Sometimes you don't know exactly where to head on your next family vacation, only that you absolutely, positively want to play on a beach. Or hike in the mountains. Or be within striking distance of some first-rate golf courses. That's a perfect time to check out Deal Finder, a tool from the smart folks at FareCompare.com. Deal Finder helps you find cheap flights from your home airport to destinations based on your interests.

The upside: This tool reminded us in some ways of Airfarewatchdog.com, one of our all-time favorite fare-finding sites, in that both sites suggest destinations you might not have otherwise considered based on flight prices from your home airport. But while Airfarewatchdog.com simply pumps out a roster of airfares to a list of cities, Deal Finder goes one step further. After plugging in your departure airport, you click on a category, such as "Family Fun Destinations" or "The Great Outdoors," and Deal Finder generates anywhere from 15 to 30 filtered suggestions, ranked in order of airfare price, from least expensive to most expensive.

The downside: When we tested Deal Finder, the results tended to focus on major destinations without any surprises, and in some categories we thought the cities were too skewed toward regional pockets. (In comparison, one of the aspects we love most about Airfarewatchdog.com is that it pulls a wide variety of off-beat destinations and smaller-sized airports into the mix.) With Deal Finder, the roster of "Family Fun Destinations" was a mixed bag of all the big-name usual suspects, with everything from Orlando to Cody, Wyoming, to San Diego. (Read: Fun but expected.) Inexplicably, the "Great Outdoors" category steered us firmly west (Colorado, Montana, New Mexico), while seemingly dismissing the myriad natural beauty spots east of the Rockies that were closer (with presumably less-expensive airfare) to the New York-based departure airport we were using in our test.

Verdict: Deal Finder is a solid addition to your arsenal of money-saving travel tools. It's intuitive and fast and we love that it churns out solid destination ideas while making it a snap to gauge and compare airfares to different cities. While it's not likely to give you any out-of-the-box suggestions, it can surely play a useful part in your travel-planning process.

Note: If you have yet to discover FareCompare.com, take some time to explore it. The site is a gold mine of helpful information about flying and advice on how to find great deals.

If you're planning a fall getaway, this could be your lucky day. For the next 48 hours, Southwest is having a mega sale on post-summer airfares on all its routes. Sale prices range from $30 to $90 for one-way flights, depending on the distance flown. The fine print: Travel dates are from September 9 to November 18, for flights any day of the week except Friday and Sunday. Hurry—the sale ends tomorrow, July 8, at 11:59PST (July 9, 2:59AM EST).

Looking for affordable family vacation ideas? Don't have much time for planning? Make Hotwire's Travel Ticker a go-to site in your travel toolbox. Most travel deal-finding sites pay scant attention to the needs of families, but Travel Ticker is different. Check out the Family Travel page for a slew of hand-picked listings at kid-friendly properties and the odd airfare deal. Then, for good measure, take a peek at the Hotels Under a Hundred page, where every deal is priced under $100 a night. Of course, a deal-finding site is only as good as the deals it unearths, and we've been impressed with what we've seen. This morning on the Family Travel page, for example, we spotted at least a dozen spring spectaculars, including:

• studio condo at The Wren in Vail, Colorado, for just $105 a night through April 19 (40% off peak rates)
• two-bedroom suite at the Point at Poipu, in Kauai, Hawaii, for just $199 a night through April 19 (50% off)
• one-bedroom condo rentals across the US, under $400 for seven nights (wow!) through June 28

Nervous about booking a vacation in these turbulent times? One airline gets it. JetBlue is making an impressive promise to customers: If you book a flight on JetBlue and then subsequently lose your job, the airline promises to refund your airfare in full. JetBlue's fares are normally nonrefundable.

How the JetBlue Promise Program works: Customers who book flights between now and June 1, 2009 and lose their job must notify JetBlue and request a full refund at least 14 days prior to the date of travel. The customer who purchased the flight and is listed as a traveler on the itinerary can request a refund for up to nine customers traveling on one reservation.

This is just one more reason for families to love JetBlue. We've always had a massive crush on those individual seatback TVs.

As Rick Seaney, CEO of the fare-hunting site FareCompare.com, points out, "Airline fees are a fact of life." True enough. When shopping for an airfare, realize that nobody pays the advertised airfare. It's merely the base price before taxes and miscellaneous fees are heaped on.

Still, not all airline fees are created equal, and those differences can make a big difference to your bottom line. Seaney's handy domestic airline fee chart makes for extremely interesting comparison shopping. It is a rather grim confirmation of what we already knew: gouging has become depressingly commonplace in the airline business. Most airlines are now charging $15 for the first checked bag and $25 for the second. Reserving by phone can tack as much as $35 on to your ticket price. Having an oversized or overweight bag can mean getting whacked with hundreds of dollars extra. Want to change your non-refundable ticket? You're looking at a penalty of as much as $150. Though it's not listed on the chart, opting for a paper ticket instead of an e-ticket can also ratchet up your final tally.

Mr. Seaney's chart is a cheat sheet for air travel's heroes and villains. The white hat clearly belongs to Southwest, which not only offers the most free services (first and second checked bags, phone reservations, unaccompanied minors, curbside check-in, and non-refundable ticket change) but where it does impose a fee, the amount is often significantly lower than that of the competition. To a lesser extent, JetBlue, Virgin America, and ExpressJet also have consumer-friendly fee structures.

When faced with identical or nearly identical airfares on the same route, factor in fees and then choose wisely. If your family will be traveling with several pieces of checked luggage, for example, the difference in what you will actually spend can be big.

Kicking yourself for missing out on Southwest's "Wanna Get Away?" sale, which ended a few days ago? You may have the last laugh. The airline has followed up with a four-day blowout called "Get Away Any Day." Once again, you can again nab fares as low as $49 to $99 each way. The good news: This time around, those lowest fares aren't limited to Tuesday or Wednesday flights. As the promo name implies, the best prices are snaggable any day of the week.

We did some price-checking and found significant savings on many routes. Here are some sample OW fares, flying on Friday in mid-February: 

• Cleveland-Orlando from $99 (normally $315)
• Seattle-Denver from $97 (normally $266)
• Chicago-Phoenix  from $95 (normally $350)
• Providence, RI-West Palm Beach, FL for $89 (normally $303)
• Los Angeles-Dallas from $99 (normally $351)

Book by January 26 and travel through March 11. Minimum 14-day advance purchase.

It's a fantastic time to book a flight, folks! There's a trifecta of super sales all happening at the same time. We recently reported on Southwest's "Wanna Get Away? Sale," and now two other popular airlines have joined in the price-slashing. And hooray—both have those groovy seatback TVs.

JetBlue has a "More for Less Sale" with one-way fares going for as little as $39 (for Long Beach, CA to Las Vegas)  and the popular Boston-Orlando route snaggable for $89 each way. The sale ends January 14. 

Not to be outdone, Virgin America just launched a "GO! Sale" with one-way fares from $59 along the West Coast corridor (for example, between San Francisco and Seattle or San Diego) and just $139 each way on major transcontinental routes, such as San Francisco-Boston and Los Angeles-DC. The sale ends January 20. Flights must occur between January 7 and June 10.

Note: Sale fares are most often available on midweek flights.

What are our top three reasons for loving Southwest Airlines? No hidden fees, no hidden fees, and no hidden fees. We also like how airfares just got lower with the "Wanna Get Away?" sale. Fly on Tuesday or Wednesday and you can snag fares for $49 to $99 one-way on select routes nationwide. Fly Thursday to Monday, and sale prices range from $59 to $159 one-way.

Book by January 19 and fly between January 15 and April 30 with a 14-day advance purchase.

Want to slip a vacation under the Christmas tree? Nothing gives us that Santa feeling like an airfare sale. Yesterday we told you about JetBlue's airfare sale, which ends tomorrow. And today, Virgin America (another airlines that gives every passenger her own TV) announced its own fabulous airfare blowout, with one-way fares ranging from $59 to $149 between these six destinations:

• Las Vegas
• Los Angeles
• New York
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• Washington, DC

To nab the sale fares, you need to book by next Thursday, December 11, and travel between January 6 and March 1, 2009.