Has anyone booked flights for late August yet?

[1andrea]

Thank you, I've had a look and its £800pp just for the flights for our dates :0( xx

 

[1andrea]

Surely there should be some indirect deals soon. Im getting impatient xx

 

[MarkE83]

I'm feeling your pain, I need a very specific set of flights for our honeymoon next year with BA - flying out from Heathrow to Nassau in the Bahamas on the 15/8 and back from Orlando into Gatwick on Friday 2nd Sept (landing sat 3rd). I don't want to go indirect, it's not worth the hassle - ever since the flights have been released they've bounced between £960 and £1300 per person with seemingly no rhyme or reason! Today its £1,135 each. yesterday was £1072. Flying home from Miami brings me right down to £786 per person! They need to just quit messing around and make the Orlando flight home that cheap!

 

[wayneg]

I'm feeling your pain, I need a very specific set of flights for our honeymoon next year with BA - flying out from Heathrow to Nassau in the Bahamas on the 15/8 and back from Orlando into Gatwick on Friday 2nd Sept (landing sat 3rd). I don't want to go indirect, it's not worth the hassle - ever since the flights have been released they've bounced between £960 and £1300 per person with seemingly no rhyme or reason! Today its £1,135 each. yesterday was £1072. Flying home from Miami brings me right down to £786 per person! They need to just quit messing around and make the Orlando flight home that cheap!

Don't know if you have read my thread about booking with Orbitz and paying in $'s for flights. Today the exact flights you want would be $1,443 or £939 using a fee free credit card.
You could use Tampa instead of MCO, just 20-30 mins further away than MCO(depending where you are staying), that would bring cost down to $1,358 or £883
returning from Miami would be $1,111 or £722.

Used Orbitz twice this year and next 2 flights are with them, UK sites have not been anywhere near.

 

[MarkE83]

That's a great call, I'll look at that! When booking with orbitz, how do you go about seat assignment etc on the plane? Do they give you a booking reference that can be used on the BA website?

 

[wayneg]

That's a great call, I'll look at that! When booking with orbitz, how do you go about seat assignment etc on the plane? Do they give you a booking reference that can be used on the BA website?

I booked on Saturday on Orbitz, its a Delta booking/codeshare on KLM planes. As soon as I pressed the buy button I instantly opened a Delta page and the booking was already on their system. Orbitz gave me their own res number plus 2 booking ref's, 1 for KLM & 1 for Delta.
Orbitz offered me seat choice in the booking process but it didn't work (has before no problem) so I logged into Delta and chose again, it offered me upgrade to Premium for $109pp each way, I have declined for now as not one premium seat has been taken, if the price drops I might be tempted( I paid $45 last time)

 

[sjt22]

I am also having trouble with flight prices for the end of august I am hoping virgin do a sale like they did last year around christmas. The worst thing is I have enough airmiles for a one way flight but the site says you can't use miles on the london to orlando route, not sure why as I have always done so in the past x

 

[chmurf]

I'm looking at flights now for 6/8/16 to 27/8/16
won't be of much help as we take off from CDG

so far "good" prices with Delta indirect run into the $1100pp / 1000€ / £750 depending on sites (orbitz.com, expedia in .com or .fr among others). Air Canade seems to have the best deals but only a few dozens of euros less with painful connection times (anyone fancy 8hrs at Trudeau on the way back ?)

I'm still trying to decide, on a delta flight. They seem to open a new hub at RDU (Raleigh Durham) but flights are operated on 757-200 for the transatlantic leg, and I compare those to sardine cans.

Do any of you think that deals will come out ?
So far the flights are in the T and U class, which are the most heavily discounted fares for Delta (I mention delta because they team up with VA) so unless they have a sale of some kind, I can only see the price going up

 

[wayneg]

I'm looking at flights now for 6/8/16 to 27/8/16
won't be of much help as we take off from CDG

so far "good" prices with Delta indirect run into the $1100pp / 1000€ / £750 depending on sites (orbitz.com, expedia in .com or .fr among others). Air Canade seems to have the best deals but only a few dozens of euros less with painful connection times (anyone fancy 8hrs at Trudeau on the way back ?)

I'm still trying to decide, on a delta flight. They seem to open a new hub at RDU (Raleigh Durham) but flights are operated on 757-200 for the transatlantic leg, and I compare those to sardine cans.

Do any of you think that deals will come out ?
So far the flights are in the T and U class, which are the most heavily discounted fares for Delta (I mention delta because they team up with VA) so unless they have a sale of some kind, I can only see the price going up

Can't see much to help you out there. Lower prices are always possible but no-one knows if there will be or not. Only the airlines know.
These kind of prices were the reason we went across to Dublin, Ireland and flew Biz class this August.
Next August you can fly Biz class on your dates from Dublin for 1,421€ at todays price, I only paid 1,050€ this year by booking at the right time(very similar prices to your economy) we flew in day before and had a night in a Dublin airport hotel first which was great.
Date Origin Destination Stops Fly time

06 Aug Dublin (08:55) Orlando (Orlando Intl) (16:47) 1 12h 52m

27 Aug Orlando (Orlando Intl) (16:55) Dublin (08:45) +1 day 1 10h 50m

 

[chmurf]

Thanks Wayne
I can't get good rates from Dublin, even without the separate flights to Ireland, it's already more expensive than flying from France

So I bit the bullet this morning.

CDG-ATL-MCO 6/08/16 with Delta
3h48 layover in ATL (I like 'em long) and arrival in MCO at 5:25pm (domestic, so nice arrival time)

MCO-RDU-CDG 27/08/16 (+1) with Delta
take off 2:30pm, 2h15 layover in Raleigh, 8:35am in Paris. (TATL on a 757, not my plane of choice, but ... we'll probably go for comfort+ if it's worth it.)

price is 3043 euros for 2A+1C (1014 euros pp or £716pp with today's exchange rate)

booked with Expedia.

 

[wayneg]

Too early in my opinion, last few years I have found best prices Dec to Mar for flying in August. There was an article out last year that suggested 21 weeks out was the ideal booking time for transatlantic flights.
I think airlines have realised people want to book early and overprice.
I can't argue with the 21 week findings, I booked on Saturday for next Easter (March 24th), just worked it out and its 20 weeks 5 days.
There are exceptions, no hard and fast rules, you might be right to book now, they might only go up but my advise would have been to wait.

 

[chmurf]

you're absolutely right

now there is also an important factor which is direct vs. indirect.

with direct flights, there is no real issue. There are only a set number of flights. So the 21 weeks and other empiric rules are valid (most of the time)

with indirect, the number of flight combination is much higher.
in my experience (which is not a UK experience, so might not be applicable) prices are at a low at 9 months, then go up, and drop again at the 5/6 months mark (our 21 weeks)
but the catch is that they are not the same flights as at the 9 months mark.
Most of the time they are flights with less appealing times/layovers/routes.

for example, our last trip was booked at 800€pp in Jan for Oct. In April I could get 750€pp for my flights, but with 90 minutes layover in JFK or 75 minutes in ORD or MIA ... no way ...

comparing like for like, my own personnal experience with indirect from france is that the 8/9 months mark is the best compromise between schedule and price. (but I'm aware it's a compromise, not the best price overall, and I accept paying more for better schedule/layovers)

it very much depends from where you fly (london has ridiculous taxes and that's the reason why so many do dublin, even with hidden city ticketing)
depends on the place you fly to. BA has better prices into TPA than into MCO, but here from CDG it's more expensive flying into TPA than MCO
depends on your requirements as far as layovers go. (I'm not doing any shorter than 2h30 and I found our 2h30 layover in ATL to be on the short side as we would have missed our connection if our flight to MCO hadn't been delayed)

all of these self imposed requirements will come into play when determining which flight at which price.


As we all said in another thread, it's a game.
The airlines set the rules, but they won't discolse them to us. So we need to set our own rules.
such rules can be "how much time do I want to spend looking for the right price without any guarantee that I will find a better one ?"
So as we said earlier, set an acceptable price, book if price is met, then never look back.

 

[tinkerpea]

So

How did you mange that? I thought the flights only come to approx 11 months in advance of the return date or have I got it wrong and missed out on bargains? :0(

Do did I.
I'm majorly struggling to find prices for mid September to around 12th October

 

[tinkerpea]

We

I am also having trouble with flight prices for the end of august I am hoping virgin do a sale like they did last year around christmas. The worst thing is I have enough airmiles for a one way flight but the site says you can't use miles on the london to orlando route, not sure why as I have always done so in the past x

Really? We have too infact we used miles just this may! And only had to pay £190 For our flight ( if only that was every trip)
We've been saving our last points and shopping at Tesco for everything in hope to use them towards flight again

 

[tinkerpea]

Do

Can't see much to help you out there. Lowthe are always possible but no-one knows if there will be or not. Only the airlines know.
These kind of prices were the reason we went across to Dublin, Ireland and flew Biz class this August.
Next August you can fly Biz class on your dates from Dublin for 1,421€ at todays price, I only paid 1,050€ this year by booking at the right time(very similar prices to your economy) we flew in day before and had a night in a Dublin airport hotel first which was great.
Date Origin Destination Stops Fly time

06 Aug Dublin (08:55) Orlando (Orlando Intl) (16:47) 1 12h 52m

27 Aug Orlando (Orlando Intl) (16:55) Dublin (08:45) +1 day 1 10h 50m

I see people say they fly to Dublin just to come back over to Heathrow then on to US all the time, my boys will be 11,11, 14 next trip and are becoming really good fliers as long as they have a TV infront of them.
So how do I go about looking for flights like these?
I'm willing to go in-direct if I can save money.
But just don't understand the going to Dublin part..
Thanks for any help or advice

 

[chmurf]

But just don't understand the going to Dublin part..

London has ridiculously high airport taxes

Air fares are calculated based on your origin airport

So, a LHR-MCO flight is significantly more expensive than a DUB-LHR-MCO flight, even though you fly on the same plane between london and orlando.

So in order to take advantage of the lowest airport fees in dublin, you could book a dub-mco direct or indirect (even if it means a stopover in london) But you would need to buy a separate ticket to go to dublin. Remember it's your origin airport which determines airport fees. So the start of your journey needs to be dublin. But you need to get there first, so you need a separate ticket or any other means of transportation in order to get to DUB.
You can't do a LHR-DUB-MCO (multi city for example) since your origin airport would still be expensive london.

On the way bck you also need a flight back to london

So essentially, you need a roundtrip dub-mco, indirect or direct and you need a roundtrip ticket from london to dublin. You'd also need accomodation in dublin to ensure you have enough time between your arrival in dublin and your departure to mco, since you'd need to recheck bags

Seems complicated and it's counter intuitive but it can sometimes save loads of money

 

[Minniesgal]

London has ridiculously high airport taxes

Air fares are calculated based on your origin airport

So, a LHR-MCO flight is significantly more expensive than a DUB-LHR-MCO flight, even though you fly on the same plane between london and orlando.

So in order to take advantage of the lowest airport fees in dublin, you could book a dub-mco direct or indirect (even if it means a stopover in london) But you would need to buy a separate ticket to go to dublin. Remember it's your origin airport which determines airport fees. So the start of your journey needs to be dublin. But you need to get there first, so you need a separate ticket or any other means of transportation in order to get to DUB.
You can't do a LHR-DUB-MCO (multi city for example) since your origin airport would still be expensive london.

On the way bck you also need a flight back to london

So essentially, you need a roundtrip dub-mco, indirect or direct and you need a roundtrip ticket from london to dublin. You'd also need accomodation in dublin to ensure you have enough time between your arrival in dublin and your departure to mco, since you'd need to recheck bags

Seems complicated and it's counter intuitive but it can sometimes save loads of money

Have you ever considered driving to Gatwick and flying from there. It's what we used t do when living in Paris and we found it could well be cheaper than flying from CDG

 

[chmurf]

Have you ever considered driving to Gatwick and flying from there. It's what we used t do when living in Paris and we found it could well be cheaper than flying from CDG

I have considered it when I was shopping for our october 2015 flights
LGW was consistently more expensive than CDG, even before considering the cost of the eurostar (we currently live il Lille, so very convinient for eurostar direct to st pancras, we don't drive in europe, we don't even own a car)

To make it simple, the price in euros from paris was the price in sterling from gatwick

I'd get a lgw-mco for £750 and a cdg-mco for 750€

Meaning that flying from lgw was 30% more expensive than from paris

That was the reason I gave up the idea of flying from the UK

 

[bex7583]

So


Do did I.
I'm majorly struggling to find prices for mid September to around 12th October

Have u had a look on the Thomas cook site ? ours have increased but only slightly

Also we went in to miami as the orlando ones were over £1000 more expensive, and a £1000 saving is a lot of dollars

 

[tinkerpea]

London has ridiculously high airport taxes

Air fares are calculated based on your origin airport

So, a LHR-MCO flight is significantly more expensive than a DUB-LHR-MCO flight, even though you fly on the same plane between london and orlando.

So in order to take advantage of the lowest airport fees in dublin, you could book a dub-mco direct or indirect (even if it means a stopover in london) But you would need to buy a separate ticket to go to dublin. Remember it's your origin airport which determines airport fees. So the start of your journey needs to be dublin. But you need to get there first, so you need a separate ticket or any other means of transportation in order to get to DUB.
You can't do a LHR-DUB-MCO (multi city for example) since your origin airport would still be expensive london.

On the way bck you also need a flight back to london

So essentially, you need a roundtrip dub-mco, indirect or direct and you need a roundtrip ticket from london to dublin. You'd also need accomodation in dublin to ensure you have enough time between your arrival in dublin and your departure to mco, since you'd need to recheck bags

Seems complicated and it's counter intuitive but it can sometimes save loads of money

Thanks for this, I've just looked and priced up a ticket with BA that would be far cheaper. Infact it's also premier class.

Do I have to fly back to Dublin or can I after I'm in tue US tell them I've decided to stay at London a few days?
I'm guessing I have to fly from London to Dublin on the way back too, which is a shame as we live just over an hour from the airport.