Airfares are a moving target. If it isn’t clear just how fast a target they are, here’s why:
Daily airfare distribution schedule. The airlines update domestic fares, including those between Hawaii and the US Mainland, three times each weekday and once each weekend day. Therein is why some deals can disappear almost as quickly as I can type.
Certain airfare sales have remained valid month after month. Notably, the East Coast to Hawaii deals that started last fall (some of which are still good). Others unfortunately have disappeared within hours of posting. Such was the case with the elusive $300 airfares I wrote about just yesterday.
Rapidly changing airfares are frustrating to you and to me, but are merely how the airline industry works. Our job is to try to outsmart the carriers, and I know from your feedback that many of you are succeeding very well in your efforts.
RSS is key to finding the best travel deals. The only way that I know of for you to have the earliest opportunity to take advantage of the terrific Hawaii airfare deals we find, is to subscribe to Beat of Hawaii’s RSS feed in either GoogleReader, MyYahoo or IGoogle, not email. That way you’ll see the deals usually within an hour or less of the time I post them, while they are still available and have the most date options. If you receive them in email, however, they usually don’t show up in your mailbox until many hours later, which for some deals is simply too late.
I try booking all deals before posting to be sure that they are actually available at that time.
Thanks Jeff for the reply.
We are leaving out of Chicago, IL. As far as the hotel goes, we were looking at the Grand Wailea Maui or somewhere at the same level. Any thoughts on what is the best way to economically book our air/hotel or additional tips??
Steven
Hi Steven,
No additional thoughts, other than my original “sit tight.” I think even Grand Wailea should have deals for Fall.
Jeff
Hello.
I want to first say I LOVE LOVE your site and am so thankful you regularly post. Since finding beat of hawaii, I have become a blog believer and currently use the RSS feed to my Google Home Page.
However, for my situation I using B.O.H for a particular purpose. My fiance and I are looking to Honeymoon in Maui come second week in September, and I am trying to figure out the best way to book our trip. I have read past posts about booking air/hotel/car together, but am really looking to find ways on how I can make this an overall economic trip. I am in contact with a travel agent, but believe I can do this on my own as well as stay within budget. Do you have any tips or recommendations you could give on when and how I should buy, or even the best time to buy for Sept?
Thanks Beat of Hawaii for all the help!
Hi Steven,
Thanks very much for your kind words. I’m so glad you are using RSS and hope that will encourage more people to do so. There are so many sites you can subscribe to in RSS, that it becomes like your own custom newspaper in a way.
Okay, 2nd week in September. If it were me, I’d just sit tight. The deals will definitely be there then, even though you might get nervous as the time approaches. This is such an unusual year, that anything is possible (like the Fall deals might show up early). It should however be the end of July or even early August before we really see those Fall deals. Hotel deals might come first, since we’ve already seen hotel deals whose validity span the entire year.
Let me know where you are flying from, also what you’re looking for hotel-wise, and we will definitely not forget about you.
Congratulations and Aloha,
Jeff