In Reply to: Why are Travel Agents telling us flights posted by Danni on Wednesday, 17. August 2005 at 09:46 Bali Time:
If you book a flight in advance, it's generally cheaper.
If a plane is about to leave the airport, and there are spare seats, and you want to buy one immediately, that is the most expensive seat on the plane.
That's like going to the butcher and being told that the meat they are about to throw away is the most expensive.
As soon as that plane leaves, the seat is worthless to them. You'd think they'd sell it at a huge discount. (I can see why they don't, though.)
The thing I don't like about some travel agents is that they will have a special and advertise it, even though there may only be 25 packages at that price, which will be taken in the first five minutes. Then they leave the posters up showing the great deal that you can't get. And even if you manage to get the cheap package, if you deviate from their plan even a little bit, it suddenly isn't cheap any more.
Anyway, flights can't all be full. In the last two days I have received emails from two travel centers offering packages to Bali. I'm in Melbourne, though. It might be a different situation if you're somewhere else.
Have you tried Air Paradise? They seem to have fairly cheap fares for july to dec on their site -- though you have to book by this friday.
Lebaran starts in October. Maybe there's a bunch of Indonesians going home for that.