"Last minute" fares to Thailand?

[bao-bao]

Has anyone here had good luck with any of the "last minute" ticket brokers or sites for tickets from the US to Thailand?

By "last minute" I mean bookings only a week or so in advance of actual departure.

Both kudos and horror stories are welcome, as are links or references to other sites or forums; you'd be doing many a service, I'm sure.

If you'd prefer not to post a recommendation on the forum (for whatever reason) please feel free to PM me directly.

Thanks!

I dont know if you can get a cheap ticket to UK.

If you can - try http://westeasttravel.com for cheap last minute flights

... you will get last minute cheapies on a scheduled airline for certain, they work by having different economy classes, i.e. Class X at a certain price, when they have gone, the next Class Y at a higher price, and so on, as the tickets are sold they get a little more expensive. So, in theory, if a flight does not sell its seats by the time it takes off, and someone buys a ticket last minute, it will be charged at the Class X rate.

Thank you Whitedesire


I don't think ....
... you will get last minute cheapies on a scheduled airline for certain, they work by having different economy classes, i.e. Class X at a certain price, when they have gone, the next Class Y at a higher price, and so on, as the tickets are sold they get a little more expensive. So, in theory, if a flight does not sell its seats by the time it takes off, and someone buys a ticket last minute, it will be charged at the Class X rate.

Can you tell me how or where I can find those selling those unfilled seats at the last minute. I don't think Lastminute.com have them. Best they offered me for this week was ┬г636 on China Easter Airlines and over ┬г1000 with Austrian next.

airlines tickets do work in this way. The closer it gets to departure date, the more expensive the tickets are. If you really buy the ticket at the LAST MINUTES, you would be paying a premium price!!

hi 555
ever since the low cost flights like easyjet started the later you book the more it cost, usually, so the idea of last minute being cheap is a long ago myth! If you check online travelsupermarket has a good span of fares . The uk side of travelocity has an excellent "dates flexible" feature. There are some good deals at the moment for various dates even a business class fare of ┬г1364 inc tax on thai.

... I think, almost 99% that is the way airlines work, but would be grateful if someone could confirm this. However, no one would really know if there are last minute bargains to had in the event no seats were sold. It is something we don't know, unless one rings up the travel agent and says "are there plenty of seats available", now that can have loads of variations for answers couldn't it. All I know is that tickets are cheaper "out of season".

I'm afraid I think Scott123 is right on the money. The last minute bargains were only available before booking systems got their act together. Nowadays, if the flights doesn't fill up the route gets a smaller craft put on or shared with another carrier. The last time I got on a flight seriously underloaded was into Bangkok a few days after the Tsunami but that was special circs.

Actually, you don't have to ring travel agents to find how many tickets have been sold. Some of the airlines display it months in advance on their web-sites.

[Smiles]

Just did a search on one of those internet-based ticket purchasing sites ( this one ~ Best Travel Store ~ often has very good prices: www.bt-store.com (http://www.bt-store.com) but there's a million of 'em ) and compared the same flight ~ Seattle/Bangkok/Seattle ~ amongst numerous airlines. Used the dates of Sept 18 ~ Oct 18 as a bit bit-further-out date against dates a month earlier ( Aug 18 ~ Sept 18 ).

There IS a difference (some a few hudred dollars, some a small amount ) between the two, with the further-out date being the cheaper across the board. The quotes in the screen images are before taxes ... which nowadays is a large chunk)


TRAVEL: September 18, 2007


http://my.photodump.com/sawatdee/travel%20prices.jpg


TRAVEL: August 18, 2007


http://my.photodump.com/sawatdee/travel%20prices2.jpg



Cheers ...