Looking for cheap airfare between NYC and TYO

[walt57]

I want to fly from New York (any airport) to Tokyo (any airport) on March 12th or 13th 2008, and return a week later (19th or 20th). Looking around, the cheapest airfare seems to be around $850 - 900 including taxes and fees.

What prices should I begin bidding at? What is a reasonable (or realistic) deal on airfare. Will my chances of getting a low price go up if I wait until the day before or just a few days before?

Thanks for the advice.

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

What is your maximum bid amount (note that your bid amount is before taxes and fees) to make an opaque purchase worthwile... since with the opaque providers you can't choose your flight times, connnection airports, and/or length of connection time.

[walt57]

How expensive can taxes and fees get? This may be completely unreal, but I don't want to spend more than $700 on airfare (including taxes and fees). Flight times, connection airports, and length of connection time don't matter. I'm assuming that the length of connection time won't exceed 8 hours-- is that realistic? So I assume I can reasonably expect to leave on March 13th and arrive in Tokyo on March 14th or 15th at latest.

[thereuare]

I'm assuming that the length of connection time won't exceed 8 hours-- is that realistic?

To Asia, currently priceline states that the average connection time is 3 hours but won't be longer than 8 hours.

How expensive can taxes and fees get?

VERY!! Where you saw the $850-$900 ticket, view the details to see the taxes on that ticket. You could also begin a price search, on the page after you enter your bid amount, you will be shown a page confirming all your details, this will show you the amount of taxes and fees based upon that bid. You can use the BACK button on your browser to fine tune the bid amount to see how high you can go before crossing the $700 all-in threshold.

Let us know what that number is and we'll then advise accordingly.

[walt57]

The taxes and fees listed for a bid is 91.45, and they include the 24.95 paper ticket shipping fee in the price, too. So my max would be $583.

FYI when I was browsing prices on other websites, I saw tickets (esp Continental) that only had $90 taxes and fees, as well as tickets with $300+ taxes and fees (Northwest). But it looks like Priceline is on the low-end of those two.

Do you think I'm searching for the impossible?

Thanks for the quick responses!

[thereuare]

I never say anything is impossible, but capacity (ie- the number of filled seats vs. empty ones) on airplanes is way up which makes getting great deals on airfare somewhat difficult.

Start with this Priceline Airfare Re-bidding thread which explains how to bid multiple times in the same bidding 'cycle'. Depending upon how much time you feel like committing to this i would start at about $400-$450 and increase your bids $10-$25 each time you can re-bid zone, untl you get up to your maximum bid of ~$575.

Any questions feel free to ask.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes.

[walt57]

I started at 450, then jumped to 550, then 583, then 658 (they dropped the paper delivery fee). The last number would have been a total of 750 including taxes and fees. None were accepted.

The best counter offer I saw was 875, which is about $15 off the current lowest price (Continental). That price may be able to go lower, but I don't think much lower-- probably 850 at lowest. As you said, they probably sell out anyways with their current prices, so why offer lower cost tickets?

I'll have to think about this...

[powerplantop]

If you book direct from Continental you can get a direct flight from EWR to NRT for $884.20 all in.