Updated December 19, 2003 -- December's a winning month for discount airline ATA (www.ata.com). First they offered unparalleled fares between New York and Honolulu, and now they're following up with a slam-bang sale on many of their routes.
ATA has so many great fares in this sale, it's hard to decide which ones to list. Here's our educated guess for cities to spotlight: if you live in or are headed to Boston, New York, Indianapolis, or Chicago, or you're going to Honolulu or Cancun, you owe it to yourself to hustle down to www.ata.com/sales/general/031214_pg1.html and check out the fares.
To get these fares, you have to buy by Monday, December 22 and fly between Jan. 7 and March 17. The best fares are usually available on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday flights. The great fares they've got include (all roundtrip, before tax, but also available as one-way tickets):
- Newark-Chicago Midway: $178 (matched by Continental)
- Newark-San Francisco: $158 (matched by Continental)
- Boston-Seattle: $218 (unbeatable)
- Boston-San Francisco: $218 (unbeatable)
- Indianapolis-Cancun: $298 (unbeatable)
- San Francisco-Honolulu: $298 (unbeatable)
- Seattle-Honolulu (starting Feb. 20): $378 (matched by Northwest)
- New York LaGuardia-Honolulu: $398 (unbeatable)
If checking fares on Orbitz, subtract $5 from all the ATA fares they show while doing comparisons; Orbitz charges a higher fee for ATA tickets than for most other airlines.
ATA is a well-known, reliable discount carrier that's been around for more than 20 years. Up until recently, they were more famous for prices than for service, but they've said they've turned over a new leaf in recent years, expanding legroom and buying a slew of new planes. We haven't flown ATA since they started improving -- if you have, tell us about the experience on our Air Travel Message Boards.
