I checked out travelocity.com, do you know of any other sites or ways I can get inexpensive tickets?

I do a fair amount of travelling for business and the major sites are:

Travelocity.com
Expedia.com
Orbitz.com

The fares "should" be the same on all three, but, depending upon when they update prices, there are sometimes variations.

If you want to go cheaper, then you must take a step down in terms of convenience.

Southwest Airlines is the best choice if you can drive to one of their cities and book 14 days in advance.

The other possibility is to use one of the sites such as "hotwire.com" or "priceline.com".

These sites will get rid of tickets that the airline will not be able to sell. You will get a slightly better price than the aforementioned sites, however, you may not be able to select your airline or the time of day. Furthermore, there are NO REFUNDS from these sites for any reason whatsoever.

A lot depends on where you are located and where you want to go. Some people get really jammed up on airfares because the one carrier that serves their airport has no competition.

Thanks. I need to go from Baltimore to SF.

Baltimore is a major hub for Southwest. They don't fly to SFO, but, you can get a pretty good fare to Oakland which is right across the bay.

Since Southwest sets the fares for the route, you can also check others who will have to compete with them.

Remember, you cannot get any fares, or make any reservations on Southwest via Travelocity, Expedia, or Orbitz. Southwest doesn't pay for listings there. You must go to the southwest web site:

www.southwest.com.

It's really easy to select the flights you want. The prices are posted. The best deals are with 14 day advance purchase. You can fly as low as $99.00 each way.

This Southwest thing has me puzzled. I have been hearing for a long time what great rates they have, but yesterday I compared them with Delta and Continental and they were $200 higher than the other two for a round trip from Pittsburgh Pa. to Houston Hobby. Went with Delta as we have made this trip many times with them with never a problem.

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95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

That happens. It's not typical, but, every so often, when I need to go from here to Tulsa, OK, I can get a better deal on Delta with a change in Cincinnati. Sometimes Southwest beats them and I take them through Baltimore.

It all depends on the day of the week and the time of day.

You need to check all possible sources for the best deal when you want to go.

Independence Air

Great service. Great prices. Limited routes, but if they are going your way, they are hard to beat. Be sure to go directly to their website.

Jet Blue (www.jetblueairways.com) goes from IAD to OAK (Washington Dulles to Oakland, CA) for cheap, under $200ish roundtrip. If you have to get a car anyway, if someone is picking you up, or if you don't care about local ground transportation cost, OAK is the way to go. It's a direct flight and tons classier than Southwest. Southwest sucks for coast to coast, you'd have to stop once or twice and it would take all day to get there. If you can't get to Dulles (it's 45 minutes without traffic from BWI) and have to fly from BWI, I'd take a major, or, if you don't mind stopping in Atlanta, AirTran (www.airtran.com) is good and cheap.

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Michael

1988 300 SL (5 Speed)
1994 E320 Wagon
1997 C230

flyi (independence air) rocks for short hops, but the only way to connect coasts with them is several stops.

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Michael

1988 300 SL (5 Speed)
1994 E320 Wagon
1997 C230

If you like to fly from DCA (Washington National) and don't mind stopping at Denver, frontier airlines is a great way to get to all the major and medium West coast spots. Good, cheap airline.

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Michael

1988 300 SL (5 Speed)
1994 E320 Wagon
1997 C230

I agree. If you can go Jet Blue from IAD to OAK, then do it. It's a much nicer ride than Southwest, even if you have to drive from Baltimore. Fares should be about the same.