I was just wondering what people's experiences with Priceline for airfare have been. I found a thread on hotels, but nothing on airfare.

I am speaking specifically about the bid your own price function, where you don't choose the time or the airline.

Planning ahead for our October trip, I found airfare for 5 for $822 from Boise to Orange County, which is really cheap. It would cost us minimum of $1250 to fly normally, possibly as much as $1500.

It says there is no more than 1 stop, and the flight will leave between 6 am and 10 pm, arriving no later than 12:30 am. I can't imagine it would be that awful, because looking at the different airlines, I think the longest layover is about 3 hours in Salt Lake on one of the Delta flights.

Just curious if anyone has had a really good, or really bad experience using this feature.

thanks,
Mike

Ok, well I have not personally, but my sister and her family have used Priceline twice very succesfully. Once just this past New Year's they got an amazing price on 2 tickets from Minneapolis to Reno... and a couple years back their family of 7 got a super good deal from Minneapolis to Orlando for a Disney World trip. Both of these trips were very short notice, like less than 2 weeks. Both times they had 2 lay overs in their trip...

I'd like to try it sometime... but so far we haven't had the luxury of really being able to deal with a random schedule...

Good luck! I'd like to hear how it goes if you do it. I'm only about 4 hrs from Boise. :)

nvmom

My sister used it and she did get a great rate but the hours weren't good. She flew in for our dad's birthday and got here at an o.k. time but had to leave really early in the morning so we basically lost a whole day with her. I think her flight left around 6am so we didn't get to spend any time with her that day. She lives in ID and we don't get to see her very much so that day would have been wonderful. Plan for the worst scenario, like leaving late the first day and leaving really early the last day, and if that will work for you then do it. If you don't want to lose that time then you should book the times you want.

I have never used priceline tickets but when I worked for an airline I saw them. Be sure to check the rules for the "name your price" ticket. They are very, very restricted. No refunds, no changes, not endorsable to other carriers. That means if your ticketed flight is canceled, delayed, etc. you need to contact priceline for help. We were not allowed to make any changes to the tickets at all. We were told to have the passenger contact priceline.

I don't know if that is still the case, but be sure to check it out. The savings may not be much if you consider that they are use em or lose em tickets.

The OCD in me would never allow it! I want specific flight times; arrive at DL as early as possible the first day, and leave DL as late as possible on the final day. :D

Even though when you checked the airlines directly, the longest layovers weren't horrid, that doesn't necessarily mean that priceline would treat you the same. Since SLC is a major Delta hub, I'd presume you could leave Boise on the first flight of the day, and then leave SLC on the last flight of the day. I don't know if Priceline does that, but I'd make sure they don't before you book it!

That's good to know that they commit to the number of layovers. I don't do more than 1 on a flight, unless both ends are 'podunk' airports.