First of all...thank you all for all of the valuable information you have posted on this site about booking a cruise on the web. I used your great advice and booked our 12th cruise last week through Cruise.com. Saved $560 over booking with AAA and have been very pleased with the service. Now, I would appreciate any feedback you can give me on web sites for booking flights to our cruises. Any negative or positive feedback would be appreciated. Thanks so much.

Booking flights on the web is the easy part. First, I would suggest you go down a day early if at all possible. This will mean you'll need a hotel, and I can help you with that if you want.

For flights, go to www.orbitz.com and put your departure and arrival cities and dates in and it will give you the alternatives and the prices. The only airline not covered by orbitz is Southwest and you can go to their website and check out their prices. Booking them is simply filling out their forms and putting in your credit card number.

Peter

I booked flights thru expedia and orbitz and got burned. Ouch!!

I booked a flight on expedia from Dulles to Myrtle Beach. I later went to the US Air website and found that it was $25 cheaper. Expedia basically said "tough" and would give me a credit on future bookings.

Just recently I heard on this board that Orbitz had great rates on flights to Italy with Delta. I went on Delta's website, and the flights were $800. I went on orbitz, found a price of $431 for two round trip flights from Newark to Rome plus $35 fees. I later (2 hours) went on Delta's website and found the fares for $431. I ended up paying $35 extra for booking with Orbitz.

I would say, check with orbitz, expedia, and travelocity, then check directly with the airlines to see who has the best fare.

I have to agree with Budman. It requires checking around. I always check them all, and 90% of the time I end up booking online directly with the airlines. The price is the same, or ever cheaper. Remember there are some handling fees on Expedia and Orbitz.

I use travelocity, orbitz, and sidestep to research fares. Then I go directly to the airline site to purchase my ticket. The majority of the time, you can find the same fare on the airline's website and save yourself the handling fee (not to mention pick up some bonus miles). I also like dealing directly with the airline rather than a third party vendor.

You need to track your flights on orbitz, travelocity, and expedia for at least a month or so. Prices go up and down. Usually mid week in the evening, is the cheapest and the weekends the most expensive. When you find a good deal, jump on it, because they are gone in a flash. Yes, do check the airline sites too, if you do find a good deal. Orbitz, expedia, and travelocity do charge $5 or $6 a ticket.