Priceline.com
I’m traveling out to Texas to visit my sister who just had her first kid, and I thought I would give Priceline a try. I’ve used them in the past and a got pretty cheap rate, so I decided to push it and wait until nearly the last minute and see what I could get. I realized this was kind of a dumb move.
Priceline says they get the best deals within two weeks of the flight. That made me assume that airlines start to get desperate and drop their prices behind the scenes. What I didn’t think about was that when flights get closer, airlines start hiking up the price. In this case pretty drastically. Over two days I saw the general price of my trip double on Kayak.com (A site that pulls in listings from other travel sites).
Luckily, I was still able to get a good deal from Priceline. My flight was $200, while the same flight listed on other sites was $485. Almost a $300 savings. However, I could have bought the ticket a week earlier for around the same price from sites that let you choose the time you fly. I also might have gotten an even better deal from Priceline.
So you can learn from my dumbness, and not wait until the last minute. Another site that is similar to Priceline is Hotwire. I know my friend Brandon uses them a lot, especially for great hotel deals.
Aside from the waiting strategy that didn’t work, a strategy that has worked well for me is to first check prices on Kayak, then check Southwest. My flying dates are usually pretty flexible, so I use those two sites find the cheapest days to fly. Then I jump onto Priceline and bid about 50% of the price Kayak lists for those dates. Even if Priceline doesn’t accept your offer, they’ll give you other options. Then I just compare Kayak, Southwest, and Priceline, and figure out what’s best for me. This usually results in a reasonable if not great rate.