Airfares - Wow !!

[DandyDon]

Hmmm.. I go right to the Continental web site. I tried all combinations of days and dates to find that 6:05 flight, including just searching for flights from Phoenix to Houston and it won't come up. I'm going to give them a call Monday morning to see what is going on.

I suppose that's the problem, and I doubt that they will admit it. What airline sites do to shoppers should be a crime. Try using Kayak.com. It won't hide flights and best fares I don't think, give you a host of tools to filter searches, then connect you to buy at Continental.com usually.

 

[ggunn]

Dive with Aldora...

What has that got to do with air fares?

 

[MMM]

What has that got to do with air fares?

Gordon, I believe he is responding to Scubafanatic's advice that travellers should avoid Cozumel during norte season. It's not really practical advice since there is no way that Aldora could accommodate every single diver who would care to dive on the east side on those few days that nortes may come during someone's vacation.

 

[Ripple in still water]

Hey, does Norte frequency typical diminish much between late-February and early to mid-March?

 

[DandyDon]

Hey, does Norte frequency typical diminish much between late-February and early to mid-March?

Nortes are north fronts that survive Texas with enough gusto to reach beyond Cancun-Cuba. How often that happens is hard to say. The infamous Dust Bowl started on Black Sunday in April with a norther. You might try www.farmersalmanac.com

 

[Ripple in still water]

Thanks Don. Just took a look at the Farmer's Almanac, and it is impressive how far ahead they can accurately predict weather! :wink1: I take your point, too, that crazy weather can happen outside "typical" date ranges. Still, what I am looking for is just a probabilistic estimate based on past experience in Cozumel. So I'd be grateful for any insights from folks who have been watching Coz weather for a long time as to whether you've seen (on average) fewer Nortes in March than February.

 

[azscubadude]

I suppose that's the problem, and I doubt that they will admit it. What airline sites do to shoppers should be a crime. Try using Kayak.com. It won't hide flights and best fares I don't think, give you a host of tools to filter searches, then connect you to buy at Continental.com usually.

Well I called Continental today and the nice lady that tried to help me doesn't have a clue why the early morning flights don't show up on their site. She actually had a hard time finding them too. She told me that in the future if I have any problem to just call in and they will gladly help book the flight for a $25.00 added fee of course.

As I went about my day I did some other searches using the same criteria that I used to post my first thread, same times and dates and amazingly ever time I did a search the price came up different and varied in price from $380.00 to over $700.00. And it went back and forth throughout the day.. amazing.

I was going to dump my browser cookies and try again but forgot. I will try doing so tomorrow just to see what comes up. I'll bet they use cookies to play with the fares, setting them to see when and how many times you do a search.

 

[DandyDon]

Nope, I once posted a thread about clearing the airline's cookies to get an honest search, but that trick was short lived. Now they have programs that ID your computer with a high degree of accuracy by reading other info from your computer, i.e. your ISP, browser, extensions, etc.

Now there is a wide variety in fares for different days, but you can get honest searches at Kayak.com, Orbitz if you're not looking for American tickets, other searching sites. Just not from the airline's site.

If you want to, call Continental and ask for the Continental.com Help Desk. That might work better, but - why bother?

It's not like they have 6 other airlines competing for your business anymore.

Have your tried searching on Kayak? I have Sidestep.com bookmarked from years ago, altho they are now the same thing, so my examples may look a little different from what you will see but this is my initial approach. Click pics to enlarge...

To search March 1-14 possibilities, I select 3 & 11 with +3 days, and select 6am departure for first preference...

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This gives me the lowest fares for 7 different departure days and 7 return days, with combinations....

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The lowest fares will be illustrated below.

Then I uncheck overnight itineraries to avoid those as I examine more closely. That 6am flight may not go every day, but it does fly some days in March for sure...

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Then I Change Search, check nearby destination airports, and take a look at flying to/from Cancun...

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To is not so bad as from, but you can also play with Open-Jaw booking into Cancun, return from Coz.

 

[azscubadude]

Nope, I once posted a thread about clearing the airline's cookies to get an honest search, but that trick was short lived. Now they have programs that ID your computer with a high degree of accuracy by reading other info from your computer, i.e. your ISP, browser, extensions, etc.

Now there is a wide variety in fares for different days, but you can get honest searches at Kayak.com, Orbitz if you're not looking for American tickets, other searching sites. Just not from the airline's site.

I've been trying Kayak.com since you mentioned it, I like their layout and will use them in the future.

I'm pretty computer savvy but am still amazed at the tactics being used to identify me when I go through the search sites and wonder just how much they actually glean about me. Especially when I visit a site without giving any info and they have my location noted with their ads targeted to where I live and point to places just down the street..

Another thing that was totally off the charts.. Around the holidays I was looking for a new travel bag since the discounts were so great. I have my main computer in my office and my laptop (both Mac's) in another part of the house. As I was looking through eBags I found what I wanted using my laptop so went to my main computer to place the order. When I pulled it up on the main computer the price was totally different and the discount percentages kept coming up totally different for the same bag on the same page. I went back and forth, dumping the cookies and browser history then researching but there was nothing I could do to get them even close to matching and the difference was huge.

I was on the same wireless home network, same locations, same ISP, same everything except different computers at the same time. I never did figure it out, but I did order off the cheaper page.

Oh well. Thanks for the tips and posts on the searches.

 

[Fin59]

Hmmm.. I go right to the Continental web site. I tried all combinations of days and dates to find that 6:05 flight, including just searching for flights from Phoenix to Houston and it won't come up. I'm going to give them a call Monday morning to see what is going on.

Same here. We ALWAYS have a flight out of LIT at 6:05-6:15. All they have been showing are a 7:00 AM flight which gets us to IAH too late for the flight that leaves around 9 AM. They are showing later connecting flights, but we always book the early one since it seems to be Continentals "usual" flight into Cozumel.

I had emailed their customer service folks about it and they seem to know less about it than we do

I really don't want to risk booking one of the later connecting flights that are showing now. They always seem to have these out there this time of year since it is a busy season, but if they don't get enough seats booked, then what? They would cancel and reschedule and I don't want to have to worry about missing any vacation time.

Looks like if we go between now and May, we may be flying AA or Delta.