Hi,

hello friends.... I have breaked my head.... for the last 3 hours.. searching for flights for the new year... and they are so steeeply priced. I dont know what to do. Are there any flights available. Please share with me how you booked tickets from india. any travel agents, or online... what precautions to take... I am travelling first time. And i dont know to do... I am just so depressed. I googled for travel agents in Mumbai , but in vain.

Can any one help me


Jigi

try www.orbitz.com

They usually have some really good deals

Hey buddy, still going through my problem but saw your post so I thought I would try to help.

makemytrip.com is the biggest & cheapest in India
calling some airlines directly & getting quotes will give you an idea as to which ones usually cheaper...

hey jigi you have to start search as soon as possible and put a hold on a ticket if you are going to travel in Jan! it will be somewhat costly as its being Jan so if you are willing to travel other airlines instaed of the delta or so i'm sure you will get a little cheaper tickets. Do NOT take Gulf Airlines once again as my advice. Check with other websites and local travel agents !!! as soon as i get more details on my hubby's ticket i will let you know hopefully once after i reach india i will know..

What problem was there with Gulf Air? Just curious - I flew with them last year to ktm and everything was great - showed up at checkin in London less than 30mins before takeoff(American Airlines flight late leaving from JFK) and with a little persuading they let me on the plane - great service, not to mention much better food than Thai(surprise). Am already thinking about if I want to fly with them next year - what happened?

Are you talking about a one-way ticket from India to the US? Makemytrip and individual airline sites can help but your better half is sure to get a better deal by contacting a local travel agent in Mumbai...just try calling a few and see the best deal you are getting. Make sure the price they are quoting has seat availability.

pattu rani i'm glad to see that u will be traveling back next year which is great to know.

as far as gulf airlines goes, yeah its cheap but then the service was horrible as per my experience...
never in life will i fly with them again...lots of things went wrong on the flights from dfw to mumbai and return to dfw...

anyways thats just my experience....

Sidestep.com is another good one. It pulls in webfares from all the major airlines.

Hi pbgirl,

sidestep site, is really cool. Thanks for helping. the site is so simple and has perfect detailed display

Jigi

I saw this thread just now but anyway, I booked hubby's ticket on makemytrip.com, they live chat feature was very useful and prices were cheapest I could find. I also saw a lot of cheap tickets on orbitz.com. Good luck with getting the best price you can - I know that Dec and Jan are very expensive months for travel to/from India.

December and Jan can be very pricey, if you can push the date out to the second week of Jan it will make a huge different in ticket prices. Makemytrip and also some travel agencies have what you called CONSOLIDATOR tickets, those tickets are bought wholesales and sold by the travel agencies. Most of the time the ticket price from India will be much less if you buy it there compare to us, since the ticket price will be based on INR compare to $$.
Remember you'll be getting the Indian rate, compare to what some foreigner would pay.

Anyone buy any recently? I am on the market for tickets to India and even makemytrip seems ridiculously priced right now. Sigh!

Any airlines to AVOID???

All,
I just bought my tickets from Qatar Airways. They costed me about $1150 including taxes from Newark,NJ to Hyderabad roundtrip.

I used Discount Travel in Chicago - (630)351-5000.

Regards,
HYDROUSC

I would also suggest trying Emirates. I'm flying to India towards the end of december to be there for the interview (CR1 for my wife in Chennai on Jan 7th). I booked my tickets using their website, and booked the one way ticket for my wife using a travel agent in India. Got a fare of 1440 all inclusive for JFK-BLR,which is not bad at all, considering the season, and the additional fuel surcharges.

hi,

emirates is too costly and it doesnt fly to the US destination I would be travelling to


Jigi

Two travel metasearch engines, one of which I got on another thread here on VJ:

1. http://www.mobissimo.com; this got us the ticket we bought. Simultaneously searched numerous travel sites, including both agency and airline sites. We were able to get tickets for my wife for about $850 o/w (including taxes!) on Jet Airways, connecting to Continental once in the US. Jet's international service was excellent, and connections were seamless. Mobissimo actually found the fare on Orbitz, and it's worth noting that her ticket was purchased less than a week before traveling. Ironically, the day before we booked, I found another fare (also on Mobissimo) for virtually the same flight, but for $712 (including taxes!); unfortunately, there was a detail yet to be confirmed at that point. The nice thing is that when going through an engine like this, you can have it checking on flights to virtually any airport in the US, from virtually any airport in India, and it makes the connections. Brilliant.

2. The one I discovered here was http://www.cheapflights.com. It looked pretty good, but doesn't allow booking so close to the departure date.

Disclaimer: Of course, I post these just for information's sake, and have no pretensions of expertise on travel. I personally found these helpful. I certainly don't work in the travel industry.

Matt & Chandra