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Hawaii: Autumn airfares still falling

L.A. Times Big Island, Hawaii photo gallery Two weeks ago when I wrote about autumn airfare sales to Hawaii, the cheapest round-trip flights I could find between LAX and Honolulu (HNL) cost $292.30 for midweek departures on ATA. Yesterday, Travelzoo alerted me to lower sale airfares from Orbitz and its partner airlines for trips between five California cities and Hawaii.

Deal: When I searched Orbitz, the lowest LAX–HNL airfares I could find for departures during September and October were $283, including taxes and fees, on Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines and Northwest Airlines. When I tried to book the same flights on the airlines’ own websites, it cost me from $6 less to $5 more per round trip, so Orbitz was not always the better deal.

When I looked for sale flights to the neighboring islands, deals were harder to find. Orbitz quoted me $379 for a round-trip flight from LAX to Maui (OGG) with one stop. Comparable airfares were available for round-trip flights with one stop from LAX to Kona on the Big Island ($374) and Lihue, Kauai ($374). Given the discount inter-island airfares regularly available through go!, however, you could save $20 or more by purchasing a round-trip ticket to Honolulu through Orbitz, then booking your neighboring island flights separately.

How do LAX travelers find cheaper airfares direct to Maui, the Big Island and Kauai? Give us your tips by posting in the Comments section below.

When: Travelzoo said that it expects these Orbitz sale airfares to last until August 27, 2007. When I tried booking flights today, though, there were very few tickets left.

Why Go: Booking a round-trip flight to the neighboring islands through one point of purchase such as Orbitz or an airline’s website can save you hassles later during your trip.

Why Not: If you want to fly as cheaply as possible, book your inter-island flights separately through go! or a competing Hawaii airline.

Critique: Nowhere on Orbitz could I find the cheapest airfare quoted in the Travelzoo deal alert, i.e., $248 LAX–HNL round trip.

Contact: Orbitz, (888) 656-4546

– Sara Benson, L.A. Times Travel Deal Detective

[Photo credit: LAT / Lawrence K. Ho]

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 7:05 am by admin and is filed under Fall, Hawaii, Hawaii's Big Island, Islands & Beaches, Kauai, Maui, Oahu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

One Comment on “Hawaii: Autumn airfares still falling”

Andrew Says:
August 24th, 2007 at 10:50 am
L.A. Times Deal Detective Sara Benson filed this update late 8/23/07:

“A PR rep from Travelzoo emailed us to point out that the $248 did not include taxes and fees, which I was aware of when I researched this blog post. To clarify further, at the time of research I could not find the cheapest airfare of $248, exclusive of taxes and fees, quoted by Travelzoo.

“Travelzoo also wrote that ‘we chose to alert that deal through Orbitz because all of the airlines are/were matching these fares. Going through Orbitz lets you search all the airlines at once to find the best combination of flight times, departure and arrival dates. In this case Orbitz was sometimes able to pair up an outbound flight on one airline with an inbound flight on another to get A) the lowest price and B) the best schedule.’

“I was also aware of this, but when I researched available deals through Orbitz, mix-and-match airfares combining flights from different airlines still did not reveal lower airfares. Furthermore, not ‘all of the airlines were/are matching these fares.’ ”

“Finally, the Travelzoo PR rep added, ‘We’d like to better inform [readers] that when it comes to airfare, there will be slight differences in price based on booking fees, taxes and other factors — but in the end, we chose to let our users know about these deals because of the serious drop in Hawaii airfares in the California market.’”

“Compared to sale airfares that I blogged about two weeks ago, these new round-trip fares that Travelzoo alerted us to were only slightly lower (in the case of LAX–HNL, for example, less than $10 cheaper), which is not representative for LAX travelers of ‘a serious drop in Hawaii airfares in the California market,’ as Travelzoo claimed. - Sara Benson, LAT Travel Deal Detective”

[Ed. Watch this space for more analysis of Travelzoo deals....]

We’re curious, what’s your experience been with Travelzoo? Have they saved you money? Do you find their deals easy to book?

- Andrew
Sr. Editor/Producer, travel.latimes.com