best websites for cheap weekend fares from my city to *any* destination

February 11, 2009 12:11 AM

I've been swamped at work for months, and was pretty much shocked to realize that I don't have any mtgs on Friday, and Monday is a holiday.... I started searching for flights online, and for the obvious places, where I have family or close friends, I couldn't find anything cheap (~$250, from PDX or better yet, EUG). I'm open to going someplace more random, but all the searches I could find required a destination. What I'd like is a list of the cheapest flight (& associated airline) from a given city to *any* city. I want to input a departure city and dates, and get a lot list of ~50-100 destination cities and prices. kayak/buzz is the closest I've found, but it only does this for "top 25" destinations. I'm looking for more destinations to increase the likelihood of finding something near a friend. does this exist?
posted by comah to travel & transportation (15 comments total)

You can do this on the Alaska Airlines site for their flights.
posted by fshgrl at 12:14 AM on February 11

Here.
posted by mdonley at 12:40 AM on February 11

And here's Eugene.
posted by mdonley at 12:41 AM on February 11

Try lastminute (formerly site59)
posted by MuckWeh at 1:03 AM on February 11

Fare compare has a lot more filtering options than skyscanner, especially if your goal is to maximize frequent flier miles. If you are just a normal vacationer, you prefer this page on farecompare
posted by Lame_username at 1:39 AM on February 11

Actually ignore last comment - the site is not set up for the US at the moment
posted by puffmoike at 1:39 AM on February 11

thanks.

it's entirely possible (likely!?) that I'm missing some option, but I think skyscanner and adioso both require you to enter a destination in order to get a price? (skyscanner clearly isn't sorted by price, because the top hit was albequerque, @ $660 roundtrip). And lastminute.com requires car and/or hotel?
posted by comah at 2:07 AM on February 11

I use Airfare Watchdog which lists all flights from your chosen airport that have recently dropped in price or are below their historical average. Its not exactly what you are looking for but it may be a good starting place. Here are the current results for PDX.
posted by Bango Skank at 4:40 AM on February 11 [1 favorite]

Travelocity has exackly what you want I think - here's a huge list of destination deals from NY. You can just switch your city and choose your destination.
posted by jourman2 at 5:06 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]

You can just switch your city and choose your destination.

jourman, the OP is asking for a way to research this information that does NOT require you to choose ANY destination. Do you know of any way to do that?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:29 AM on February 11

Sorry if I misunderstood

I read this

I want to input a departure city and dates, and get a lot list of ~50-100 destination cities and prices. kayak/buzz is the closest I've found, but it only does this for "top 25" destinations. I'm looking for more destinations to increase the likelihood of finding something near a friend. does this exist?

If you look at the site its pretty much exactly that - all you do is input a departure city and date and it gives you about 100 destinations which you then choose. I'm just not sure which part I'm misunderstanding.
posted by jourman2 at 7:07 AM on February 11

I have a profile at Travelocity which has my home city in it. Thus, when I log in I get "best airfares from Portland"! So, make a profile, maybe? I'll email you with the best deals for today....
posted by amanda at 8:16 AM on February 11

I also just checked Orbitz -- when I log in and go to "flights" I get a little bug for low fares from Portland. However, it doesn't let me sort by prices like Travelocity which is a bit annoying. So, anyway, I suggest you make a profile at one of the aggregators and go from there. Note that some of these low fares will have date restrictions so you'll have to pick one and then figure out if you can fly out on that date and that may not be possible on such short notice. Good luck!
posted by amanda at 8:25 AM on February 11

thanks! travelocity and airfare watchdog are closest to what I'm thinking. Neither of these seem to specify departure date, though. for weekend fares (specifying date and departure city, but not destination, I think I'll continue to go to each individual airline...).
posted by comah at 9:20 AM on February 11

Travelocity used to have a "dream maps" feature, which was great for this sort of thing. You put in a home city and a maximum price, and it showed you a map of all the places you could go. Sadly, I don't think it works anymore -- the page still exists, but it just loads and loads and loads...

Farecompare.com, which lame_username mentioned above, is a pretty good substitute. E.g., this page shows you "top deals" from MSP (change the city as needed).
posted by chalkbored at 9:32 AM on February 11