hawaii travel

[achiohmy]

Any advice on getting cheapest airline ticket from St. Louis to Honolulu .... traveling the week after Thanksgiving. I am considering the Priceline.com approach ...

[chideltjen]

Be careful with the Priceline.com thing. This one woman in one of my event planning courses did that for her trip to Hawaii. She named her low price and picked her hotel. The hotel she got was worth the price she paid. It wasn't very good.

I suggest maybe going through AAA or another insurance company if possible... or just booking the hotel through the company itself.

Flights though? Maybe try Orbitz.com?

Priceline and Hotwire have always been my methods of ticketing coming out of Hawaii (before I started working for United, of course). I've never found anything else cheaper than what I was quoted on those two sites. Travelocity/Expedia/Orbitz have good fares too, but I've had good experiences with Priceline and Hotwire.

Still...I would be very careful with Priceline and Hotwire. True, they tend to have the best discounted fares, but it's because they are VERY restricted fares -- meaning you can't do anything (change the time, flights, etc) to them, even if you are willing to pay a service/penalty fee. These sites purchase tickets from major airline carriers in bulk, so they resell them using "clearance fares"...which is why they tend to be so cheap.

So unless your originating/destination cities and traveling dates are set in stone and you don't mind not knowing what carrier you'll be flying and what time you'll leave and arrive, then those two websites will be your best bet. I get so many sob stories from customers at work because they desperately need to change something with their air itinerary -- but there's nothing I can do about it.

If you're booking a hotel, again...please be careful because 90% of the time you will get what you're willing to pay for.

If you need any help with travel plans in Honolulu, I can help!