Q. We booked a flight using Priceline's Name Your Own Price. Our flight left at 6:20 a.m. on Wednesday and we, very unfortunately, slept through our 3:00 a.m. alarm. We called Northwest on our way to the airport at 5:30 and they said we would be put on standby for the next flight. When we arrived at the front desk, they told us we had to call Priceline.

Priceline said they would put in a standby request, but that the right to fly was at the discretion of the airline. When we went back up to the desk, we were told that they saw nothing in the computer, would not put us on standby and, oh by the way, your return flight is invalid as well.

I know that missing the original flight was our fault, but can you explain why Northwest would not put us on standby and why the return flight was cancelled?

A. Most likely your "name your own price" fare was what they call a consolidator or bulk fare, and these fares are often "use it or lose it"--they have no value if you miss your flight, and that's why they're so cheap.

Sorry you had this experience. It's one reason why we don't list these fares on Airfarewatchdog.com

Wow, that's horrible to hear. I'm surprised Northwest wasn't more considerate! One time, on a Priceline Name Your Own Price ticket that I booked for a friend recently, his family had a change of plans and he had to leave a day earlier [or stay at a hotel]. United [whose staff at the airport are actually apart of Delta Global Services] were somewhat nice and charged him a $100 service fee to fly a day earlier. I even complained to customer relations on his behalf and got a travel voucher, lol! This was quite nice since the ticket did cost $397.30 at the time of booking and my bid of $138.75 was accepted the first try!

Oh, and just curious airfarewatchdog, how would you even go about publishing Priceline's Name Your Own Price consolidator tickets? There's no way to search for these flights, since they're purchased once your bid is accepted. In fact, they don't sell any kind of consolidator tickets on the retail portion of the site [and no ticketing fees too!].

In fact, one time when I saw a cheap international deal on here, it brought me to airfare.com and was a consolidator ticket. It wouldn't say the airline, although it flew thru DTW and even listed the schedule times, so it had to have been NWA. Airfare.com was quick to point out this was a consolidator ticket and completely non-changeable, non-re-routable, and non-refundable.

So people don't get stuck with these tickets without realizing the implications, it would be great if you guys gave a warning for web sites that sell these, like airfare.com.

Thanks for an awesome web site!

@Matthew