please help me with cheap air tickets (best, airlines, airports)

[SamNC]

I will be traveling to China from the US soon, and I am trying to find the cheapest way to fly over there. What good websites are there? Travelocity.com seems to take me on a very indirect flight path. Any better alternatives out there?

Also, how do these online places actually work...do airlines sell them seats or what?

Finally, note that I dont have a choice when or on what flight to go back to the US, so I am a little tied in the regard.

Can anyone please help me out?? thanks!

[Dd714]

This has been discussed before - It's generally under agreement that the cheapest air tickets are from the airlines website!!!!

Use sites like travelocity as a search engine only to find what airlines have the cheapest route only, be very flexible with times, dates, and airports you can leave and arrive from, then go to the airlines website and book it online. You almost never get a bargain from booking through these travel sites and sometimes will pay more.

[southdown]

www.kayak.com finds the lowest price then directs you to the airline - or you can just take the advice and contact the airline direct.

Kayak finds those multi-airline routes with the lowest prices for you too, and you can search with flexible dates.

[jtur88]

Bangkok is a very cheap place to buy tickets. If you can find a ticket from USA to Bangkok for about $400 less than the flight to China, you might just fly to Bangkok, and then go to a travel agent there and find a cheap fare BKK to China. There might be some BKK travel agents that have websites that will give you an idea. But you'd have to take your chances, and just walk in off off the street in BKK and hope for a cheap ticket. Or maybe a ticket to Hong Kong, depending on where in China you need to go. You can also get your China visa very quickly with no hassle in Hong Kong.

[jlawrence01]

I have never found that the airlines websites offer the best deals ... I have found them to be the most confusing alternative.

Personally, I would look for a consolidator and see what sort of deals that they have available. They often offer the best deals on INTERNATIONAL flights. You will find ads for consolidator flights in the travel sections of major newspapers like the NT Times or the Chicago Tribune.

Also, airfarewatchdog.com notifies you of special fares available from the area airports. China periodically comes up from Chicago.

[skilaketahoe]

cheap, a favourite of Flight Centre, but add the cost of rewritting your Last Will: they were half the price for Brisbane-Teipei(Taiwan)-SanFran-Vancouvre return when friends booked a year ago for a trip to ski Whistler. Xena's report and pics are on snowatch.com.au . Since she booked, a discount war has developed so maybe look into flying to Japan as well. Happy travels.