"Dear God, make me a bird. So I could fly far. Far far away from here."

March 16, 2011 7:17 PM

Travel gurus, I need a cheap flight! Please bestow your bargain-hunting wisdom upon me!

My youngest brother is deploying to Libya on March 29th. I'm moving to another state and starting a job that week, so it's not really going to work for me to drive down with the rest of my family as I'm short on time. So, my only choice is to fly. Unfortunately, like the rest of America, I'm short on cash too! Potential itinerary:

From: somewhere in New England (Hartford, CT and Manchester, NH are the most convenient)
To: Raleigh/Durham NC
Departing: any time on Monday March 28th
Returning: sometime 8pmish or later on March 29th

The cheapest flight I've been able to find was on Travelocity and it was 270.00 after taxes. I don't buy flights often, is this a good last minute deal? I was really hoping to find something in the 150 range... Unfortunately that seems like it's not going to happen.

Pointers to other "discount flight" sites are welcome too. Thanks guys!!

posted by Glendale to Travel & Transportation (11 answers total)

Do you want a round trip or a one way ticket? Either way, try kayak.com. They're the travel site I use pretty much every time I fly. $270 is pretty good for a last minute flight though.
posted by Night_owl at 7:19 PM on March 16, 2011

Response by poster: Round trip, thanks I'll check kayak
posted by Glendale at 7:31 PM on March 16, 2011

if you fly from boston logan (i do a lot of business and bradley is closest for me but sometimes logan is best) you can pick any of a dozen flights on southwest for $230 roundtrip all in. same on jetblue, for about 240.

cheers, and thank your brother from my family.
posted by chasles at 7:39 PM on March 16, 2011

Hipmunk

This is much better for getting a visual view of your flight times (including connecting flights).
posted by SirOmega at 7:51 PM on March 16, 2011 [4 favorites]

If you can fly from Boston and potentially stay until early morning on the 30th, you can get a $177 fare on US Airways via Kayak. You won't be back to Boston until 10AM on the 30th though, and you'd have to find a place to stay overnight.
posted by cabingirl at 8:04 PM on March 16, 2011

chasles has the best price, but just fyi, Matrix is what all the cool kids use and is Hipmunk with a better interface.
posted by cashman at 8:50 PM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sometimes airfarewatchdog.com shows unadvertised fares, but it's more of a pounce on the deal kinda thing.
posted by PorcineWithMe at 9:20 PM on March 16, 2011

I love kayak.com. Some don't love it, but I swear by it. But it doesn't include Southwest, so you should check kayak.com + Southwest.com

it was 270.00 after taxes. I don't buy flights often, is this a good last minute deal?

If I were booking less than 2 weeks in advance, my response to that fare would be "Thank God! Dodged a bullet." I'm not an expert, but it sounds like a great fare with this little warning, and I advise you to book today so it doesn't go up.
posted by Tehhund at 5:15 AM on March 17, 2011

Southwest flies out of Manchester and to Raleigh but they fly through Baltimore so I would definitely compare to fares on Kayak. It seems like you should be able to fly direct Boston to Raleigh but it might not be worth it cost-wise.
posted by kat518 at 7:18 AM on March 17, 2011

$270 is actually really good for that flight with two weeks notice. Unless you find something super cheap on Southwest or another low-cost carrier, I think you should take it.
posted by echo0720 at 4:23 PM on March 18, 2011

ITA Matrix is good for finding flights, but to purchase them you need to use another site. (And sometimes the Matrix outputs fares that price out but are unpurchaseable for one reason or another.)
posted by armage at 6:24 AM on March 19, 2011