Q. I'm traveling to Turkey this summer, but arriving and departing from two different cities, with an additional flight within the country. I've found that it's cheaper for me to book three one way flights rather than book them all under one itinerary. Could this cause me any trouble?

A. Only if you miss a flight. When you book a multicity trip under the same itinerary, you're better protected against missed connections, lost luggage, and anything else that fate may toss your way. Miss one of your flights and the airline will probably be less sympathetic about rebooking you. However, if you've allowed yourself plenty of time between flights (and it sounds as if you plan to spend several days in each city), you should be a-ok.

Q. Using MSN's LiveSearch, I just discovered Farecast and used it to look for airfares departing from San Diego. Do you see these guys as a competitor? I would love an impartial review of this site on your part, especially how it differs from Airfarewatchdog.

A. There are a couple of things to consider: Farecast doesn't include promo code airfares, or fares from Southwest, Allegiant, DirectAir and other airlines that sell fares exclusively on their very own sites.

Another distinction is that you can choose specific travel dates to get Farecast alerts, which is good if your plans are inflexible. But if you're open to traveling on any date, just so long as you're getting the lowest fare, it's not so good. We list the lowest fare irregardless of exact travel dates.

    I'm planning a conference and am wondering if there are any typical trends about the cheapest days of the week to fly. I know the middle of the week is usually better, but what about Friday and Saturday? Which of these are cheaper? Any strategies to consider as an event planner if I'm trying to provide attendees with a good hub city for an event?

My home airport is Chicago ORD. Any good airports in California with consistently lower nationwide fares?  Thanks!

    There are generally more sale fares available for mid-week travel, but one of the key things to remember about mid-week travel vs. weekend travel is that even if a cheap sale fare applies to all seven days of the week, there will usually be much more availability for less popular travel days.  Not only will there be more seats sold for those days, but those seats will not sell-out as quickly. 

Which Days of the Week?
So what might these less popular days be?  Well, Tuesday and Wednesday are almost always a good bet for sale fares and more availability.  And although you may not have guessed it, Saturday is not a hugely popular day to travel either, as most folks like to get their weekend travel started on Friday, a very popular day (as are late-Sunday and early-Monday, which are both coveted travel days for those who are trying not to disrupt their work schedules.)

Picking A Cheaper Airport
Instead of thinking in terms of targeting a single airport with cheap fares for your attendees, what you might want to do is think of locations that can be served by multiple airports.  In California, for example, if you picked a facility such as the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort in Dana Point, your attendees would have a wider array of fares to choose from because they could easily fly into LAX, Long Beach International, John Wayne/Orange County Airport, etc. Besides giving them more choices, they would be flying into an airfare market that has a lot more competition and consequently more sale fares.  (Folks on a budget who are planning family vacations should also think about hitting airport dense areas for the very same reason.)