Keep trying Orbitz. I got my ticket last weekend for $549 from Florida.

PS Look at departing Miami rather than Ft Lauderdale

Ft. Lauderdale is the bargain airport for Miami - - rather like MDW, BWI, LUV, EWR, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if FLL to connect to CLT or IAD or PHL or some other gateway city might actually be cheaper than MIA.

I am very happy to come online and see so many responses to my frustration.

I feel I did pretty well with the hotels as I utilized Rick Steve's book and wrote to each place (listed in his book) and asked them for a discount and was given one.

I want to be in that 3% that gets the low fares. I just like to shop for sales!

i am also planning a trip from the FLL (fort lauderdale)area, you should research flights out of MIA (miami). They are more frequent and more direct routes. :)

Get someone to drive you to Miami...it's only 35-45 minutes! And you'll find many more flights. I put your date in ITA and came up with $700.00 fares today and they'll probably go lower later on

Is ITA Alitalia?

No ITA is not Alitalia..it is the site TAs use..enter as a guest...even if you use sidestep you will mostly get better prices on ITA...you do have to call the airline itself and quote the price. It is not a booking site

http://www.itasoftware.com/

I think some of the lucky 3 per cent got ticketed today on Delta. Hold tight and believe, robbiegirl. I hope you have noticed some of the lucky fares people landed today. Not for Otober, I don't believe, but considering how good they were for May, September, even mid-summer - - thre is good reason for you to keep checking.

While on the subject of FLL and MIA, I often fly out of one and back into the other. American treats them as the same departure city, so there's no charge to do that. Sometimes you can fly out of FLL to another gateway city, but fly back directly to Miami.

FWIW today's, rather this morning's fares, did go into October. I checked this morning and by the time I confirmed dates with travel companions, they were gone....will be ready next time!

Another suggestion that I have while waiting for the perfect fare to find you is setting the deal detector on orbitz... you just plug in the dates and places of travel w/ you target price and they'll send you an email letting you know when it drops below that price. might come in handy for you.

Patrick it would be very inconvenient to fly into or out of Miami and then into or out of Ft. Laud. We live about 55 min from the Miami airport and after coming home from a long trip waiting to see what is in store for us , getting our car from somewhere or taking a shuttle from the Miami airport home and then retreiving our car would not really save money in the long run it seems.

Any good deals this week?
I still do not feel I can find a reasonable fare yet. I check daily. should I just stop and wait a month or two?

robbiegirl,

Why would you stop looking? Just continue checking daily. I don't see how that could hurt and I think you'd be way more frustrated if stop looking only to miss another sale!

Personally, I WOULD stop looking, well looking seriously, and wait until about August. I don't even bother looking for flights these days until about 2 months before departure date, and I always find something very reasonable.
Of course, if you DO continue to look every day or so, you might get a fabulous rate - it really is a crapshoot.

You can get around it by booking a package with one of the airlines' vacations divisions - Northwest World Vacations, American Airlines Vacations, Delta Vacations etc. The package airfare is usually much lower ($200-$400 less) and the catch is you have to buy partial ground arrangements. Northwest World Vacations requires at least 2 hotel nights OR a rental car in order to get the package airfare, but that's no great hardship. For example, I got Detroit-Madrid-Paris-Detroit for $650 in late May, purchasing four Best Western Advance units to get the package airfare.