Airfare to Hawaii

[blondietink]

Just a heads up. Booked our airfare to Aulani last week for our Sept. trip and I could not believe that the plane from the mainland was already 2/3 full both going and coming home. Flying Cleveland to Dallas then straight to Honolulu. Booked interisland flight today and it was almost 1/2 full going and over 1/2 full back to Honolulu. WOW! I guess DVC members aren't the only people who plan vacations way ahead of time. The lower online fares were almost gone, too.

So, my advice to anybody going to Hawaii is to book your flights early!

[Dean]

Originally Posted by blondietink

Just a heads up. Booked our airfare to Aulani last week for our Sept. trip and I could not believe that the plane from the mainland was already 2/3 full both going and coming home. Flying Cleveland to Dallas then straight to Honolulu. Booked interisland flight today and it was almost 1/2 full going and over 1/2 full back to Honolulu. WOW! I guess DVC members aren't the only people who plan vacations way ahead of time. The lower online fares were almost gone, too.

So, my advice to anybody going to Hawaii is to book your flights early!

Compared to the rest of the timeshare world, DVC members are late planners.

[dizneekrazee]

Originally Posted by blondietink

Just a heads up. Booked our airfare to Aulani last week for our Sept. trip and I could not believe that the plane from the mainland was already 2/3 full both going and coming home. Flying Cleveland to Dallas then straight to Honolulu. Booked interisland flight today and it was almost 1/2 full going and over 1/2 full back to Honolulu. WOW! I guess DVC members aren't the only people who plan vacations way ahead of time. The lower online fares were almost gone, too.

So, my advice to anybody going to Hawaii is to book your flights early!

I purchased our Hawaii airfare 8 weeks out, got a great rate. I normally book my flights much sooner. Speaking of, I need start looking for airfare to Phoenix....

[aclov]

I booked last week coming from Chicago for June. I was hoping airfare went down but also noticed it was getting booked and some flights sold out, so I just took the plunge!

[Anal Annie]

Back in January I booked ours for August a few days after I secured our ressies at 7 months. I had been watching airfare for several weeks and it was only going UP (and going up a lot and fast). I ended up booking us out of National airport rather than our usual Dulles or BWI because the flights out of the others were between $300-400 more pp. We're stopping at DL for 4 nights on the way to Aulani and are finishing up with 3 nights on Maui - trying to book it all on one itinerary (multi-city) was much higher than booking each leg separately. I ended up booking DC - LAX one-way on Alaska Air then LAX - HNL one-way on Delta, then HNL - OGG one-way on Hawaiian and finally our return (with 1 stop) from OGG back to DC via Seattle on Alaska Air. The Delta flight from LAX - HNL initially went up by $130 pp about 2 days after I booked and as of today it is $208 more pp!! The cheapest seats are also gone on our Hawaiian Air flight and our return flight has fluctuated from going up by $30 pp to finally (currently) only $10 more pp. But I am SOOOO glad I snagged that flight from LAX to HNL when I did!! There are still some cheaper non-stop flights between LAX and HNL but they're all much later in the day - it's the first one out that we snagged that has almost doubled. I have a friend in CA who goes to the Big Island every summer & she said those flights from CA to HI sell out early she didn't book early enough last year and they ended up paying around $900 pp!!

My advice is to get familiar with the prices for the time of year you're going so you'll know a decent deal when you see it then grab it if it looks good. If you see prices inching upward then it may already be too late. If you live in an area with access to more than 1 major airport I'd also consider pricing out all reasonable options. Sometimes there are deals you wouldn't expect. For example, our flights on Alaska Air - they were so much less than American or United that their First Class seats were less than the economy ones on the other airlines!!

[dizneekrazee]

Originally Posted by Anal Annie

Back in January I booked ours for August a few days after I secured our ressies at 7 months. I had been watching airfare for several weeks and it was only going UP (and going up a lot and fast). I ended up booking us out of National airport rather than our usual Dulles or BWI because the flights out of the others were between $300-400 more pp. We're stopping at DL for 4 nights on the way to Aulani and are finishing up with 3 nights on Maui - trying to book it all on one itinerary (multi-city) was much higher than booking each leg separately. I ended up booking DC - LAX one-way on Alaska Air then LAX - HNL one-way on Delta, then HNL - OGG one-way on Hawaiian and finally our return (with 1 stop) from OGG back to DC via Seattle on Alaska Air. The Delta flight from LAX - HNL initially went up by $130 pp about 2 days after I booked and as of today it is $208 more pp!! The cheapest seats are also gone on our Hawaiian Air flight and our return flight has fluctuated from going up by $30 pp to finally (currently) only $10 more pp. But I am SOOOO glad I snagged that flight from LAX to HNL when I did!! There are still some cheaper non-stop flights between LAX and HNL but they're all much later in the day - it's the first one out that we snagged that has almost doubled. I have a friend in CA who goes to the Big Island every summer & she said those flights from CA to HI sell out early she didn't book early enough last year and they ended up paying around $900 pp!!

My advice is to get familiar with the prices for the time of year you're going so you'll know a decent deal when you see it then grab it if it looks good. If you see prices inching upward then it may already be too late. If you live in an area with access to more than 1 major airport I'd also consider pricing out all reasonable options. Sometimes there are deals you wouldn't expect. For example, our flights on Alaska Air - they were so much less than American or United that their First Class seats were less than the economy ones on the other airlines!!

For Hawaiian Airlines, their prices fluctuate so much from my experience. I went to Oahu in Nov 2011, but purchased air in May. I watched it daily for awhile. It started around 500, went up to 650, down to 399 (which I grabbed), then down again to 355 later, and right back up.

For my trip this April, the 1st time I looked, I booked a few hours later. In that 3 hours, my departure date went up by 100 per person, so I pushed it back one day and got r/t for $323. Next day, my original dates were back to starting price. This was just a week & a half ago, btw.

[Anal Annie]

Originally Posted by dizneekrazee

For Hawaiian Airlines, their prices fluctuate so much from my experience. I went to Oahu in Nov 2011, but purchased air in May. I watched it daily for awhile. It started around 500, went up to 650, down to 399 (which I grabbed), then down again to 355 later, and right back up.

For my trip this April, the 1st time I looked, I booked a few hours later. In that 3 hours, my departure date went up by 100 per person, so I pushed it back one day and got r/t for $323. Next day, my original dates were back to starting price. This was just a week & a half ago, btw.

I'm talking about their little inter-island flights not flights from the mainland. Since they pretty much offer 2 flights per hour they start out with sort of an online web fare and they release only so many seats at that price then when those are gone it goes up to the next tier. I think there are about 4 tiers. Also, I found that they only publish so many of those seats through sites like Kayak or Orbitz. The flight price on the flight we wanted had already hit the 2nd tier on the search engine sites BUT was still available directly on the Hawaiian Airline site when I booked it. Right afterward their site started saying "only 2 seats left at this price". When those were gone then that column grayed out and now says "SOLD OUT". So NOW you'd have to book the next price tier on their site - but the other websites hit that tier earlier because they'd reached their max. number of seats at that price. When I first started looking at the inter-island flights they were all $65 in the bottom tier then at some point they all went to $68. Then the next column went to $78. Airfare prices can fluctuate several times a day just like the stock market.

[dizneekrazee]

Originally Posted by Anal Annie

I'm talking about their little inter-island flights not flights from the mainland. Since they pretty much offer 2 flights per hour they start out with sort of an online web fare and they release only so many seats at that price then when those are gone it goes up to the next tier. I think there are about 4 tiers. Also, I found that they only publish so many of those seats through sites like Kayak or Orbitz. The flight price on the flight we wanted had already hit the 2nd tier on the search engine sites BUT was still available directly on the Hawaiian Airline site when I booked it. Right afterward their site started saying "only 2 seats left at this price". When those were gone then that column grayed out and now says "SOLD OUT". So NOW you'd have to book the next price tier on their site - but the other websites hit that tier earlier because they'd reached their max. number of seats at that price. When I first started looking at the inter-island flights they were all $65 in the bottom tier then at some point they all went to $68. Then the next column went to $78. Airfare prices can fluctuate several times a day just like the stock market.

Yes, I gathered that. But my post was more in response to the LAX-HNL leg (I know yours wasn't with Hawaiian Airlines).

Before I booked our flights for April, I looked at island hopping as well, to the Big Island. All flights that I looked at were in the 70s, but I don't remember it being over in the 3rd tier. Even so, that was more than I expected it to be.

[blondietink]

Well, our RT price from Cleveland through Dallas to Honolulu came to just under $800PP and gets into HNL @ 2:40 in the afternoon. I grabbed it as the RT's from either Buffalo or Rochester were almost $1000 PP which was up over $200 pp from when I started looking in January. I can drive to Cleveland for a lot less than that when you are talking 4 people. The BUF and ROC flights were also 2 or 3 stops each or with huge layovers getting into HNL at around 8:30 pm. I wanted to take the JetBlue/Hawaiian Airlines combo out of Buffalo, but the price was out of sight. Better yet was I used Starpoints from Starwood and didn't pay a thing!!!!!! the only flights we are paying for are the interisland.

[Anal Annie]

Originally Posted by blondietink

Well, our RT price from Cleveland through Dallas to Honolulu came to just under $800PP and gets into HNL @ 2:40 in the afternoon. I grabbed it as the RT's from either Buffalo or Rochester were almost $1000 PP which was up over $200 pp from when I started looking in January. I can drive to Cleveland for a lot less than that when you are talking 4 people. The BUF and ROC flights were also 2 or 3 stops each or with huge layovers getting into HNL at around 8:30 pm. I wanted to take the JetBlue/Hawaiian Airlines combo out of Buffalo, but the price was out of sight. Better yet was I used Starpoints from Starwood and didn't pay a thing!!!!!! the only flights we are paying for are the interisland.

Wow - you got a great price. I had wanted to take either Jet Blue or Virgin America out Dulles or SW out of BWI to get to CA but ended up having to book out of National because the return flights to the other airports were astronomical. For our piece-mealed trip we ended up paying $1,073 for all legs and that was $300-400 less than using any combination of carriers to the airports I had wanted to use. Exactly $100 less than our flights to Europe in 2011. Guess that is just the price of long-distance flights from our area. The last time we went to Hawaii we converted Amex. Reward points to our Delta Skymiles accounts and covered all of our flights for free. This trip we didn't have as many accrued so we converted them to Starwood points to use for the Westin on Maui. Now we're back to square one with zero points left to cover anything again for a very long time!

[blondietink]

Originally Posted by Anal Annie

Wow - you got a great price. I had wanted to take either Jet Blue or Virgin America out Dulles or SW out of BWI to get to CA but ended up having to book out of National because the return flights to the other airports were astronomical. For our piece-mealed trip we ended up paying $1,073 for all legs and that was $300-400 less than using any combination of carriers to the airports I had wanted to use. Exactly $100 less than our flights to Europe in 2011. Guess that is just the price of long-distance flights from our area. The last time we went to Hawaii we converted Amex. Reward points to our Delta Skymiles accounts and covered all of our flights for free. This trip we didn't have as many accrued so we converted them to Starwood points to use for the Westin on Maui. Now we're back to square one with zero points left to cover anything again for a very long time!

That new deal with Delta/Starwood is good that just started. Maybe they will extend it to other airlines.

Wow! After our stay at Aulani, we are going over to stay at the Westin Ka-anapali North Villas for 10 days, too!!! How much of a coincidence is that? We used our Staroptions for that. You will have to let me know all about Aulani and the Westin since you will be there before us.

[Anal Annie]

Originally Posted by blondietink

That new deal with Delta/Starwood is good that just started. Maybe they will extend it to other airlines.

Wow! After our stay at Aulani, we are going over to stay at the Westin Ka-anapali North Villas for 10 days, too!!! How much of a coincidence is that? We used our Staroptions for that. You will have to let me know all about Aulani and the Westin since you will be there before us.

We always finish our trips on Maui because it's our fav so that's why we booked it last - and for the most part I've read good things about the Westin but we'll just have an island view studio...the pics look nice of their units & I "think" even the studios have washers & dryers...but to be honest, after all of the wonderful things I've been reading about Aulani I'm wondering if we should have reversed the 2 islands & started on Maui & finished at Aulani. I'm afraid the IV studio at the Westin will be a let-down after our OV studio at Aulani. That's great that you had enough time & enough points to do 10 nights there. We're tapped out now & won't be traveling on any points of any sort for a very long time now! How many nights will you be at Aulani?

[blondietink]

Originally Posted by Anal Annie

We always finish our trips on Maui because it's our fav so that's why we booked it last - and for the most part I've read good things about the Westin but we'll just have an island view studio...the pics look nice of their units & I "think" even the studios have washers & dryers...but to be honest, after all of the wonderful things I've been reading about Aulani I'm wondering if we should have reversed the 2 islands & started on Maui & finished at Aulani. I'm afraid the IV studio at the Westin will be a let-down after our OV studio at Aulani. That's great that you had enough time & enough points to do 10 nights there. We're tapped out now & won't be traveling on any points of any sort for a very long time now! How many nights will you be at Aulani?

4 nights in Waikiki then 7 nights in a 1 bedroom oceanview at Aulani!! We had literally 200,000K Starpoints expiring in 2014, so we decided to take the plunge and make it a once in a lifetime trip to Hawaii for the 4 of us. No way we could have afforded to fly all 4 of us to Hawaii without those points. Banked our DVC points from this year into our next use year so we could get the week at Aulani.

I went to Oahu and Kaui with my brother 30 years ago, and I have always wanted to go back. Finally convinced DH this would be a good way to use up all those Starpoints. I am sure that we will want to go back again, but the airfare would be a killer for us if we had to pay cash. Since we have yearly staroptions which could get us a week in Maui any year, this will be a consideration in the future if we plan it right. But I would also love to visit the Starwood resort in Cancun and we could get a cheaper airfare from here for Cancun than we can for Hawaii. Decisions, decisions!

Well, enjoy your trip and do let me know how yours goes.