| Planning Your Hawaiian Vacation | |
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Part of the fun, and challenge, of a vacation in Hawaii is planning your trip. While you can go to a local travel agent or tour operator, it is actually more fun to make all of the plans and reservations yourself. By doing this you can also save some considerable money.
Planning your trip yourself requires that before you do any actual booking, you coordinate the availability of the hotel(s), condo(s) or B&B(s) where you wish to stay with the dates when you can get the best airfare. Since Hawaii is such a popular destination, the airlines book up early and quickly so we'll begin this multi-part feature with a look at booking airfare to Hawaii.
As with many destinations, the earlier you can make your reservations, the better. Most airlines will allow you to book your airfare up to 330 days in advance. This ability to book in advance can save you money. In addition, if your schedule allows you to fly Mondays through Thursdays, you can often get a better rate.
Let's look at some examples. A round-trip flight from a major east coast city to Honolulu booked three months in advance will run you $950 or more. If you book that same flight eight months in advance you can save $50-$100 off that price. The same ticket that will cost you $880 flying Tuesday to Tuesday will cost you $950 flying Saturday to Saturday.
It pays to sit down at your computer and play around with some dates to get the best rates possible as far in advance as possible. Most of the major airlines feature a "Quick Fare Finder" on their websites that include flights and prices from all major carriers. They also are found on the sites of most booking services. Excellent ones can be found at Orbitz or Travelocity.
These services not only allow you to see the availability and prices of flights, but also to see which seats are available on each leg of the flight. You can pick your seat online. If you are uncomfortable with actually booking your flight on the Internet you can call the airline directly and tell them precisely what flights, seats and price that you want. Sometimes you can follow along on the seating chart and watch you seat suddenly become unavailable as you book the flight.
If you are really flexible, you can try one of the specialty airlines booking services like Priceline.com or Lowestfare.com. In our Hawaii Forum, a member from Maryland reports getting a roundtrip ticket from Baltimore to Honolulu via Priceline.com for the amazing price of $550.
Keep in mind, however, that Hawaii is one of the most popular destinations available and many planes fill up well ahead of time.
Hawaii is also an excellent destination to use frequent flier miles even if you have to use standard awards as opposed to the saver awards (which are subject to many restrictions). For example, a roundtrip ticket from New York to Los Angeles or San Francisco will cost between $400 and $500 or 40,000 miles on United (standard awards). A roundtrip ticket to Hawaii will cost $880-$1000 and cost just 60,000 miles. For 20,000 more miles you save twice as much money.
A travel agent cannot book your trip for you if you wish to use frequent flier miles.
If you plan inter-island travel remember that both Aloha Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines are partners of major US/World carriers. These airlines will honor frequent flier miles also. For example, you can book a roundtrip inter-island ticket on Aloha for just 5000 miles from United. That's a savings of up to $200! That's a really great deal.
For a step by step printable recap check out:
How to book your airfare to Hawaii.
Next time we'll take a look at some of the ways just the right place for you to stay in Hawaii and how to get the best deal on lodgings.
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