Advice for airline tickets?

[Willgly]

My fiance and I are trying to book our airline tickets for our honeymoon to Puerto Vallarta and I'm trying to get the best deal. Being that it's our honeymoon we're not real flexible with the dates but I saw prices lasdt week around $408 (including tax) but I looked today and it was $438... my gut reaction is buy now before it keeps going up the wedding isn't until Sept. 6 so I feel like we have time.

I read on a blog somewhere that if you buy an airline ticket and then see the same flight itinerary for less the airline will honor the rate for you ticket... but that was in a blog. Anyone could say anything in a blog and it doesn't make it true! Ha!

I also thought I read somewhere that the best time to physially look for airline tickets are on Weds at midnight? Is that true?

[Kathryn]

The rules for buying the cheapest international tickets are vastly different than the rules for getting the best prices on U.S. domestic flights. For international flights, you can often get better prices through an actual travel agent than you can shopping around yourself online, and the best prices are usually found at a travel agent that specializes in trips to a particular destination.

I have less direct experience with international travel to tourist destinations, but I also have the impression that when you're specifically talking beachy/resorty type places, you can get some better deals if you book air+accommodation packages together.

[hermione]

I don't know much about traveling to Mexico, but I have traveled to Asia quite a bit in the past, and my experience is that travel agents in the ethnic community of your destination have pretty good rates... maybe.

When my sister and I had to go to Taiwan for a cousin's wedding, we booked our flights through an Asian travel agent we found online (I can't for the life of me remember how I found her, maybe submitting a request somewhere on a website for agents to contact me), but we were able to get our tickets for about $700-800 per person. Our cousin and his fiancee (now wife) got their tickets for around $1,200 each.

So if there is a Mexican community near you where there are a lot Mexican shops and businesses, you might try asking around there?

Good luck and congrats!

[Willgly]

Thanks so much for the advice!

[shayob]

I have heard to either buy early or very late (as in the week you are traveling - which would be rather risky for a honeymoon). I'm getting married in August and we bought our airline tickets in January and got great rates. We did Orbitz to check rates on various airlines to determine who have non-stop flights and then we went to the actual airline websites (where the prices were less)

[Solinvicta]

Originally Posted by shayob

I have heard to either buy early or very late (as in the week you are traveling - which would be rather risky for a honeymoon). I'm getting married in August and we bought our airline tickets in January and got great rates. We did Orbitz to check rates on various airlines to determine who have non-stop flights and then we went to the actual airline websites (where the prices were less)

I've also tried the idea of "window shopping" with aggregator sites like Orbitz, Travelocity, and Kayak, and then going directly to the airline's site, with good results.