I'm looking to book a flight from St. Louis, and the ticket prices have nearly doubled from last year ($250 to $450) on every page I've checked (expedia, orbitz, travelocity, etc.) Does anyone know of any lesser known webpages for booking flights, because I really don't want to get ripped off on this, and between school and work, I pretty much have to take a plane.

Also, is anyone else from the midwest having this problem, or is it just me?

I'm coming from western Canada and am pretty much getting fucked for flights (Calgary to San Fran to Atlanta to Gainesville still will cost me $700 at least).

Flying within a country has gotten pretty expensive in the last year though so that's probably the main reason along with taxes on flights are super high lately. However, if you want to keep searching just google "flights from ____ to gainesville" and you'll get lesser known sites that will put your trip through like 10 different websites for you and open up all the options. Plus you can always hope for seat sales!

My long time GF is from Canada and we visit just about every year. What we do to save money on travel is fly to a city near the border and drive across. It's kind of a pain but the money saved makes it worth it. She's from Ottawa so we typically fly to Buffalo or Burlington. It might be worth your while to drive/bus/train to a city on this side of the border to save a little money. International flights are way fucking expensive.

Yeah, I was thinking about that but I can't miss a lot of classes and I'll already be missing the Friday and Monday so adding more days to travel would suck. It only works out sort of well for me because I'm only in school Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
I'm just going to keep my eye out for seat sales/tempt fate and wait until fall to book a flight.

International flights are so expensive especially within the continent. Like $800 to go to Gainesville when it only cost me $1000 to fly to London in May.

I wish you the best of luck finding an affordable flight. No matter what you pay to get to Fest it'll be worth every penny. Cheers

Kayak and Opodo are two other flight comparison sites.

Are you trying to fly into Gainesville or Orlando/Tampa? I booked a flight into Orlando from Washington DC for $179. The cheapest into Gainesville was $338...
I think Orlando is about a 2 hr drive or so to G-ville.

Are you flying into Orlando or Gainesville?

Like Dan said, it's much much cheaper to fly into Orlando

Most of my job involves booking travel and looking at the site I use there are nonstop AirTran flights from STL to Orlando for $199, and nonstop American Airlines for $254

Give me the days/times you were trying to fly in and out and I can probably find something cheap for you.

between bus services and people renting cars and looking for people to split with, getting from orlando to gainesville won't be a problem

From what I can tell if you fly to Orlando and catch a greyhound to Gainesville there are quite a few buses going each day (5 buses on the 29th) and with a 21-day advance purchase the cost is only $26. The only downside is the 3 hour bus ride but since Orlando is a more popular destination getting direct flights or simply shorter flights is much easier.

there will also be people offering rides (for some petrol) from orlando and especially tampa closer to the Fest.. probably can offer rides from/ to tampa again..

but 450$ from st Louis?? my favourited flight is currently around 690$ and its berlin- Tampa, Tampa - New York and couple of days later home, new york - berlin...

are you coming to the tampa pre-fest stuff this year?

yep.. my current plan is:
need to work on Sat 24th at a show of Loikaemie and Los Fastidios (two bigger antifacist oi/ streetpunk band from germany / Italy) and then fly over to tampa next morning the 25th, get a rental and hang out mon/ tue in tampa or clearwater beach or wherever .. then tampa pre-fest on wednesday, thursday either tampa or gville pre Fest and then on monday after the Fest I'll fly to NYC, where I can crush on the coach of the Guitarist of the Mckenzies a couple of days and then fly home the next saturday...

Flights from StL to Orlando are only $200, so if someone is passing through that way in a car on Thursady (late afternoon or early evening. I haven't picked my flight yet) and can give me and possible one of my friends a ride I'll be greatly appreciative and throw some gas money your way.

I've driving up from Orlando that Thursday, my flight gets in at 2:18 but I'm trying to leave Orlando by 4 pm if I'm giving anyone a ride so that we can be in Gainesville by 6 or 7. So I can give you a ride if your flight doesn't get in too late

Last year we missed the pre-show at 1982 because we got there too late and they reached capacity and weren't letting people in anymore, so I wanna get there with time to spare this year if I can help it