Help! Needing Cheap Airline Tickets /Family of 5 for Summertime.

Read in paper today the cheapest rates are usually found on Tuesday afternoon around 3 p.m. on most airlines. That is when others try to compete when one airline has a "sale". Flying on a Tuesday or Wednesday generally has cheaper rates too.

Do you belong to AAA? Use O. of their agents to help you find the best deal...better if your dates are flexible and you can leave and return on Tuesday/Wed/Thurs. But this is a cross country flight and times 5--it's not going to be "cheap"! The sooner you book, the cheaper it will be and sometimes flying out of a different, but nearby city, and paying for a week's parking IS worth it! Good luck!

There are usually good deals to Seattle from around the US. Would you be willing to drive a few hours to a bigger airport like BOS? I like to fly out of our local airport here in Bend, but will drive the 3+ hours to Portland if necessary. When buying 4 or 5 tickets, this can save alot of money. Plus there are several hotels around PDX that have park and fly deals. For around $100, we can stay overnight at the hotel, take the complimentary shuttle to the airport early the next morning, and leave our car for free in the hotel lot for 1-2 weeks. The money saved on parking covers the cost of gas to drive there. Breakfast is often included at the hotel, so we get off to a good start, no last minute kitchen clean up and we are already packed from the day before.

http://boston.parksleepfly.com/

Alaska Airlines flies to Seattle. I use their low-fare calendar when our dates are flexible. I also subscribe to several travel websites like travelzoo.com that notify me of special deals or drops in fares. You might want to monitor them for a few weeks, but don't wait too long because prices go up as flights fill up.

Southwest flies from Manchester to Seattle. Found tickets for $312 each one way....the farther out you book the better the prices USUALLY.

Try Albany, NY as well. I realize that Albany and Manchester are NOT 15 minutes away...but you might get better fares from a bigger airport.

Check with an travel agent - see if you can get a travel saver discount.

If you depart and return on a Tuesday or Wednesday - those are the low travel days...Monday, Friday and Sunday are the busiest.

GOOD LUCK!!

i book flights all the time for our business and personal. I never, ever use discounters... those are the first to be bumped and if something goes wrong, you are stuck... they don't have a ticket counter at the airport with customer service. Just BEWARE if you use them.. many people do and it turns out ok,, we don't take that risk.

I deal directly with the airlines and their website. You can get good deals. I deal specifically with Southwest and American. Southwest has great deals if they are in your area.

I book hubby's trips to Houston a minimum of 21 days out, buy the web special and he has a round trip ticket around $100 on Southwest.

Same with American, the further out you book and the more flexible you are, the better you can do. $3000 is WAY too much... you can do a lot better.

We fly out of DFW or Dallas Love Field, both good large airports. Where is your largest, most active airport? If you are paying to fly from little airports and connections, you will pay more.

If you are not comfortable with booking yourself, get an agent to help you.

We have 6 of us and I find awesome deals. I've never paid more than $300 round trip to go to Europe from California, but we are willing to travel off season. I just look for the deals and take them.

Maybe try calling a travel agent? We use a travel agent and she calls us if the price lowers and she gets us that price. I bought tickets on Jet Blue and when I called back, the price had dropped $100 on each ticket, so the agent gave me the money back into a Jet Blue acct. that we used later.

I found tickets on Jet Blue for $2800 including taxes and fees....but I haven't done extensive looking. Do you have any credit card miles to use? That looks like your best deal right now....but keep looking.

I do know my sister got a good deal by staying 7 days. if you fly out on the same day you fly in. That may just be a CA thing.

In 2009 we had 5 tickets from DC to New Orleans. We flew for $800 round trip! I checked the prices EVERY DAY and they went from $1300 total down to $800. When I saw they were $800, we purchased them.

I'll do the same for our planned trip next late December/early January. I'll check as soon as the dates become available and look daily.

We went from Burlington to Seattle one year by flying from Montreal to Vancouver and then getting a rental car to drive down to Seattle. We were going to rent a car on that end anyway, so that didn't add any expenses to our trip and the money we saved in the tickets was more than what we paid for parking in Montreal. Plus the flight itself was all in one country (rather than flying from Burlington to Montreal and then to Vancouver, etc.) so customs was at the border and the flights were very simple.