For the first time ever I am planning a vacation to West Palm Beach, Florida to stay at my parents summer home with my 2 girlfriends. We are in desperate need of a Vacation.

We ideally wanted to go from April 17th-22nd....

I am growing frustrated with all of these websites, every minute the prices change. A flight went from $244 roundtrip to $506... I was told that the prices change every minute, and it is better to book a flight during the week...

I am just curious, when is the best day to book a damn flight, and what website has the best deals?  ( We're looking to pay no more than $350 roundtrip to Fort Lauderdale )

I meant $350 a person by the way!

Do you think it would be cheaper if I looked for flights tonight at like 2am? This is very discouraging.

i've seen tuesday listed as the best day on a few websites.

abcnews.go.com/Travel/be…
Here's why: usually, when an airline wants to launch a sale, it will do so late Monday. When the other airlines see this, they immediately go into competitive mode, and begin lowering their own prices to match the first one's sale.

All the airlines that plan to join in on this "matching" will have completed the process by early Tuesday afternoon, so by 3 p.m., shoppers will have the most "good prices" to choose from.

^that said, i normally just use kayak.com, check it for a few days in a row and if i don't see fares getting any cheaper, i buy.

your ticket prices are high b/c of the dates you've chosen, sun-fri. those are the most expensive dates for travel.

Lisa I know! Sunday is expensive! We're all college students so thats the only vacation we're getting. The tickets are so much cheaper to fly out on a Tuesday, but that would only leave us with 4 days ( 2 of them being travel days.)

do mon-sat.

and if that's spring break, then the prices are going to be high anyway.
delta flys there direct.

rent a car. (?)

airfare changes all the time. Specials sell out quickly, the special fares are limited to only a portion of the seats on an airline, usually to compete with other airlines or to fill the flight to full capacity if they feel there may be empty seats on the flight. Just wait, find a good travel agent if you want and have them call you when your price range is met.

^flies

nice spelling, lisa.

Yes, we're also looking to rent a car. We're all under 25 so our rates are higher. I found one rental car place that has a Ford Focus for $28 a day for persons 21-24... I think it may be too good to be true?

Oh , No! We definitely do not want to drive out there... My mom told me it takes 23 hours to drive there, that's insane.

Is it me, or is it cheaper to fly out of JFK than Laguardia?

I've done the drive from here to Fla and it SUCKS ASS.  I don't care what anyone says.

LaGuardia is usually cheaper. But Jet Blue goes out of both and they are fairly cheap. I just book flights to Vegas and they were under 300. And it's at least 23 hours drive. If you want a cheaper car don't rent it at the airport find a place downtown or away from the airport. Enterprise is usually cheap and they bring the car to you.

Tim, How are we supposed to get to a rental car place away from the airport without a car? lol I'm not familiar with the area.
Jetblue usually is the cheapest airline (and I actually like Jetblue the most, hello? TV's?!? Yes!!)  but I can't find anything for under $435 right now... I want to book this flight asap!

Car rental companies who are off-airport usually have shuttle buses right from the arrivals area, and they'll take you back to the airport.  Did you try Southwest?

try cheapoair.com
or expedia.com  or kayak.com   or delta.com

it's a pain in the ass but you have to get a site that works the way you want and it's annoying.

also flying these days is the worst - all planes completely full, they ask you if you want to volunteer your seat just after you click the "purchase now" screen online.  unreal.

Damn, I so regret not jumping on that $244 flight!! UGH!!  I'll try all of your recommendations... I am too much of an impulsive person for flight booking duty! =P

Magoobs I had a ridiculously cheap trip to Florida. Until I got there. Use kayak, trip advisor, an expedia when booking stuff. I found a free day rental for alamo off the Internet that worked last second. Also flights are always fucked so keep an eye out for a bump or if u get delayed u can get credit for the next flight. I used a $100 spirit voucher from my last flight to get a $50 round trip to florida a couple weeks ago

Spirit airlines is a scam! I went on their site, found amazing prices. It shouldn't have totaled out to more than $200 a person, but they had like 5 different hidden fees and it ended up being like $445 a person!! wtf?

I just tried Southwest, everything has at least 1-2 stops, 7 hour travel time. BS

I don't remember my trip prices to Bahamas last year but I'm sure i went with spirit cause it was a deal. The voucher came because of weather, not their fault. Although spirit sucks for other countless reasons as long as they dont crash air travel is crappy air travel

Check out airfarewatchdog.com . I can not tell you the number of tickets that have been purchased by myself or the girl through that site, but I would guess something on the order of 15-20. It sends you an alert to let you know when the price has hit a low point so you can snatch it up before it jumps on you. A serious lifesaver if you have a couple of weeks to sit it out....

And yeah, Spirit Airlines kinda sucks. I've never flown them because after all their fees it's just as much as a normal ticket.

I see tix for $365 round trip on cheaptickets.com

- check out tripadvisor.com; you can search for flights directly on that page
- clear your browser cookies often. i've read that websites track your airline searches using cookies, so if they know you're shopping around for flights, you might get a different price than you did when you first started searching
- most airlines have hidden fees, including having to pay for checking in luggage at the airport. if possible, just travel with a backpack and a carry on, and dont check anything in

Prince, Yes! I actually enjoy your comment! My parents struggled very hard. My father's business skyrocketed and we moved to a big beautiful house in Westchester. Now he does business with almost all of NY as well as private resorts (Amanyara, etc.) He bought my mom a Mercedes as well as himself, he bought a 70' Monte Carlo, a boat, a few summer homes. Life has changed drastically from when I was 11!  We never forgot where we came from though.
So yea we were one of the lucky ones.

I'm going to check all these websites, I am so anxious.

I thought you said your Dad ran a funeral home? All Amandas development went into her chest nothing happened above the neck.

I never said my dad owned a funeral home? No one in my family is involved in the Funeral business what so ever... I don't know where you pulled that out of....

Use kayak.com. They have an amazing system for flight fare tracking. Punch in the dates and amount of passengers and they'll send you a daily email of fare changes. Good luck!

Well... Today is Tuesday and the flight prices went down about 15$ so far.... We are planning to buy today between 1:30-2:30 pm... Do you think it will go down much by then?

Also, I'm looking at rental car prices, they're like $600 a week?!!? WHAT??

Yayyy Kayak.com is amazing!

You should book your departure and return dates on a weekday (tue or wed the best) to save the most money.  As for rental cars, 600 seems a bit much.  I've found that Thrifty and Dollar have cars for reasonable prices.  Avoid expensive places like Hertz, Avis or National

try kayak.com for cars and flights. and also try fly.com
they are great.
for rental cars also try hotwire.com - i got a great rate with them. very great.

Magoo, if the flight is so expensive, and you are going with your friends, it might be cheaper and more fun to drive. i dont know how fun it is to drive there because i never done that, but i want to one today.
i am also looking for a flight to tampa on one of these weekends.  i need a vacation. people start searching for good flight rates.

Thank you all sooo much!! Because of all of your advice we were able to book a roundtrip flight from LGA to West Palm for $300! So happy I waited until Tuesday =D

finally some recognition. :)
have fun