www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Having had such a blast last week, I'm currently trying to book a trip back to CR over the July 4th holiday. However, airline rates are very high. I'm wondering - do the airlines ever do any last minute discount deals to try and sell out not quite full flights, and has anyone ever had any success with this method?

Thanks!

Hey GR, nice meeting you Memorial weekend. The answer is yes, however I wouldn't rely on it. Many airlines have weekend "cyber" deals that they post usually by Tuesday or Wednesday before the upcoming weekend for discounted flights for only that weekend (often Saturday departure w/ Monday and Tuesday returns). Bestfares.com compiles all the deals from the major airlines and lists them each week (go to http://www.bestfares.com/travel/desks/desk.asp?desk=news&LeftNav=news and choose "This Week's Major Airline Weekend Internet Discounts). In addition to SJO being an unlikely choice for the specific weekend your searching for (and the fact that the departure city is most likely not your preference), many airlines don't post specials on Holiday weekends.

However you can get lucky, a friend of mine from Houston has twice waited to purchase his ticket hoping for a cyber deal and scored both times. I'm in fact using a two cyber deals this weekend to head down to San Jose. A NWA special to get to Newark and a Continental special from Newark to SJO (I posted this deal earlier in the week http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6753&sid=48a8df89e65739d0aa8e38d903452cca ).

I'm still looking for a cheaper flight for July 4th weekend, things aren't looking good, I'll probably have to be creative and fly an extra leg or two. You may want to fly into Liberia (LIR) if the price is substantially cheaper, apparently US Air is having an unadvertised sale to there. I found that information from a new blog that is doing a good job of finding some unadvertised discounts for all over but has done a particularly good job with Costa Rica of late (they caught the $98 deal I posted about earlier in the week) http://www.travelguyairfares.blogspot.com/

Good luck, I hope we both get good fares for the 4th, I'd hate to miss the embassy party.

-Otre Deano

Senordos,

Thank you so much for all the detailed information. Something else I just ran across is a "Name Your Own Price" option on Lowestfare.com. Anyone ever tried this and had any luck with it?

Lowestfare.com used to have a monopoly on 20 - 30% discounting of EVERY published TWA fare, unfortunately with the disappearance of TWA so to have the discounts (It's a fascinating story and at least partially responsible for the trouble TWA got into, however I'll save it for another time). I don't use the site anymore but I imagine its alot like priceline.com, basically a blind bucket shop. You ask for a price and if its lower than the PRE-negotiated price the site has with the airline (plus profit) they will sell it to you. If you set a price higher than the negotiated price its all excess profit to the site. So be careful, do some research, check what the price would be 21 days in advance. I prefer normal bucket shops like cheaptickets.com that don't have opaque pricing. However due to miles requirements on my elite frequent flyer status I won't use either type.

Keep an eye out, if you can travel next week LACSA lowered base fares from LAX to $159 R/T.

Start looking for deals for Labor Day Weekend, Thanksgiving, etc.

-Otre Deano

I just booked a flight to panama for this weekend , I got a "last minute deal" through travelocity and saved about $200.00, plus booked my hotel at the same time. I just read a post where CRT has a link for travelocity which I will use next time
Sparky

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Sparky
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Almost legally single again! Voy a Colombia otra vece!!

In an effort to see other parts of Centroamérica I have taken advantage of several of these offers. CO to San Pedro Sula and Guatemala, and Taca to San Salvador. You've got to check fares often (I do it several times a day), and you may get lucky.

To your specific date, I PROMISE you that you will NOT find a cheap fare. School's out, it's the long weekend, planes are going to be packed. What you can do is to hope for a bump, so you can pay for your next (or part of your next) ticket. Of course if you do that, you may miss many hours to a full day of fun in SJO .

EmailKid

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Then again, what the hell do I know, I'm a newbie for life. EmailKid