$50 off* for 50 hours offer details
This offer is valid for travel on flights between February 17, 2009 and December 16, 2009. All you have to do is enter 50OFF in the Promotion Code box on the home page when booking your flight. You will then receive $50 off* a roundtrip purchase when booking a qualifying flight!

Between 12:00 AM ET on February 17, 2009 through 1:59 AM ET on February 19, 2009, just enter 50OFF (all caps, no spaces) in the Promotion Code box on the home page when booking your flight to save $50* off your roundtrip purchase for travel from February 17, 2009 through December 16, 2009.

See details.

We continue to be surprised by how inexpensive it is to fly to Dublin from a few key US cities for travel departing through April 2 and returns through May 2.

For the past few days, LA and San Francisco to Dublin have been selling for $393 including taxes on American and US Air; and Newark to Dublin on Continental nonstops went down to about $310 RT. New York JFK to Dublin is also under $400 RT including tax for spring travel.

And once you get to Dublin, there's Ryanair and other airlines to whisk you off to anywhere in Europe for next to nothing.

See fares to Dublin.

We had heard about this site for a while, but hadn't bothered exploring it. However, since we were going to LA for the LA Times Travel Show, and wanted to upgrade our coach fare to business class, now was the time.

Expert Flyer does a lot of things, but one of the things it does best is to make it very easy for you to find out exactly which flights have seats open for frequent flyer mile bookings or upgrades, including waitlist information, if available. If nothing is available for your flight, they'll send you an alert if something does pop up.

So in a few minutes, we knew exactly which flights to book on our dates of travel in order to upgrade our $399 coach fares on United from New York/LA to business class. (Recently, United decided to eliminate access to their upgrade inventory, but ExpertFlyer hopes to get them back on board).

They also offer access to real time seat maps on over 100 airlines (of course, our friends at Seatguru.com show seat maps, but not which ones are empty right now on various flights). And they have some neat published fare info with rules, restrictions, and lowest fares (this is sort of like EasySabre, for those of you who remember that product before it became Travelocity).

They offer a free 5 day trial, a basic plan for $4.99 per month or a premium one (which unlimited queries) for $9.99 per month; and there are also annual plans. We found it a useful tool.

We're not sure if anyone really wants to visit Australia right now, what with the fires and all, but it's certainly seldom been a better time to buy fares. United is still offering no advance purchase peak season fares to Sydney. From LA, for example, you'll pay just $808 round trip including tax. We usually see this price point for off peak travel with advance purchase restrictions, and indeed if you surf over to Qantas.com, which was matching this United sale for a while, you'll see that their off peak fares for travel May 1 to September 21, with a last purchase date of February 27, are much higher.

V Australia is also having a sale to Australia from LA  for travel beginning March 21, with nonstop flights in both economy and premium economy. They're adding new nonstop flights from LA to Brisbane and Melbourne later this year. We tried booking flights on their Web site, and maybe it's just because we use Macs or it was a temporary thing, but we couldn't get anywhere (each time we tried to do a search, it brought us immediately to Virgin Blue's site, which is not where we wanted to go).
 

This just in from Kathy, a reader:  "Wondering if you heard about the Northwest snafu last Thursday? I purchased 2 round trip airline tix through Travelocity: MSP/Phx through Vegas (NW/US Air) for $150 each - it seemed like one of those rare 2-day fire sale fares! Saturday Travelocity sent me an e-mail stating NW refused to honor any of those tickets purchased on Thursday. I called NW to verify: they blamed the snafu on Travelocity - until I insisted, got a manager at NW, who admitted that a '3rd party' company published incorrect NW airfares to a group of NW fare partner sites (like Expedia, Orbitz, etc.) and NW would not honor any of the purchased tickets."

Was the "third party site"  ATPCO, the Washington-based agency that distributes fares filed from the airlines to travel agency reservation systems such as Sabre, which Travelocity uses? We honestly don't know and Travelocity isn't saying.

This is all Kathy got back from Travelocity:

"Dear Valued Traveler,

On Thursday February 5th, Northwest Airlines filed a number of fares in error. Since then, Northwest has informed their travel partners that they will not honor the fares that were filed in error. In the best interests of our customers, like you, who booked one of these fares, we have voided the flight you purchased. Your credit card will not be charged and Travelocity service fees associated with your booking will be refunded. We apologize for any inconvenience. If you require assistance with booking new travel arrangements, please call us at 1-800-482-2422.

Thanks,

Proactive Customer Care

 Odd thing is, $150 RT isn't unheard of on this route. It's not like the fare was $1.50 RT or something obviously a mistake. Clearly, the airlines are getting tougher with fare mistakes, which have been happening far less frequently than in the past.
 

As reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer and followed closely by our friend Ben Mutzabaugh over at USA Today's Today in the Sky blog, "Stung by travelers driving to nearby airports in search of cheaper air fares, Delta Air Lines is lowering ticket prices to destinations from its Cincinnati hub, long the most expensive airport in the nation.  Delta said the cuts will range from 5% to 60%, and will apply to all destinations from the Cincinnati/Northern International Airport. The cuts will affect 80% of the travelers flying to or from the airport in suburban Hebron, Ky."

See fares from CVG

See fares to CVG

Cincinnati Airport is one of the many US airports that use Airfarewatchdog.com RSS feeds and widgets to show their customers low fares.

• Delta has slashed fares to/from CVG! US Air has also introduced some sale fares. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, these Delta fare cuts may be "permanent" and are the result of so many people driving to nearby airports (Dayton, Columbus, Louisville, Lexington, etc) where there are lower fares.

See fares:

to CVG

from CVG

Milwaukee County's General Mitchell International Airport has just redesigned their Web site and it looks great. Of course, our favorite bit is that they have the Airfarewatchdog fare widget on their home page. Take a look!

JetBlue has partnered with ISIC to offer full-time students an 11% discount on all of their flights.

ISIS is a non-profit organization that issues student identity cards worldwide.  Individuals must purchase an ISIC identity card to be eligible for the discount.  The annual cost of the card is $22.  ISIC's website lists the following eligibility requirements:

Full-time students age 12 & over currently enrolled for the academic year 2008-2009 at an accredited institution and matriculating towards a diploma or a degree. (Continuing education and language school students are not eligible).

You will need either a photocopy of school ID showing validity for 2008-2009 or a photocopy of your transcript/report card/tuition bill receipt for 2008-2009 academic year.

This can be a great deal for students and for parents traveling with kids who meet the eligibility requirements.  The $22 ISIC membership can easily pay for itself in one or two trips on JetBlue.  Additionally, the card offers other discounts such as 15% off on Amtrak, 10% on Target.com purchases and many others.  See ISIC's website for additional information.

Details on the program can be found on JetBlue's website here.

Usually, no advance purchase fares cost a small fortune. But right this very second, UA is having an unadvertised no advance purchase sale to Sydney, Australia. Now we realize that most people don't pack up and go at a moment's notice; but some do. Illness in the family, the grandkid just arrived, a sudden business meeting... or perhaps you're just a pack up and go type. Qantas is matching this sale more or less, although we've found their fares are a bit higher. In the comments below, you'll see that some people are bashing United...but remember, their fare drop refund policy is much better than Qantas'.

See what we've found here.

Also, it's summer time down under! But be warned, they're having a record scorching heat wave!

Below is an example that we just pulled from UA's web site. As you can see, we're leaving Portland OR at 1.14 PM PT today!  Well, we're not really leaving but we could. Actually, Tracy is leaving for Sydney tomorrow (sigh) via Honolulu. Also, these fares are pretty good, and you can leave from almost any United US city. This is but one more example why it's not always just the fare price that matters and why we at AFWD always look at the fare rules too.

Feb 3 UPDATE: This fare sale is still going strong. These are VERY good fares for travel to Australia when it's summer down under.