BootsnAll Travel Community

Almost every BootsnAll member is going on an international trip in the next year. It's just a way of life for die-hard travelers.

If you are traveling, help support us buy researching, pricing and buying your international airline tickets from us.

Sure, you could buy from Travelocity, Orbitz, but that's like buying from the WalMart of the travel industry. Support the small local guys and you can get consolidator prices, which actually means that we often beat them on the price. Try it out and see for yourself! 9 times out of 10 we have better prices.

Research International Airfare

Even better, you can research the best deal by departure spot, top destinations and latest specials:

Departure Deals
Do you want to see the best departure cities in the United States? Check out the airfare deals from Los Angeles, New York City and perhaps even your home-town. You could find a cheap ticket to Japan or a cheap ticket to Belize. You never know!

Top Destinations Deal
Find the sweetest destinations deals from Europe to Asia to Africa. These are the top main destinations where you can always find an affordable ticket.

Latest Specials
Pick the city or country where you are traveling and see a list of all the airfare deals for that region.

If you don’t want to use our online form, call 1-888-379-9411 (from the USA) or 206-838-4835 with your destination and dates of travel.

Why Should You Care?
1. SAVE MONEY
Our airline tickets are consolidator prices which means they are generally very cheap. Yes, there are a few restrictions but would you leave on a Tuesday to save a few hundred bucks?

2. SAVE TIME
You can go through the entire process of finding and booking your ticket online. No phone calls, waiting on the phone, just a simple click of a button and you are done.

3. HUMANS WITH HEARTBEATS AVAILABLE
If you do want to talk with someone, you can. Call our ticketing department - 866-549-7614. These are people that work for BootsnAll, not some dumb-ass call center in the middle of nowwhere. These people want to help you plan a trip, not just give a quote.

4. BUY LOCAL
This is YOUR travel community. If you buy local products, it stays within the community. This is how we can offer things like free travel blogs. Even though we are in a virtual community, you will continue to see improvements for you on BootsnAll that will help your travel planning in the future.

Research International Airfares

What do you think of these airline products? Do you like em? hate em? dont care?

Donovan

Because Donovan asked me to post this (and not PM)...
Bri Posted 10 May 2006 13:33
What do you think of these airline products? Do you like em? hate em? dont care?

Donovan

I thought I'd respond with a PM because what I think isn't very favorable. I kind of wanted to email you when it happened, but I didn't want anyone to get in trouble, and I didn't want to discourage you

Recently, I bought tickets from New Zealand to Australia (Christchurch to Brisbane) for the second leg of our trip. In an effort to support BNA I tried to get the airfare on your international airfare search engine. It told me that no fares were available through the search engine. So, I called the 800 number. Really, I'm not exaggerating this...

The guy that I talked to had a very thick accent (maybe Asian?) which I'm fine with, I understand accents just fine. But, he was talking really really fast and slurry, so I had a really hard time understanding him. In addition, he was breathing really really hard into the phone piece throughout the entire 15 minute conversation. So much so, that I couldn't really hear him very well and had to keep asking him to repeat himself.

Then he searched for the airfare, it took literally 10 minutes (I have a clock thing on my phone that times conversations) for him to pull anything up (the whole time breathing really hard into my ear), when he did find something he said - "OK, with taxes and all, that is $428", I said "for One Way!" he said "Yes, what have you found?" and I said "I found $120 on Virgin Blue" he said "Hold on another moment" and I told him that I had to go because I was at work...

I'm sure I'll give it another shot... and I think maybe if the customer service was a little better I wouldn't have thought it was such a bad call!

Sorry that's negative, I will try it again.
-Brianne

Check out our trip preparation progress. www.1000wines.org
Location: Portland, Oregon | Registered: 15 May 2005

Donovan Posted 10 May 2006 13:41
Bri
This is actually very good info - it's this type of constructive criticism that we are looking for. Can you copy and paste that email into the post, so others can read it. I know it's bad, but we want that. We are challenging ourselves to get better and want the whole world to know it.

Thank You!
Best,
Donovan

I posted something over here regarding it, but just saw this thread, so thought I'd mention again.

I was originally planning on a flight to Europe (Cologne, Germany) that was being run as a special.. that I ended up waiting too long for and missed, and the price got jacked way up. So then I started pricing any flight to the continent, not being happy with what I found. I checked a couple prices on the BnA fare thing, and sometimes got a great price, but when I'd check again, got a higher one... then I'd check later and the cheap was back, but check yet again and it was gone... I'm assuming it just has something to do with how the system's set up to check availability, and who else is checking similar flights and whatnot... so i called to see what could be had. I just asked for whatever the cheapest flight across the ocean was, and the guy I was talking to said it would probably be London, and gave me a price that was.. eh.. not too high, but I could have probably gotten a bit lower elsewhere. So I had him check Dublin, which came up quite a bit cheaper, and also to Amsterdam, where I needed to actually get to, and it was only slightly higher than the flight to DUB, but still considerably cheaper than anywhere else I had found... including cheaper than what it said when I checked that flight on the BnA page. However, a seat on a return flight wasn't available, so I booked into AMS, out of DUB. All said and done, it was only about $35 more than I had originally planned to spend with the price of the special to CGN. Then I checked the airline's page, and priced the flight directly through them, and the price I paid was $700 cheaper than what the airline quoted me!

So, all in all, it was a positive experience for saving my ass in the way of a few hundred dollars.

Bri,

Awesome Feedback. Thanks for being honest. We have forwarded your feedback to our Airfare Manager and he is making sure the counselours don't breath hard into the microphones ie keep it at a distance that sounds better.

As for the timing, that part does suck at times. Our counselours are checking for availability for fares, and sometimes it can take 10 to 15 minutes since availability for cheaper fares often goes quick. I have booked about 12 tickets or so in the past year for our company with our department, and I do know what you mean about the wait. It can be 10 to 15 minutes as they search through the databases for the best fare.

Your $100 some odd dollar fare for a one way - is awesome! Good job. I would say on international airfare departing from the USA is where we are most competitive. Sometimes we'll beat everyone, and sometimes we don't. It's the nature of airfares...no one is always the cheapest.

NeroKerr - glad you saved a few $100 bucks. That is the idea behind it.

All of our products in this forum, we'd love more feedback both positive and negativo.

I'm scheming a trip through Central and South America this summer. After reading this thread I exercised my loyalty and tried to do some reasearch on your international airfare page.
The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't see a way to check a multi destination itinerary.
Then, when I tried to find a fare for a one way ticket from LAX to GUA the system told me that no flights were available, or words to that effect.
Am I doing something wrong, or is this the kind of thing that's better researched over the telephone?

Spiralout

The best way to check a multi-destination Central or South America trip is to use this link. This is a different section on BootsnAll and is not from our standard airfare engine.

Trip Planner

If you want to speak with someone, you can call 877-768-1311 and find some of the best prices for multi-stop trips in Latin America.

Donovan

Guys

I take more flights than almost anyone I know (close to 75 this year already) and I can almost always get a better deal direct through the airline - why is that? I would love to put my considerable business through you guys but I just cant seem to get the prices I need....any comments Sean?

Philip

Have you tried actually calling? I found the prices that pop up on the webpage are subject to frequent fluctuation, and was able to get an even better price when I called. They were $700 below what the airline directly quoted me.

G'Day Philip,

I am not sure of the routes that you are selecting Philip, but I will say that the rates on airfare.bootsnall.com are competitive.

Will they be the cheapest everytime?
No

Will they be the cheapest sometimes?
Yes

Does it depend on routing and timing?
Yes

Can we beat prices listed on Airlines Sites?
Yes

There are so many different factors when looking at pricing on international air tickets, and air tickets in general.

Philip, some busiiness travelers like yourself use us, some don't. If it is not what you are looking for, we'd love to learn what it is you are looking for in a provider.

Have you seen our new Cheap Ticket Links and Europe Cheap Ticket Links?

They were recently re designed and the content focus was altered. Any ideas on what type of info y'all/PB would like to see that helps you find dem cheap tickets, please do let us know. This is how we learn. Member feedback baby! Good or bad, give it to me...I can take it. I won't cry, just try to make it better!

PB - hope all is well - in germany for World Cup now.

Sean

interesting comments.

quote:

but I will say that the rates on airfare.bootsnall.com are competitive.

Really? I travel each month to the US and back and your deals arent even in the right ball park. Why is this? But to be fair, which I dont like to really, if you can beat my deal LHR - IAD leaving 25th August, returning 28th August then I will eat my hat. Give me your very best quote and I absoloutly guarantee United will beat it.

The European tickets section is still basically nonsense. On my old blog there was the definitive guide to budget travel in Europe and the Guardian and Times frequently publish comprehensive lists too. But to be fair if you can beat my regualar trip LHR - AMS e.g leave 5.8.6 return 6.8.6 I will eat my hat.

If you do beat my deals I would double what ever saving you give and donate this to my local hospital charity....

Philip

Hey Philip,

Thanks for the challenge!

Using the flight searcher box in the upper right hand column on this page:
http://eu.cheapticketlinks.com

It searched 4 sites and came up with this:
Orbitz: $35 (total $149) with KLM
Kayak: $103
Cheaptickets: $59 total $171 (On BA)
Travelocity: $150

From our Opodo link I found this:
GBP 81.10 **
Price per adult including taxes and booking fees

By trying some of the links in the right hand column of http://eu.cheapticketlinks.com - you'll find more opportunities with flight aggregators.

Having said all this, your deal that you mentioned may well be better. If so, by all means go for it. I am not asking you to spend more money with us to buy a commodity. We are just trying to lead folks in some directions that help.

Also - we'll be adding more features, and RSS tracking on our EU site so you can track deals, sites, and airlines that suit you best. Of course, Philip, you are among the most saavy travel folks out there. If there is a deal, I suspect you would sniff it out.