My friend and I are students and we want to go to Australia as cheaply as possible. We've been looking at a lot of sites, but for some reason the cheapest airplane tickets we've been able to find so far is $1999. We don't want to be in a tour...we want to go on our own. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Try Hotwire and or Priceline. I just tried Hotwire flying from Chicago to Sydney in mid-July and they came back with 1600.00 for 2. So I would try Priceline first with an offer of about $600-650 each plus they have a $15 bonus promotion going on now. Again, I don't know where you live and when you want to fly, so this might be of no help to you.<BR>Good Luck

HI<BR>Try Air New Zealand I think it's www.airnz.com. I got an e-mail from them this week with a price around 899. Try Expedia and Qantas.com and you'll probably come up with some decent fares. From what I've seen on these sites - I would try to stay away from Priceline - too many odd things happening with tickets and prices charges. Get your rates up front before you pay for them. Once you get them, go, enjoy - have a marvelous time.

This is for Nikki....How did you get on Air NZ email list. I searched their site but didn't see any "notify me of specials" opportunity. Thanks.

Nikki,<BR>What are you talking about? I've used priceline once for a flight and three times for a hotel. Never had a problem. Yes there are extra charges but they tell you upfront what they are. So, yes a $600 bid will cost you around $700(taxes and a service charge of 5.95), but you will know that before you bid.<BR>Again I don't know where Pam lives and when she wants to fly, so maybe it's not an option, but if it is, I would give it a try. $300x2 saving is not just some change, to some it's major money.

My husband and I are going to Australia in August and we got our tickets off of priceline. When we got them, the lowest fares were $1300 or so from New York. We started bidding at $600 and ended up getting them at $900, plus about $100 in departure taxes, etc. We were really happy with them. You didn't say where you're travelling from, but there are often special deals departing from Los Angeles on the major carriers (qantas, airnz, united, etc.). It could work out to get the roundtrip from lax-australia and then purchase a separate round-trip to lax (either on priceline or regularly). Good luck!<BR><BR>If you do decide to check out priceline for the tickets, just do some research on the going rates and read how to bid. When you get the tickets, just call the airline to confirm your flight reservations and get an ETA.

Okay - okay - If you all feel fine with Priceline - that's fine with me. I just know that on the states' board there's many messsages about problems occuring with Priceline ticket purchases AND I was only passing that on.<BR>I signed up for every e-mail special that came along and there was one from a travel Australia group that listed Air NZ returning e-mails.

What about counciltravel.com? They market to students...also contact a travel agent ask about consolidator rates....Another idea--I've never done it, but some people fly as couriers (you can't take much luggage but get a cheap or maybe free ticket)

I also used Priceline for my tickets to Australia and I got a great deal. At the time, the cheapest tickets to Sydney from DC were about $1,300 or $1,400 and I got mine for about $950. First, you need to seek out the very, very lowest price by using Orbitz, Travelocity, etc. Then underbid that price by around 30%, if you cannot get a ticket on the first bid, then increase your bid slightly and either alter the airport (in my case to BWI) or change the date by one day each way. Just keep doing that until you get a ticket.

We live in a little town, but we're going to take a train to Denver and then fly to Los Angeles from there. I found good prices on quantas.com. I'll check out priceline too. It sounds like you can get really good deals. Thanks guys.