Just looking for opinions from fellow travelers this summer. Traveling August from Boston to Kauai and then onto Lanai. In the past, I've for the most part done all my hawaiin reservations, myself online. This year, I've had trouble finding reasonable flights. So I went to a travel agent, who can't find much either, unless I let them book my hotel reservations with them thru a consolidator. Do they, the consolidators have travel locked up that tight? I have gotten amazing rates for my hotels. Are my dates unlucky, or is something preventing me from getting decent flights from the east coast to Kauai to Lanai to east coast. Sorry to vent, but having the beach house rented for months, and this being our 7th trip to the islands, we're not newbies...what makes this summer so difficult. mahalo for any help and opinions!
g/lou

I've been looking for flights too and they seem high and have mostly been getting higher! Is it because the price of gas is so high?

Everything I've seen has been $100+ a ticket more than for the same dates last year....

I'll let you know if I see a deal!

We are headed to Hawaii for the second time this summer. We are also leaving from Boston and going to Oahu and Kauai. We had A LOT of trouble finding reasonable flights on open jaw tickets, and we booked back in Jan. It seemed that adding Kauai or the Big Island onto our itinerary brought the cost up to around $950, a couple hundred more than HNL and OGG. Because Oahu is the cheapest island to fly to, we chose to go there, and got our RT ticket BOS-HNL for about $650 each. Then we booked a RT ticket to Kauai, and this was still less than flying BOS-HNL-LIH-BOS.

G'lou,
Yikes! You're right. I just checked fares using ITA (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/login) and the lowest was a $900 fare on America West with a 13 hour layover in Phoenix!

I know what you mean. We're going to Mexico in Feb and I've watched the fares climb over the last month from $440 to $530 for the same flight. A friend who works for a travel search engine said it is mostly because of gas prices.
-Bill

If you could leave and return in the middle of the week (Mon-Wed) and Oahu is ok, then www.AA.com is showing $598 R/T fares from BOS with a connection in ORD in August. Saturday departure/return is about $80 more.

check www.airtohawaii.com

Airfare to Hawaii has been really high the past couple of years.

There was a record # of tourists last year and this year is even higher so far through the first four months.

Because the flights are full and the high fuel prices, airlines won't have the deals like they used to.

So don't look for any real deals for airfare to Hawaii. There are still a lot of reasonable priced package deals available.

Thank you so much everyone for your thoughtful responses. Highflyer, $100 a ticket wouldn't bother me....it's crazier than that. Beachgirl, I think you did well in this market. Frequent and Enjoy...I will definately look into your ideas tomorrow. And Bill and Dusty, I think you're getting what I'm talking about. When I say I'm looking for reasonable flights, I mean cost and time. Again, I question how consolidators have flights locked up so that only very expensive and poor schedules seem to be available to those who choose to visit the islands without a package deal. Mahalo everyone for your responses and advice. gyppie

I live on Oahu so every spring or summer I look for cheap flights to Minneapolis. The past five years have been averaging about $425 round trip. Two years ago, I found one for $380 round trip.

This year, around $600, so I decided to wait till fall and try again.

ttt