turn_it_on

My heart goes pitter patter for the low airfares currently being offered from the bay area to maui, but unfortunately they all expire soon. Am I being silly thinking that airfare from the Bay Area to Maui will be put on sale within the next month or two for travel in July/August?

When I look at condos in Maui, they call this the "low season" but I've looked at the "select a seat for this flight" option for different flights for Aloha Air in July and they seem to be pretty full.

I know everyone and their mom wants to take their kids there for summer vacation, so am I being unreasonable to believe that the current ridiculously low fares will be offered for the summer? The most reasonable price I come up with right now that coincides with my travel dates is around $500 (anything cheaper never seems to align with my schedule). Aloha Air is currently offering "last minute" RT spring/summer fares for $319 from Oakland that you have to buy 3-10 days in advance of travel...bad idea?...plus leaving me last minute on condos and cars too. Will stuff start selling out, leaving me with nothing for the summer unless I act soon?

Any past experiences??

Kristin

P.S. Can I start a thread about airport nightmares? I have like two or three a month...last night my bag was held for being "suspicious" and they stole all my clothes...I need a vacation, but it would probably just give me more nightmares...

vivi

Hard to predict. I look at the airfares all the time as I fly back and forth about once a month. Hawaiian Airlines just had a great sale, I grabbed a few tickets, but it ended Tuesday.

turn_it_on

Yeah, I saw that Hawaiian Air sale, but again, everytime I entered dates, a wide variety of them too, the fare came back like $100 more than the advertised sale price. Very frustrating when that happens.

I found a pretty hot deal through Travelocity yesterday, and everytime I went to select from the departure dates THEY posted, it said "please select a different departure date" and then a whole block of dates disappeared! This happened everytime I clicked on one of THEIR departure dates except for like two...all I want to do is go to Hawaii, why does god make it so hard?

turn_it_on

Toppy McTop

GinnyG

I started my price search in june of last YEAR!~ for ,Hotel Car & flights,it never seemed to go down more than $100 or so. I searched all the websites I could fine yada yada.. Then I tryed AAA Travel,Ready for this? They saved us $762.00 :0 Wipeing out the compatition,big time. Now that Bush is back to looking for Ben,I'll bet the price's will go back up Good luck
I'll write a Big (Hi!) in the sand for you. I only have 16 more day's till(I'm leaven on a jet plane****

curmudgeon

Also take a look at pleasantholidays.com ; they are a big package seller and often have good deals for their flights with ATA. You can usually get an air/car package if you don't want to use their hotels. This spring, they seemed to hold their cheapest fares to a sliding window of about six weeks, so waiting may work. On the other hand, as people get over the war jitters, seats may start to fill up.

turn_it_on

Yeah, I have Triple A too, I was thinking about talking to them. Are you traveling from the west coast, and if so, how much were yr tickets through them and what airline? I know AAA works with Pleasant Holidays too, hopefully their combined powers of cheap will help us out.

ATA looks cool, in part because Southwest-type airlines don't really bother me (I am a devoted twice-monthly-rack-me-up-the-free-tix Southwester), in part because of their low low fares, and especially because of their good flight times from SFO to Maui--get there in the morning going out and get home in the early evening coming back.

Speaking of which, I found the winner of the WORST routing from SFO to Maui ever, on American I think: SFO to Dallas, to Indianapolis, to Chicago, to Maui, 24 hours total. I cannot in my worst nightmare imagine starting out to Maui in the WRONG direction, and making what should be a five hour trip a 24 hour one...it wasn't even near cheap, WHO buys routings like that?? I don't get it.

f00sion

I recently bought tickets for late july from lax for slightly more than $500, on American. When I started looking a few weeks back the lowest was $600/each from aloha and next was american at $700/each...Fortunately I waited a bit and not only snagged cheaper tickets but got to use my AA miles for a first class upgrade

jd99

I too am waiting to book an August trip to Maui and the airfares keep inching upward instead of downward. I remember in years past being able to book around this time of the year for late July or August at the better rates of the year. What gives this year? Any airline employees/travel agents know if it is anything besides the obvious economy stinks, travel industry in trouble?

Treesa

I just found our that there is a new airline that will start operations from LAX to Honolulu in July. Their name is Mainline Airways and they're offering one way tickets for $89.00!!! I understand that you can get a voucher which will be exchanged for a ticket. They are supposedly offering flights on Boeing wide body jets. I think they're owned by a Canadian airline. If anyone has more information, please share.

stevecat

Mainline have no federal certificate to operate, and no facilities have been secured at any of the State airports. They haven't even responded to HNL officials when they were offered the paperwork. Sounds fishy to me, but good luck to them if they can offer service at such a low cost.

jd99

Just moving to the top

BeachBoi

http://www.mainlineairways.com/about.html

Cant find anything else.....so,caveat emptor.HTH
S

turn_it_on

jd99...

I finally broke down and bought two tix for mid July on Aloha from Oakland to Maui...I checked the fare in the morning and in the evening when I went to buy them, they were $50 higher! The outbound plane does only have a few seats left though, so maybe people are getting over their war/terrorism/needing-their-mommy jitters and the airlines are recognizing this.

Also, last week I had been watching ATA's fares and they went from around $500 to around $750 in about a day or two.

And I saw that travelocity just put up new low fares valid from September forward...so they skipped the summer entirely...there are a smattering of fares for july/august but when you click on them it's like a joke, nothing is ever available, or if it is, it's like one day in june and one day in august, or it's at a way higher price.

All I know is, after all this airfare searching, I need a vacation.

Kristin