Tickets can be had, but anymore I see little difference between the prices. I am flying to New Orleans Friday, and am flying Delta. I searched for tickets starting waaaaaaaaay back in January when I booked this trip. I tried everywhere, Expedia, Priceline, BestFare, CheapTickets, Orbitz, Travelocity, etc. You get the point. Basically, all the tickets were the same for the flights I wanted. I wound up using Frequent Flyer miles, but the guys that are going with me all spent the $350 for the tickets.
IF you don't care when you fly, and most people I know don't have that luxury, you can get cheaper flights. I could have paid $188 for round trips to New Orleans if I had wanted to get there at midnight on Friday and left there at 7:45 a.m. Sunday morning. ( Yea, that's a weekend, but you only get Saturday. Big Deal.) As it is, I leave here at 4:30 in the afternoon, get there at 6:30, ( gives me Friday night to play) and then I leave at 6:50 Monday night. ( Gives me almost all day Monday.) So, for another $170, I get almost 3 full days instead on just one. A no-brainer for me. I bought the tickets off the Delta website. Cheapest way to go for them, plus you can pick the seat and get a boarding pass all at once. Just check in at the airport and you're done. Simple.
Watch the discount sites. I found cheap flights, but after taxes and "fees", they wound up being HIGHER than Delta was in the first place. $100 cheaper on the tickets sounds great, but add the $55 fees and $30 in taxes, etc and the deal goes away. Plus, ALL of the discount flights had at least 1 stop, killing my time. The Delta flight is non-stop and will cost me two hours of playtime. The other options all would have killed at least 5+ hours.
Like said above, be willing to drive to another airport. Fly during non-peak hours and work a non-weekend flight in there somewhere. Had I left on Thursday instead of Friday, I would have saved $60. Vacation time is limited though so I couldn't do that.
Good luck. It's getting worse too.
UFM82
