Book now or wait?

[nmrgrl55]

Hi All!
I am currently planning our 2nd trip to the World for Sept 8-16 I have been (not so) patiently waiting for Jetblue to release their flights out and now that they have they are SO MUCH! We flew down in 2010 for just over 800 out of Portland,ME and while I expected to pay more right now it is about $1300 for semi decent flights.

It seems like Jetblue is high everywhere and it is hard to find cheaper flights with good times. So...my problems is I can get GREAT flight times for us out of Manchester, NH flying Southwest for a bit under $1100 but even factoring a 2hr drive and parking I am thinking that is a better option for us. It is about $135 each way looking back for months but will it go down anymore? A credit is pretty useless to me (unless I can use it to buy someone elses tix next year??) so I would rather spend $100 less then get a useless credit. I have $1000ish budgeted for airfare so anything over that is taking away from fun things in the World so with that said....think prices are going to go down at all for Southwest?? even $10-15each way will help me out a ton

Sorry for the book

 

[CTJKLAB]

I just booked October 13-19 with JetBue for $116 each way out of White Plain, NY. I thought that was incredibly reasonable! Remember plain flights now include tax and fees so $135 may be a really good price out of your airport of choice. Southwest may also release flights soon...waiting may be an option for you as well. In my area, I have not found Southwest to be any cheaper, i live in CT and fly either White Plains or Bradley in Hartford. Laguardia on occasion. Good Luck!

 

[Donna M]

Tough call! We purchased our tickets on Jetblue out of Boston because Manchester was more expensive even though Manchester is the better airport. Since I bought the tickets, the price has gone up over $400 each. Jetblue's prices never went down since I got them.

We have a trip planned to San Antonio,(son's Air Force BMT graduation ) Those tickets are with SW and the prices have dropped $135. I have a credit with them.

Air prices are crazy this year, same with the car rentals.

 

[NancyIL]

This was one of the headlines at cnn.com today: http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/23/markets/Iran_gas_prices/index.htm?iid=HP_Highlight&hpt=hp_c2 Airfare prices could go down, but the predictions I've read are that gas prices will go up a lot. If gas prices continue to go up, so will airfares.

 

[nmrgrl55]

I think I will just book with Southwest. I have basically written off Jetblue this year between the prices and the flight times they have just don't work for us. The ideal flight time went up $6each way to $177 today so going in the wrong direction already I have never flown Southwest or out of Manchester so they are both completely unknown to me but they have great nonstops at a decent enough price so looks like we will go with them

 

[Anal Annie]

I don't have a good feeling in my gut about the price of airfare with gas going up more & more by the day. Jet Blue has typically been higher for us from our area BUT last Sept. they beat both SW & AT for spring break. Granted we had to switch from BWI to Dulles (slightly harder to get to & higher parking costs) but they were still cheaper and offered free checked bags so we booked them. This will only be our 2nd time using them. I booked these flights at $210 pp round trip back in Sept. Same flights are now more than double pp. When everybody released for August Jet Blue was back to being more expensive and more in line with the SW & AT pricing. I also noticed fewer direct flights on all of them (only a couple / day). UNITED of all things was cheaper than anybody else (out of Dulles) for August so that's what I booked last month. I again paid $210 pp and the same flights have gone up to around $250 pp over the course of this month. I'm not sure what's going on with BWI but as the airport has gained in popularity it seems to be more expensive to fly out of for all airlines. I miss being able to book for $130 pp round trip but I think I need to face the fact that those prices haven't been around for a long time & I don't think they'll be back any time soon.

I think that if you see a good deal NOW you should book it NOW. SW is OK once you get used to them. I like that they now offer an early bird check-in option but I DON'T like that it's $10 pp per flight. Just an additional cost to factor in if you want that convenience.