I am a NOOB to travel! Airline help please??!!

I am looking to travel from Cleveland or Akron Ohio airport to LAX (Los Angeles, CA) at the end of October. For right now I can be slightly flexible. I am looking to go around Oct 26 until November 5th or so. Any recommendations on good sites to maybe find some deals? What would be considered a good deal anyways? The cheapest I found so far is around $343 by searching on Yahoo Travel which does a search of many different airlines, different days, times, and other details... Is it better to wait until the date is closer to buy tickets or should I start looking to buy now?

Thanks guys!!

I'm in that area, and whenever we have people come visit, rather than making them fly into LAX (most would rather have a root canal), we have them fly into the Ontario airport, around 35 or so miles east of downtown LA. Even though it's an international airport, it's much smaller, cleaner, safer and so very easy to get in and get out! (plus you don't have to arrive 2+ hours before your scheduled flight. Usually 30 minutes is fine) Best part is, the rates are good. Here's a map to see where it is:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Ontario&state=CA

I find my best deals on Orbitz.com and usually around 6-8 weeks in advance.

I would not wait to the last minute. My Sister just did that with Las Vegas and she ended up paying more. LAX is terrible. I have been stuck there before because our flight was cancelled. The other airport she is talking about is much better. I would bok it about 6-8 weeks before you go. My Husband worked for a airline for more then 30 years.

Never buy the last minute if you can help it. The longer you wait the more you end up paying because it goes by how much gas is at that time.

I just booked some tickets to WI for christmas and payed $599 which is not bad at all considering I am flying out of my town and going during christmas which is always expensive.

Trying this websites. It is a search engine for airline tickets.

http://www.bookingbuddy.com/

If Southwest flies to both those airports (and I recommend Ontario, CA, too), check their web site. I'm not sure their flights come up on the general booking sites.

I like www.kayak.com - it searches pretty much all the airlines, and is very easy to use.

As I suspected, I checked Kayak.com, and they did NOT search Southwest Airlines. I checked on a flight from Dallas Love Field to Ontario, CA, and the lowest Kayak got was $370, on Continental. The Southwest Airlines site had flights as low as $258 round trip.

I chose Dallas Love because there really are only two airlines out of there, Continental and Southwest. If Kayak found no Southwest flights, and searched "all the travel sites," as it claimed, then only the Southwest site will work.

This is not surprising. Southwest, while extremely successful, is not well-liked by other airlines or travel agents.

Thank you guys so much!! I liked kayak but that is weird that most of these big airline search engines don't include Southwest. Turns out though my sister's boyfriend has an uncle who works for Southwest and he might possibly be able to get me a ticket for like $100 or so... If I don't hear from her in the next week, I found continental tickets for $266 on one of the search sites!!

I always check with a few of the multi-searching engines (travelocity, expedia, kayak etc) and then cross reference with the airlines.

Most of the multisearches pre-book the seats and get seats on a sliding scale, with the first 10 being sold at say $200, the next 10 being sold at $225 and the next ten at say $300. Most of them release new prices on Wednesdays at 12.01 - 1am so those mornings are the best time to look.

Try farecast.com too, they work with the airlines to find out when seat sales and new seats released will occur and look at how many people booked already and tell you whether it is best to book now or wait. They also give you prices from hotwire and other places.

Be sure you know the conditions for that inexpensive Southwest ticket. It may be standby, which may or may not be a good deal.

The earlier you book, usually the lower the price, but prices change on a minute-by-minute basis, depending on how full a flight may be. If you find a great price, take it; the odds are good it will go up shortly.

PM sharky for the link she sent me. I can't remember what it was, but we got a good deal on my airline tickets.

I've seen Orbiz list Southwest before.