I am considering going over seas by airhitch as the prices are great and we have lots of flexibility.We also will probably be throwing away our return flight because we plan to stay about 2 1/2 years on our European leg of our slow trip around the world.

Looking for BTDT advice and what to be aware of pros and cons.

I need to get from SF to Amsterdam a few days before Sept 1,but could leave earlier and fly into anywhere.I have friends in NYC,so considering getting a cheap flight there if that makes it easier.

We are traveling with a 5yo ,so that impacts,but she is a good traveler.

Bottm line, is it worth the cheap prices ...or is the hassle make it not seem so cheap?

No BTDT advice, but being piqued, did a and then came up also with this which gives a thumbs up and a thumbs down look so to speak.
The initial article certainly clearly and concisely describes the concept/process along with waiting/missing out/diappointment/driving (where do you park the car) and final satisfaction, whereas first comment is not so keen to try it again but did meet a good friend!

Another commenter introduced 4cheapair.com which is now www.Consolidatorairfares.com

Also of note is that those comments all seem a bit ancient, and whether things have changed or not, seems the sort of thing a single flexible could or might put up with, but with the family in tow back and forth, another question

BTW, Boots Cheap Tickets shows SF to Amsterdam ret. at $450+.

Thanks again gonorth,you are sure chock full of good info! I am really curious why all the info I can find on airhitch as far as opinions ( even on thier own site) is VERY dated.They say they can handle more than one & small family,but it does sound like a hassle.

Where did you find that $450.+RT fair on bootsnall? The lowest I found was a little over $1000.( and the "cha ching" in my head thinks of all the other things I can do if I can get that flight price lowered.I am upset I missed a good one that expired on March 31 that expired around that price.I was just too busy handling the issues with the van purchase & winter rental in Spain which had time constraints & I needed to have in place before doing flight ( as I was possibly going 3 different ways each having a different city be the most logical entry).We are handling a bunch of things at once with such an ambitous plan,not to mention the everyday needs of a 5yo Still I could kick myself for missing that one.Is there another that i am missing?

I will keep looking & will check out cheapair.Heck I just read about taking a boat over & will look into that as we basically have nothing to do from Aug on ,but I just did not want to be in Europe then due to the crowds.I have friends in London tho ,so could go into there & kill sometime there or in Holland for a bit if needed.

I was just looking for BTDT recent experience just to have this as a back up if nothing else shows up.Thanks a lot for the input....very helpful as always!

The Boots listing for Amsterdam you'll find by clicking on Cheap Tickets over yonder top right and then under 1. click on International airfares and again on right select Amsterdam as destination and up should pop this page.

You'll then have to go thru the availability check etc., and prices will no doubt vary for time of going - but worth a check I'd reckon.

Yeah,thats what I did do before I posted the first time.I just did it again to double check and that 450 price is the one that expired on the 31st of march.Ugh.Now I am chasing around trying to find anything near it ,or thinking how I could make it work ( like leaving from NYC or going into London or Paris etc) .I even called the bootsnall number and their lowest price now is quite high.

I would love to find a $450. price,but the lowest I am finding is $730. ( and thats by making changes I would rather not make like moving my flight leave day ahead).I make the round trip for just a month ,because they said its cheapest that way and I will just throw it away anyway.one way is just as bad usually & this consulate is not that easy to deal with ( to get permission for the one way to go with my long stay non lucrative visa).

I could not get the page you left either.But thanks for the help & I will keep looking.(I am the "if their is a will,there is a way" kind of person

I recently sent this email to the owner of airhitch, and will post if i ever get a reply. this is my experience with airhitch.

---------------------------------------
Sent to rsegelbaum@airhitch.org
5/13/2006 545pm

To Whom it may concern:

i bought a ticket from usa to australia through airhitch.com a couple of years back by buying a lifetime membership. i will be taking a trip soon and thought i would go look it up and see if i could get another ticket through them, but it redirected me to airhitch.org. so i went there, and found a chat room i could go to, so i thought i would just ask if theyre the same company. if not, i figured, w/e, i got such a good deal on my first ticket, no money wasted.

i stayed in there for a little under 5 minutes, and left cause i had other things to do, and it wasnt any high priority. about 10 minutes after i left, i got an aol instant message from one of the airhitch people, and this was my conversation: (these are the screenshots of my conversation.)

http://home.comcast.net/~evanostrand/discussion/airhitch1.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~evanostrand/discussion/airhitch2.JPG


i cannot believe it became such a big deal, all i did was ask a yes or no question, and i got a freakin lecture! about something totally unrelated to my question! but you can believe i will be taking my money elsewhere.

Well now, it is a big deal. I have already reported this to the Better Business Bureau in California and in New York, 10 travel forum websites, not including the emails i sent to Frommers, Lonely Planet, Let's go, and will be looking for other places to post this same letter. I actually took the time to register on every one of them. If there was a better business bureau in Martinique, i would have reported it to them also. I have also told two air courier associations, and I will be telling anyone i know, and anyone i hear who is considering airhitch.org, to go elsewhere. That is atrocious. I have 10 years of customer service experience in my career, and i would expect to be fired for treating any customers like that, online or not. Even half as bad as that. Not to mention, good thing i am younger, because if i was older (retiring age?) i might have no clue what hi 2 u u r 2 blah blah blah <insert internet chatspeak here> means. it is completely unprofessional and sounds like a 13 year old chatting on mirc.

i found lots of people who have similar experiences, and all i can say is, you dig your own hole on that one. you would have alot more business by showing just a little bit more courtesy than what i experienced above. with 10 years of retail behind me, i understand sometimes it is hard to be nice to a difficult customer. i deal with some difficult, pissed off people on a daily basis. that behavior is inexcusable. Not that you will do anything about it...i am fully expecting a rebuttal email telling me how i am wrong, as it seems your company has a shady history, is hard to trace, hard to find, and a decent number of people have had experiences like mine, but i refuse to be treated that way and not do everything within my grasp to tell people how you treat customers and potential clients.


Erica Van Ostrand

Interesting. Did you join BootsnAll just in order to post that?

It would seem so and the message screens shrunk to unreadable in such time I did not get to read anything juicy!

There are many threads here on Airhitch from over the years and most seem to contain the theme that Airhitch is a nightmare to deal with sometimes.

I used Airhitch about 6 years ago and was satisfied with the transaction so last Summer I intended to use them to go one-way from NYC to Amsterdam. I jumped through their many hoops before I could even get any solid information and then went into that AIM chatroom thing myself. I watched in amazement as the moderator insulted person after person and accused them of wasting HIS time, but in doing so he spent 10 more minutes badgering them needlessly. Instead of answering simple questions the guy seemed to derive some pleasure out of belittling the potential customers of this non-profit company.

When my turn came I asked my simple question and then was treated horribly. The guy kept quoting rules from their protocol and calling me an idiot, but the rules he was quoting don't actually exist in the protocol. He was completely wrong and then his rage towards me grew stronger for some reason. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I soon found out that my story was common and that Airhitch is basically run by one guy, with a few volunteer assistants, and he hides behind different log on names to disguise the fact that he's behind all of them.

An example of one of the more ridiculous things you have to put up with in Airhitch is this: If they tell you a flight is available to Germany, don't ask WHERE in Germany because it's a tiny country and it costs almost nothing to get around. If you do ask WHERE you'll be insulted and belittled.

I had it out with that guy and then switched to Airtech, which is more or less the same thing. That one is run by a really friendly guy who used to work for Airhitch and he explained some of their problems to me. I wish I could say Airtech was great, but I was trying to go at the beginning of August and due to some bad luck their flights were all full and I waited 5 days and then gave up. I would try Airtech again, but never Airhitch.