Boston to New York $41 round-trip, incl. all taxes

This is part of JetBlue's "Cheeps" Twitter specials. Fly on Saturday and return Monday or Tuesday.

Madison to Boston $151 round-trip, incl. all taxes

This fare requires a whopper 21-day advance purchase, and is available for travel 7 days a week, with a 330 day travel period.

By Airfarewatchdog.com

Dan Parks was not a happy camper. Understandably so – the Victoria, BC-based meeting planner was stranded at the Seattle airport on a Friday morning, so close to home after a trip to the Caribbean, and yet so far away, thanks to a missed connection, which he blamed on his airline.

Told it could be up to 10 hours before Horizon Air could get him across the water to Victoria, Parks did what any modern traveler would do. He pulled out his phone, and began to tweet.

“At the Seattle airport - ANOTHER comedy of ERRORS from Alaska / Horizon Airlines. Wish I had a NICKLE for every misrepresentation.”

Then, a couple of hours later:

“So this error today at Horizon Air is going to cost us 10 hours of our life. Please shoot me if I fly or recommend this airline again.”

Within minutes, a staffer monitoring Twitter for mentions of Horizon Air was addressing Parks directly; he explained his predicament, gave the representative his details and location, asked for a manager to come speak with him and, within another couple hours, was on his way.

“Getting on a flight home! Big props to @horizonair for all your assistance in making it happen!”

It didn’t stop there. Where just a week ago he’d been stamping all his tweets with the dreaded “#FAIL” hash-key, now he was singing Horizon’s praises to his 30,000-plus followers.

“I was VERY impressed how quickly they responded,” he tweeted, just days after the debacle. “I felt I had someone who CARED. We need to see that more often.”

Parks didn’t respond to a query for more details on his complaint, though his experience is actually a fairly common example of how Twitter works these days. Customers frustrated with unhelpful airline representatives behind desks at airports, or long waits on customer service phone lines are increasingly turning to the very public medium of Twitter with their complaints. 

In the time it took you to get through to a customer service representative, you could have tweeted your question or comment. And, depending on the airline, you might have already received your answer.

180 airlines now tweet, so give it a try

A whopping 180 airlines are now tweeting, according to Sydney, Australia-based SHIFT Interactive, a new media strategy company that founded the site, AirlinesonTwitter.com,  a one-stop shop for those interested in tracking airline feeds. With millions of followers, airlines are discovering that the faster they stop negativity in its tracks, the better.

Look, for example, at the case of film director Kevin Smith, who was confronted onboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank last month by crew who’d deemed him to fat to fly.

Angered, Smith went straight to Twitter. Within minutes, the airline was receiving queries from Smith’s fans, asking the airline how they intended to handle the situation. The airline assured them that they were investigating the matter and would make sure it was resolved.

“I read every single tweet that comes into this account,” said the airline representative on duty, “and take every tweet seriously. We’ll handle @thatkevinsmith issue asap.”

It did, as best it could – Southwest does, after all, have an extremely clear policy regarding one seat, one customer, a policy the airline insisted that Smith already knew. Still, it apologized publicly for the way Smith’s situation was handled, and issued him a $100 travel voucher for the inconvenience. 

More see Rating the Feeds: How 6 major airline work with Twitter

 Airlines are using Twitter to respond to customer complaints. Here's a sampling of recent tweets and the airline's responses.

Southwest's latest Click 'n Save sale is valid for travel from April 12 through June 10, every day of the week except Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Avoid blackout dates from May 27 through June 1.

All purchases must be made by 11:59pm PT, April 1. Fares include:

Austin to Little Rock $156 round-trip

Birmingham to New Orleans $98 round-trip

Boise to San Francisco $168 round-trip

Detroit to Omaha $240 round-trip

Long Island to Raleigh/Durham $186 round-trip

Los Angeles to Seattle $188 round-trip

Chicago to Long Island $150 round-trip

Tampa to Washington DC $186 round-trip

Chicago to Albuquerque $155 round-trip, incl. all taxes

This fare is available for travel Monday through Thursday, with a 330 day travel period. Fare requires a 14-day advance purchase, and a 3 night/Saturday night minimum stay. Avoid blackout dates from June 11 to August 15.

St Louis to Kahului-Maui $408 round-trip, incl. all taxes

Today's Fare of the Day is part of that incredible sneak sale to Hawaii mentioned earlier. Fares are valid for year round travel! The catch? You'll have to make two connections, which may really bug some folks, but for $408 round-trip, taxes and everything (and for travel any time of year!), you sure wouldn't hear us complain.

Out of the blue, there are some amazingly low unadvertised fare sales to Hawaii as low as $408 round-trip with tax included. Most of these are for spring travel (April, May and June), however fares from Dallas on United are valid for year round travel.

But only a few travel dates are available on some routes. For example, departing St. Louis on Wed June 16 for a 7-night stay. But other travel dates are over $1000 round-trip. So you must be flexible in your travel dates to get the best deals.

Chicago to Kona, however, there are lots of dates for under $500 round-trip on American.

Miami to Maui is just $401 round-trip with tax! We found seats leaving July 14 returning July 20 but others are available.

Fares to Kona

Fares to Kauai

Fares to Maui

There's no telling how long these sales will last--most likely they will be gone in a flash, so don't hesitate booking them if Hawaii is in your travel plans.

As mentioned earlier in the week, Southwest's latest 3-day sale was pretty underwhelming stuff. The only real standout deals were on shorter routes. We imagine this might have something to do with recent capacity cuts, a first for Southwest Airlines. And now comes word that further cuts are in the works for summer. How drastic are we talking here? According to a recent post by BTNonline, as of August 15, the carrier will begin "reducing systemwide daily roundtrips by 58, or about 3.4 percent, from its 2010 peak summer schedule. Though Southwest said some of the changes are seasonal, the cuts reflect the carrier's commitment to newfound capacity discipline and a more dynamic network planning strategy." As airlines struggle to stay in business, or in the case of Southwest, actually profitable, this sort of fine-tuned seasonal schedule switcheroo is something we'll probably be seeing more frequently, and from other carriers as well.

New York to Shannon, Ireland $438 round-trip, incl. all taxes

This fare is available for travel in mid-May. Great for arranging a DIY trip elsewhere in Europe on any one of the several low cost carriers that serve Shannon, such as Ryanair.