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Two major players, Southwest and AirTran, have launched sales. Other airlines including American are matching the fares in competing markets. The AirTran sale goes through the end of January, and this is the first sale we've seen from Southwest that extends into February.

AirTran's sale is valid for travel through Jan. 27. Tickets must be purchased by Tuesday, with a 10-day advance. These sale fares aren't available for travel Nov. 25 and 28-30 or Dec. 18 through Jan. 4. Visit www.airtran.com/sale.

Tickets for the Southwest sale can be purchased through Thursday, with a 14-day advance, for travel through Feb. 11. Seats are limited and not available on some flights from Nov. 24 through Dec. 1 and Dec. 17 through Jan. 3. Visit www.southwest.com.

Frontier, which has been running sales for the past seven weeks, is offering deals on tickets for off-peak travel through March 10. Tickets must be purchased by Oct. 21, and there are black-out dates around the holidays.

Even though these sales have some blackout dates, it's still a great time to be looking for holiday fares. Other carriers matching these fares don't have the same blackout dates, and if you check around, you also can find deals on carriers that launched a sale for travel during the holidays.

For certain, the Sunday after Thanksgiving and the Sunday after New Year's will cost $50 to $200 more each way, so you have to be flexible.

Whenever you see a sale launched, wait until the afternoon for the matching deals. You should look at Web sites such as Travelocity.com, Orbitz.com and Bestfares.com that have flexible dates, showing what you'd pay for a range of dates on multiple airlines. You may find cheaper fares leaving a day before, or returning a day or two later.

One frustrating thing about these sales is that I am able to find fares in many markets lower than what the airlines are advertising as sale prices. For example, Southwest says flights from Dallas to Fort Lauderdale are as low as $149 one way in this sale, but I found days in January where the flights cost only $89 one way. Every major airline has this problem, so if sale fares look high, check them. While some fares have risen recently, we're still finding holiday dates at a much lower rate than last year. For example, last year I paid $458 round trip for flights from Dallas to Tampa for departure Dec. 26 and return Jan. 1. This year, I bought tickets for the same dates and paid $268 each.

You will pay a slight premium for holiday flight dates compared to non-holiday travel.

You have fewer than 60 days until Thanksgiving and less than 90 until Christmas. If you see a good holiday deal now, grab it.

Last week when I priced the Dallas to Tampa itinerary that I locked in a month ago at $268, I found fares for $228. Boohoo on me. I lost out on the cheapest fare. Even the guru of cheap fares can't win them all.

Tom Parsons is publisher of BestFares.com www.bestfares.com

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