I logged onto Delta.com today to book four seats open jaw from Little Rock to Portland and back from Seattle. I am using Frequent Flyer miles for two of the seats. When I checked this morning, the tickets were $379 each. I booked the two seats for the kids using the FF miles first, then went back to reservation page only to find the price had jumped to $449 in the 20 minutes it took to book the first two seats. And the planes were all still 3/4 empty.

I went back to the reservation page and selected one seat instead of two. This got me back to the original $379 price for that seat. I still had to pay $449 for the second. I didn't feel I had the option to hang around to see if the priced dropped since we all had to be on the same flight.

Moral of the story: Next time I will book the paying seats first, especially if I have to use SkyChoice instead of SkySaver miles. Also, sometimes it pays to book one passenger at a time.

Hope this helps someone save some money in the future.

Sometimes it helps to delete the airline cookies from your computer before rechecking for flight prices. I've done this and gotten the previous lower prices.

Well, if you're getting SkySaver awards, in the same 20 minutes, you may also "lose" those seats, and have to spend double miles. That's more to loose than $70.

Some airlines, including Delta, will allow you to reserve your flight using FF miles, and keep the on-hold status for a few days. You have to call them to do this, but they'll give you a reservation # and send an email to confirm. You have to call them back before the deadline, else the reservation expires. They do not book the flight and deduct the miles from your account until you call to confirm and get ticketed.

This way, you can lock in the FF seats, then book your paid tix online, knowing that the FF seats are already there. If the price for the paid seats has gone up, and you want to look for another flight, you simply call to release the hold on your account and start the process over again.

I tried the delete cookie trick, and even tried another computer, but neither one worked.

I checked today and the price was down to $369. I called and managed to get an $80 reduction in the ticket price. All that cost was $50, so I was net $30. And the $30 is paid in a voucher, good for goods or service from future Delta purchases.

I feel like I'm playing a slot machine. Keep hitting the refresh button and hope a good price comes up.