Air and Car rental prices

Well we are skipping January trip this year. This will be the first time in over 18 years....In fact we are out there 6/7 times a year out of Pittsburgh every year. We will make it only 4 trips this year....This will be the first time since 2000 we have not traveled at least 6 times....Prices yes rooms comped but airfares are super high (maybe spoiled), rental cars prices, $350 or more for a week, gambling has not been great the past three trips. So we will be looking a little closer to home.......There are many places now then there were a few years ago to choose from maybe look towards the South.....AC would have been our choice this year in
January but AC in January no way...We have booked SWA air for March and it totaled $837.00 for straight through both ways and the times are great....So bite the bullet and swallow hard I guess........We are spoiled I guess......:Could not edit topic for some reason it should have read Skipped January Trip <;

We are going Jan 18-25 from Indy. It took a lot of diligence but we got SWA for about $150 each way (non-stop) and a shocking price of $139 (total including all taxes) through USAA with Budget for an intermediate vehicle pay now. However for our March basketball trip the air and car prices are still way up as thegreek said. Checking everyday and will strike as soon as I see a sale on SWA and then checking every day for an additional drop for the free rebook. Good old SWA.

I have a friend who also goes in March and also is diligent for airfare and finds Costco car prices change almost daily. ( You can always cancel)
Try checking car prices after 9pm EST they seem to have sales later in the evening earlier in the week.
SWA sends special emails every Tuesday but find that these are always really obscure cities.
Also try a nearby city. unless someone drops you off at the airport, a short drive can save you a lot.
MO

Fingerstim and mola 76 thanks for the information I'm going to continue to check prices on SWA for January and also March.....If March would drop I can rebook ( I do not know if there is charge or not ) even if I cancel and use tickets for May or September would be ok........mola76 we do not hav ea Costco near us we actually live in Wheeling WV and we are members of Sams Club.....Sams use to have coupons for certain car rentals but discontinued them a few years ago.......the biggest things as far as increases are airfare and car rentals.......

In addition to SWA I check fly.com everyday. Go to the site and click on TODAYS BEST FARES. Then pick your airport city and it shows all the good fares to everywhere including Vegas. Once you see a fare you like click on it and it takes you to the fare calender. I can check 3 cities (Cincinnati, Columbus, and Indy) in under two minutes. Fly.com has become my number one flight search source ever since Expedia did away with their flexible fare calender.

As a side note I only use fly.com to locate the fare and use other sites to book.

Info for thegreek - I do not know when you are going but if you are flexible check the days surrounding the day you want to go. We like to go on the Wed before the NCAA BB tournament starts (3/19) but the SWA fares on the nonstop flights have stayed ridiculous (early morning $317, afternoon $402, and evening $402) there is a $200 flight change planes in Phoenix but my wife opposes anything other than a nonstop. However I looked at Tue 3/18 and the same flights were $189. My wife gave approval, my host moved our comp room to in on 3/18, so I booked saving over $400 for the nice afternoon flight and getting an extra day in Vegas. We are returning on 3/31 and all flights on and around that date were $189. I guess the Wed before the tournament starts is a high demand date. I can understand that especially when coming from Indy the BB hotbed of the world. FYI - SWA is the only carrier that flies nonstop Indy to Las. I will still continue to watch for price drops but I doubt if it will get any lower than $189.

6-7 times a year? Damn, dude, why dont you just move out there? =)

I was thinking the same thing pjstroh! Sounds like a good idea to me.

pjstroh---Well the reason we just don't move out there would mean we would have no place to vacation and have fun at...and besides living there makes it to easy to blow the car--the house the wife and I very content the way things are....We have been doing this since 1997. This year we are replacing one trip with a cruise and another seeking out a different place to have fun that is closer....in 2000 we even made a special trip out to Las Vegas just to sign the papers on a new home....we were that close to closing the deal (I'm tickle to death we did not buy)....We were shown a house (model) and I assumed it would be the house we toured....As it turned out there were $36,000 worth of add-ons to it.....When we started picking out the hardware for the kitchen cabinets the ones we choose were extra....we really did not want two skylights in the kitchen area and the salesman says that's good they were extra as well.....that ended the deal right then and there.....we walked and I'm super glad we did now.... Las Vegas is a great place to visit but I'm not sure I would want to live there because everything is too accessible to my wallet...I have no will power....