could leave from Raleigh, Wilmington, Charlotte, Myrtle Beach or Greensboro (all in NC). We live in Wilmington, NC, so the closer the better. We could leave anytime after July 12th and wish to stay anywhere from 9-11 days. We don't care about the time of the flight at all. We just want the cheapest flight available. Please help! Thank you so much.

Abby

Hey amd2971,

Well, to start, I don't give price quotes from our booking engine because availability changes constantly and there is no way for me to guarantee that any price that I could find for you know would be available when you returned to purchase.

That being said, let me tell you how I do it when I am checking on flights. First, since you are leaving fairly soon, find out from your friends what they are willing to pay, how they plan to pay for it and if they are giving you permission to purchase on their behalf up to a certain price OR, if not, when you can all be available, either via text, phone or in the same room together so that when you find a good deal, you can all take care of it at the same time. Believe me, mixed communications and seats suddenly unavailable at a lower price can get your trip together off on the wrong foot pretty quick.

Keep in mine that in the last 6 months one Hawaii carrier has stopped flying from the mainland USA and United, the largest carrier to Hawaii, has seriously cut back their flights so there are fewer empty seats to Hawaii and therefore, fewer low prices.

Take a piece of paper or a spreadsheet and make 5 columns, one for each city that you could fly out of. Then create a few rows with different dates that are few days apart all the way through to the last dates you are willing to travel.

Now open tabs in your browser for:
A ticket aggregator site like travelocity or orbitz
A consolidator like BargainTravel.com
The main websites for those airlines that service your local airports AND Hawaii. United and American come to mind, but there may be others.

Once you've got that done, just open each site and find the best price with the shortest travel times by going through the dates you put into your rows. Avoid Friday thru Sunday travel, unless you want to see if it makes a noticeable difference, it should add about $50 - $100 to the price. Record these as you go along and include where you found the price. This will keep you from losing the best deal when you've done your comparisons.

Once you have a good deal, get everyone to book there tickets right then. Seats can disappear quickly.

If you still are not happy with what you find and you don't have your hotel set yet, I would recommend going to Pleasant Holidays(http://tinyurl.com/6a5d73)and see what an air and hotel or air and car package would cost you. You might find that if you bundle the two costs together, it might not be much more than the air alone and be a better deal. They have such buying power and contracts for air and hotel in Hawaii that they get some really amazing how is that possible type deals.

Let me know how it goes or if you need any other resources. Good luck!

Post edited by: angusboy, at: 2008/06/23 13:41

Just thought I'd comment on the "cheapest" tickets. You give up some comfort such as no place to put your legs or feet, miniscule seats, and for a person with a little bit of claustrophobia. A few years ago I had a three-hour flight sitting next to a girl, and we were mushed together. It was a good thing she was a very nice person, as we were nearly in each other's seats.
If you get the cheapest tickets possible, and are flying to Hawaii, hope one your friends gets a ticket next to you, or you will be "getting to know" someone very well on your long flight.