Help! Where to get air tickets online?
This year my family will take a trip to Asia to visit the in-laws. My question: Where should we buy the tickets?
I've checked out Yahoo travel, and was quoted round-trip adult tickets in April starting at about $700. But when I go directly to the airline websites, the prices are at least $1100, even for those sites which have frequent flyer clubs to which I belong.
Why the huge difference? Should I be worried about buying cheap tickets through a website that's not affiliated with the airline? Any recommendations for online sites or services that sell international air tickets?
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you should call up those asian travel agencies; they can give you a much better deal than yahoo! travel!
The aggregator sites like www.sidestep.com are good. They search all of the airlines and other travel sites like Orbitz for you and combine the results. Sidestep didnt let you buy tickets, though, you have to follow the links for that
Thanks Wendy and Flier. Flier, I checked out that site but the cheapest it gave me was $900. I guess they don't search Yahoo. Wendy, that's a good idea -- I've seen ads like that for travel agencies specializing in Asia flights in the travel section of the NYT on Sunday, but I always wonder if they're safe -- I worry about losing my money, or being sold tickets that can't be used, or are with some obscure airline.
Has anyone tried such services recently?
These guys have an annual "all you can fly" in Asia from $899 to $1099 usually starting around May.
Not sure where you will be flying in asia but it's the best deal around. You can usually fly to all their destinations in a 21 days period for free.
I go back to Hong Kong every year and I have tried a few of the asian travel agencies. I just moved to the United Kingdom though. Those that I have tried are pretty big companies, some have locations in several cities in the US. I have never looked up in the newspaper for them - usually my friends gave me the phone numbers. But I think as long as they have a few locations (many of them have webpages as well) it should be safe. there's a flychina.com that allows you to book online for flights to many places in asia, but I have not used it. oh there's www.sunshineboston.com. they are huge in boston, but I have not tried them either as I usually got a better deal from the numbers my friends gave me. But you can get an idea how much cheaper the tickets you get from them than from Y! travel or expedia...etc.
And I agree, those ones advertise on NYT look scary :p
Just came across $199 flights to Japan from various US cities.
Thanks Guest and Wendy for the great tips! That $400 round trip to Japan via United is excellent, if you can live by the terms.
