This morning I received a call from my personal business partner requesting my presence for few hours this weekend in London. She was willing to pay the high priced last minute ticket, but I told her to give me few hours.
Went to <b>www.site59.com</b>, and priced a trip to London this weekend. It was showing a fare of about $595 with 1 night stay at a Holiday Inn, (great, or so I thought. It gets better). Picked the flights (all AA ) and the hotel, and it comes back with ~$492, final price. On top of that I used the discount code and the final price is $433. Received e-mail confirmation of all my bookings about 2 hours later. Called AA, requested upgrades, and I was able to get all except TPA-DFW, but I'm waitlisted for that one, so hopefully this one will clear too, thanks to my Executive Platinum status.
It's N fare, so 100% mileage. TPA-DFW-LGW/LHR-ORD-TPA = ~10,500 status miles, with bonuses, ~21,000 miles. My partner was shocked!!! to say the least.

Thanks Site59! Great job.

Highly recommended!

Thanks AA. I've visited Site59 several times, but never booked. Good to hear that there are some deals out there to be had.

Good deal. I went to site59 a couple of weeks ago and saw a great car/hotel package. Then went to travelocity.com and saw the same offer and got a $50 coupon discount (2 nights crowne plaza + mid-size for three days for $108).

The travelocity webpage looked like the site59 webpage and when I saw the temp authorization on my credit card online, it said the charge was from site59.com. When the transaction posted it was from &quot;Last Minute Getaways&quot;.

So, the travelocity last minute deals are site59 deals. Am interested in the site59 discount code. Is that a members only thing, or what? I'll go click around that site again.
Wondering what a <i>personal</i> business partner is.
Have a good trip.

Discount code: MC59 ($59 off)

I do some work for Uncle Sam, but I have personal business interest in London. .

Love that city!

Will report if I can from across the pond. Have a great weekend folks!

Back at home. Quick report. AA was very good to good as always. Upgrades cleared. Flights were great, although the crew on the return was just average.
The Holiday Inn Bloomsbury worked out great. I walked in at around 7:30a and got a room on the Executive level in 5 minutes(I have no status with Priority Club). Did not expect either one on this package deal. A litte problem during a very early morning check-out. The desk clerk was trying to charge me for the room. It allowed me to see how much Site59 paid for the room. It was 45BP. Anyway, I had the printout from Site59, he took a copy of it, changed my bill to reflect the ONLY charge I did have, a mini-bar coke for 1.25BP. I paid and that was that. Always carry a printout on these packaged deals.
The one problem with the hotel was it's location and early Sunday morning departure from Heathrow. Russel Square tube stop is right behind the hotel, but it does not start running till 6a on Sundays. I had to be at the airport by 6a, so that was out. I could have taken couple of busses to Paddington, but decided against it, so cab was the only option other than a private car. A cab from the hotel to Paddington is not cheap and the HX is not cheap, so maybe for another 10BPs I could have done a private car. If you have later departures than it's not a problem. Walk 100m to the tube stop and 1 hour later you are at LHR for something like 5BPs. No changes, no problems.
Nice hotel, very nice and clean room. Queen bed, nice desk, a sitting chair with a little side table, a good size bathroom, A/C that worked too well(I woke up at night freezing, because I forgot to turn it up a little after the initial seting). Friendly staff. Did not try their restaurant. A very nice looking pub was closed because the manager or somebody was getting married, but it looked like it could be a fun place. Overall a nice hotel, especially when the rate is 45BPs.
I still don't know how Site59 does it? ~$90 for the room, so that leaves $343 for the flight. The fare code was a full mileage earning fare, so it's not a consolidator fare and this is still August. Amazing. The DFW-LGW flight was full in Y, 3/4 full in front(2 class plane). On the return(3 class plane), all 3 cabins were about 1/2 full which was a surprise. I did talk to the Purser on the return and she told me that this particular flight on Sundays is usually an easy flight for them, unless al the other flights fill up and they have a spillover. People just don't want to get up very early when going home from their vacation or business meetings. Also no connecting flights so it all adds up to light loads.

One more report on ORD. We left LHR on time (7:55a) with ORD scheduled arrival of 10:15a. There were some very strong headwinds, so our arrival was delayed by about 30 minutes. I walked off the plane at exactly 10:55a at the international terminal 5. My connecting flight to TPA was on time with boarding scheduled to start at 11:12a at gate K4 in terminal 3. I pretty much gave up making this connection. Walked my normal walk. Got to immigration and since I was one of the first people there, it took less than a minute to get my passport stamped. No checked luggage so walked up to the customs officer gave him the card, (surprisingly did get asked few questions), and out of the door by couple minutes pass eleven. took the train to terminal 3, walked to security, luckily I get to use the premium lane, and finaly walked to gate K4 and sat down at about 11:10a.
The good news - did not have to wait for the only other flight to TPA (6p).
The bad news - I did not get to use the fabulous Flagship Lounge at ORD (I really like that one).
I'm not advocating that anybody should plan on a tight connection like this, but I was amazed of the record time I was able to do all of this and still make my original connection at ORD.

As far as Site59? Everything worked except for the little hiccup during check-out. Highly recommend it. I will do few other short weekends at that price in the near future, although I did check and the next few weekends are quite a bit more. I assume that if you are willing to wait till a day before to purchase the trip, the price drops accordingly to how many packages they still have left.

Dont Believe the hype to much!..Site59 has some decent deals but keep in mind that it is not flexable. I work in the travel industry and they offer hotel and air and claim to sell vacations, this is not a vacation. also get down to the details becuase the hotels they offer are not always grade A.

<b>dda21</b>,

Nobody ever said that <b>www.site59.com</b> was flexible or the best. I just reported my first experience with them and everytning worked beautifully. I'm the first one to tell you that I don't believe in packages, but in this case it worked accordingly.

To be honest, I have been looking for something similar and NOTHING!!!

Still, the Holiday Inn was nice and the flights earned full mileage, so what else can you ask for???