Where to find the best last-minute air fare
 

I need to travel from Boston to Portland in the next few days and the best airfare I can find now on expedia is $600 plus. With advanced booking, it's only $230.
Is there any other web sites I can look at to find a better last-minute fare? I thought about priceline, but my friend had a bad experience with them.
Thanks!

Nothing cheap I can find. But you may want to check all the different airlines' weekend web-only specials. They are for selective routes only, but one may have BOS-PDX.

Also check the air+hotel packages on the various travel sites. Sometimes, that can be cheaper than airfare alone. Just don't go to the hotel if you already have acommodations.

And there's Southwest Airlines from Manchester, NH and Providence, RI. [Their codeshare with ATA from BOS starts April.] While the one-way refundable fare is $299 + tax, you may be able to get a cheaper fare for your return flight, depending on when you're coming back. Total may be less than $600.

What bad experience did your friend have with priceline? I ask for two reasons:

1) Every company has people who have bad experiences with them, but that alone is not a reason to use them. I assure you that you could get responses from friends, family, whomever that would convince you that every airline out there is bad, but you'd still continue to fly. ;)

2) Many priceline bad experiences are due to user mistakes (not understanding the rules, etc.). They do provide a good service, as long as you understand up front what you are paying for and agree to the rules.

You could also check hotwire. They basically operate the same as priceline, but they name the price instead of you. The airline/times are still blind.

www.site59.com is known to have some good last minute deals, but they may only be packages. Not sure about that.

I'm not sure which of the low-cost airlines fly from near you. There's Southwest as rkkwan mentioned, Jet Blue, Independence, Frontier, Ned, Spirit. I'm sure there are others that I'm not familiar with. Many don't participate with the big searching sites, so you'd have to check their sites independently.

You can go to www.bestfares.com and look through their internet desk to see a listing of some of this week's major airline weekend saver deals.

Last minute prices are usually outragiously expensive.

The last minute flights you have no use for are the ones that will be on sale.

Try www.ITASoftware.com and play around with departure and arrival cities.

I found $261 for Providence to Manchester roundtrip but the flight back is Manchester to Hartford.

GoTravel - Manchester? Oregon?

www.travelzoo.com - I have never used them, but they seem to have the occasional good deal. It's worth a look.