Last minute deals

We had an interesting experience when looking for a trip back. On Monday night we looked at flights from Durham to Mpls and found a direct NW flight for $630 per person...flights with stop-overs were a little bit more. Since we didn't know what plans would be, we didn't book the tickets. On Tuesday morning, the cost had increased to $830 and now we knew that we need to get home by Thursday....we couldn't believe our luck that the price had increased $200 (~33%). We checked out the bereavement policy at NW and found that for tickets in this price range, they typically give a 10% discount which was not much consolation relative to the 33% increase in price from yesterday.

On a lark, I decided to check kayak, a site that checks a whole bunch of other sites for flights. One of the options is to check other aggregaters, so I checked all the boxes (I was desperate). Travelocity popped up and had the same prices for flights as we had seen previously. But then I saw a line that said "Last Minute Deal" and it said "Flights + 4 Days Rental Car from $420." Long story short, I ended up getting the exact same flight from above plus a car rental while we are home for $430 per person. That's a $400 savings per person plus we have our ride figured out.

On a separate note, I highly recommend priceline for car rental. Unlike flights where you can name your price, but have no control over the time for the flights. In naming your own price for car rental, you have completely control. The only thing you do not determine is the car rental company, but me and my friends are 100% on getting a reputable company. So check it out!