www.CostaRicaTicas.com

El Guapo, thanks for the headsup on the ticotravel site. While it limits the number of flights, I found on on AA for $315.00 that would cost $448 through aa's website.

Lomo:, I travel by CTA & Metro rail usually with 4-5 pieces of luggage. I ride the Metra Electric District line out of Milenium Station so I have a 4-5 block walk from the loop. My friend lives in Steger, so having a ride arriving at late afternoon/early evening is not hard. Or I can take the train routes each way.

thanks for the ticotravel info.

i have been looking for a flight from MDW, ORD, IND, MIA, & MCO

i can fly IND to ORD for $180, and ORD to SJO for $280, combined is about $100 less than i had luck finding earlier.

i am hoping to make my first trip to CR in march, i didnt book yet but likely will midweek

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I will be back soon, trust

Sure a lot of horny buggers in Chicagoland. God loves you and I'm rather fond of y'all myself--at least when you're not unduly escalating the prices in and not trashing up Door County.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

While its almost always prudent to be suspicious, Tico Travel has been around along time, They get large groups of tickets from several airlines and consolidate. They also sell alot of packages to the eco/tree huggers. They also have excellent ratings with the BB for what its worth.

Tico Travel

I talked with AA and they have agencies which buy wholesale in bulk. So, I have been poking around Tico Travel.

Fares go up and down when given the same dates. It's wierd. But, there is a departure that leaves in the morning and gets in at 8:20 PM. They usually show 4 or 5 (6 am to 9 am). These flights go into Newark or La Guardia then you have to shuttle to JFK. I tried looking up shuttle costs and they seem to be around $25 and up. But most of the returns are overnight.

They do show the 5:45 AM thru Miami, arrive at 2pm. And they do show the return 3:25 thru Miami arrive 11:05 pm at ohare. You can't mix and match departures and returns. So, once in a while, it matches up. The latest one was quoted at $384 (vs AA $444). I have seen this fare cheaper. For weekend guys, the fares are typically higher. So, play around with it, you may get lucky. Also, they have a button to check flights +/- 1 day for both departure and returns. I still haven't found antone that has used them so if someone has, let us know.

Also, they have an A- rating on the BBB website with 4 complaints although they are not registered. I am doing all this research because once something is named Tico, I think ripoff gringo.

Dean

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my first wingman sent me this, how true

" most of the girls down here, lie as a self defense mechanism and to not have to face the truth, thinking most men couldn't accept them knowing the whole truth. Simpler, they may just want men to think they are as perfect as they want to appear to them, trying to hide what they consider to be the ugly truth about themselves. And I may be reading more into it than is there, but I do believe they consider the basis of the lies to be justified."

Agree with Dean in his findings and suspicions, this one is/was real.....

After talking with the Platinum Customer Service agent who finally admitted these companies like Ticotravel buy blocks of tickets way in advance. I got a humbled Yes, when I asked, Obviously most of these were purchased in the time frame when ORD-SJO was $277 and $297. There was also a short period when the prices were in the $327 range which is the reason you see some in the $340 range now. They are going fast and anything going out a few weeks or longer is now $15 higher than prices you can book on the web site.

Example:

I just checked 12/9 to 12/12 for a quick trip. Prices for the short layovers were 277.70 on Spirit, $440,55 on AA. A quick check of their individual web sites indicates Sprrit at $263 and AA at $425. Both with short layovers.. Also checked out a January and February trip with similar results.

Here's a tip, when you see a large increase in prices on your tickets a couple months in advance, higher than you have seen in the prior month, check out Ticotravel, might have some from the prior month left if they continue this trend....

Hope this clears up the mystery,,,,

I usually book my trip for Feb. about right at this time. I'm glad that this year I did it a few weeks earlier. The package I booked just 2 weeks ago for 480 is now 590. Things aren't getting any better.

Is there any other sites like TicoTravel? They've got some great deals but I'm wondering if there are other places that buy up blocks of tickets like that. How do kayak and tripadvisor and the other sites work? Do they search the airline sites?

These businesses are known as "airline flight consolidators". Here's one such but Google to find many more: http://www.airlineconsolidator.com/inte ... es_fs.html
Kayak and the others by contrast don't own the tickets--they scout up and compare fares, then act as an agent to purchase on demand.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Sucks you can't a non-stop from Chitown, used to be atour thing where you could buy air only if they weren't sold out (Funject?) but that died 5 years or so ago, was sweet, only 5 hours. I played with the computer for hours in August for December, the trick day is Dec 4, anything after goes way up.

Wondering if the airlines are going more with consolidators. Checked available seats on a couple of airlines for the hub to SJO segment, and was surprised by only a few seats remaining.

Part of the explanation may be that the airlines are filling the domestic segment. When I found low fares from Indianapolis and found few seats remaining on the hub_SJO segment, and then checked the price from the Hub-SJO, it was almost double in price. The domestic segment was only 35 percent full, so I deduced that was why I received the sale fare.

Things are getting better. US Airways dropped base fares to $312 today, about $400 all-in.

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Sex with Gringas in the U.S. is like modern art. Most of it is pretty bad, and the good stuff is out of your price range.

Just got back and took the 3:25 p;m departure going thru Miami (Tues night) gets into Ohare about 11 pm. I was concerned about the 1 1/2 hour connection since customs was involved. All went nice, short line at immigration even had time for a smoke. For those that don't don't where to go for a smoke, just follow the yellow dots. Then go across the street, burn one, go back in to the elevators. Everybody has to go thru the standard security check again, which was a short line.

Dean

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my first wingman sent me this, how true

" most of the girls down here, lie as a self defense mechanism and to not have to face the truth, thinking most men couldn't accept them knowing the whole truth. Simpler, they may just want men to think they are as perfect as they want to appear to them, trying to hide what they consider to be the ugly truth about themselves. And I may be reading more into it than is there, but I do believe they consider the basis of the lies to be justified."

Just came across the article about Mexicana....we can hope for their resumption of flights to SJO? Also maybe support them by buying the calendar? Or maybe they need to make a few extra dollars in the gulch?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40376156/ns ... ?Gt1=43001