Plane tickets...going once, twice, sold!
 

My husband and I are going to Kauai October 3-11! We already have our condo booked so our dates are set. I have been watching the airfare and I'm about ready to buy. We are flying from Austin, TX. We have been to Kauai twice and really like the US Airways flight. This flight goes from Austin--Phoenix--Lihue. The price right now is $781 roundtrip.

Does this seem like a reasonable price? Should I just buy or hold out for the price to go lower? (I have the typical anxiousness about if I buy now the price will lower and if I wait then it will get higher.) For anyone traveling to Hawaii during this time, how much did you pay for your tickets?

Thanks!!

I have seen some shockingly low fares recently to Hawaii show up for blips of time ($250 R/T from CLT), but not sure how easy it is to actually book these, if it's possible at all. Given the tourism depression that Hawaii is currently experiencing, I'd hope you could do better than $781, but maybe flights directly into Lihue command a premium?

For October, I would wait. Oct is a shoulder season and barring a huge increase in fuel, you should do better. From Austin 600-650 would be fair-500-600 great deal and sub 500 a steal.

I'm no expert on the matter, but some may be missing an important part of your question. You say your dates are SET and you must fly to Hawaii on Saturday and fly home on Sunday. Those are probably two of the roughest days to get tickets for, aren't they? Most of those super prices are for mid week flights, I would think.

On one visit we flew in a few days early, stayed in Kaapa a couple of nights before moving on to our beach house. It may be something worth considering.

Having the same problem except flying from Los Angeles to Kauai in September, have a timeshare so my dates are set also, Sat/Sat. Best I have found so far is $550 rt with Alaska including taxes, so will wait and see if it goes down a bit.

We just went to HI from NYC for $396 from vigilant price-watching so I bet some deals will come up if you wait awhile.

However, if you're particular anxious because of your specific date requirements and don't want to put off buying, consider flying into Honolulu (more competetive prices) instead and catching a Hawaiian airlines flight to/from Lihue. I just priced out your dates on Expedia and found a Continental flight for $544 total. The round-trip flights between Honlulu and Lihue are $92 total. That's a savings of $145 for each of you if you want to go ahead and get tickets right away.

Hope that helps!

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