Hotel sorted...When to book flights?

[cinderjenna]

Hi!

First post after a long time viewing!!
I have booked Saratoga Springs for Sep 23rd next year (for a week) and I can't wait already!!

Got a decent deal I think with free dining and got my disney tickets. Plan is to do week in Disney, 3 days visiting Universal and Seaworld and 4 days visiting the beach somewhere or maybe venture to Miami..

Anyway my question is when is the cheapest time to book flights?
I seem to recall some companies doing boxing day or new years sales a few years ago? So at the mo am waiting on these. Cheapest i've found so far (from Manchester) is £440 with Virgin. Hopefully want to get it under £400 if poss.. reckon thats possible? Or should I just book them now? Also anyone ever flew into orlando and out of miami?Or Perhaps Tampa? Haven't looked into this yet..

So much to do.. good job i like planning!!
Thanks in advance for any help!!

Jenna

 

[stoneyloon]

Hi Jenna,

I'm sure our resident expert Wayne will be along soon to advise, but it's definitely worth trying Tampa if you're wanting to save a few ££'s

 

[wayneg]

Hi Jenna, Welcome to DISboards.

Recently its a lot more difficult to predict flight prices. There are less flights now than there has been for a few years with the collapse of XL/TCD and this week with Flyglobespan. Airlines are making as much money as they can, even though we are wanting to pay less in a recession.
I have just bought my Easter seats, usually pay around £300-350, had to pay £420 and I will have to go from London to get that price, Manchester I struggled under £650.
Out of season you have more chance, although £440 is topside many will pay it just to get it booked and done with. I would be tempted to wait into the new year, see if there are any offers over Xmas/New year. Best I see just now is Miles and Money (if you have any miles) £417+2,000miles around your dates.
Good luck.

 

[stoneyloon]

Told ya!

 

[cinderjenna]

Thanks for the replies! Think I will hold out and risk it until the new year... payday before that too!

£440 doesn't seem too bad.. but every spare penny will be needed for my shopping addiction!!

There don't seem to be as many fly drives as last time I planned, which was 2006.. think that was mytravel back then. I'll keep hunting! What do you guys find the best search websites? Ive tried netflights and sky scanner mostly.

Next thing after flights will be planning my dining plan ADRs and trying to get a deal on a universal hotel so sure i'll be back with lots more questions!

Thanks!
Jenna

 

[cinderjenna]

P.S. I don't really know anything about airmiles?! i'll have to look into it? I think you can get them on tesco clubcard? Is that right? anything else? Seem to recall my shell fuel card having something about them.. will google them and see what I can find!!

Cheers,
Jenna

 

[wayneg]

There are loads I use. Main ones here:
Travelsupermarket.com
Kayak.co.uk
Kelkoo.co.uk
Orbitz.com (pay in $US)
farecompare.com

 

[wayneg]

Airmiles.co.uk is a different thing to Virgin airmiles(flying club)
https://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/frequentflyer/index.jsp

You register on their site, when you have completed a flight you gain airmiles, around 8,000 miles for an economy return trip(some you only get around 4,000) you need to only use 2,000 of them to get a miles and money fare.
You can collect miles other ways like their credit card, get the card and make a £1 purchase and you get 3,000 miles on your flying club account http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/creditcard/index.jsp but it takes upto 2 months from applying for the card to getting the miles, maybe too late this trip.
Lots of other ways to gain miles see the site if you are interested, If you do register then just apply for 1 account 1st, then join any other family members thru Miles more friends, you both get a bonus http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/frequentflyer/miles_morefriends/index.jsp

Ask if you want anymore info.

 

[igk]

I just did the same thing today re booking hotel without flights - I booked OKW for the same week Oct/Nov as this year - availability disappeared a couple of weeks ago and I have been checking every day since, so I jumped on it when I saw it come back. I worked out with the same DDP offer incl tickets the 1BR is about 3% more for the same week next year. This time I used Quidco so with 4.5% I should actually be up on this year (though it only tracked 3% for some reason).

Anyway to get back on topic, this is the first time I have put a deposit down (£200 for the four of us) without flights.
I prefer to fly to Miami as we don't spend all the time in Orlando, but best I'm seeing nonstop is £469, or VA miles+money £395. Orlando is more expensive. I'd go for the m+m but they don't have the outbound date I want - they have the day after but then I'd have a day less in Fl.
So... I have decided to sit tight for the time being, but I think I will need to pull the trigger by mid Jan if not before.
As Wayne says, there isn't so much capacity at the moment so bargains might be harder to come by...

But hey - at least I've booked up OKW with free DDP next year

 

[wayneg]

(though it only tracked 3% for some reason).

This is exactly why I prefer Rpoints.com, they don't offer as much as other companies, for Disney they only offer 2% but once tracked(100% tracking record in 4 years) I can then claim on their highest cashback promise, in this case 4.5%, again in the 4 years been doing it 100% payout on HCP.
I only made 2 transactions thru Quidco and neither were straight forward. I advise new users to join Quidco because they are far easier to understand than Rpoints but can't fault Rpoints payout record.

 

[seashoreCM]

Generally it is better to wait for a fare sale instead of book at their everyday low price.

I would not book via a third online party such as Orbitz or Expedia or Travelocity. If something needed to be changed, including a schedule change by the airline, going through the agent tends to be difficult.

 

[cinderjenna]

so... looking at flights again yesterday and found what i think seems like a good deal..

i've decided, after assessing my savings account and expected overtime over christmas.. to do 3 nights in New York before going on to Orlando
Not been to NY so very excited!

so was searching for multi city flights today and found manchester - new york, new york - mco, and home from miami to manchester for £436! This was with delta on ebookers.

This seems like a good deal to me, what does anyone else think? I do want to do a couple of days at the beach somewhere, don't know an awful lot about miami so will need to look into that.

Can't decide whether to book or hold out til new year incase of sales!
Any advice very welcome!!

Thanks,

Jenna

 

[wayneg]

If the timings are good and the dates exactly what you want then at £436 I would book, you might get a little cheaper but not a lot.
NY is an amazing city, we spent 4 nights there, cost me more than the next 21 nights in Orlando after it but well worth a visit.
Don't know anything about Miami.

 

[disney_princess_85]

£436 seems like a great price!

NY is an amazing city, we spent 4 nights there, cost me more than the next 21 nights in Orlando after it but well worth a visit.

We're looking into going to NY over the Easter weekend. It is rather expensive, isn't it?! Who did you fly with? We've found direct return flights with Virgin for £350 each (+ miles) but I'm thinking we could find a better price.

 

[luke]

We're looking into going to NY over the Easter weekend. It is rather expensive, isn't it?! Who did you fly with? We've found direct return flights with Virgin for £350 each (+ miles) but I'm thinking we could find a better price.

New York is great but yes it's expensive.
We went in July and for flights and hotel for 7 nights it was about £2000, flying with Delta from MAN - JFK. Was well worth it tho

 

[wayneg]

We went with BA, never been with them since, water leaked on me all flight and the staff were ignorant, that was 2002 hope it was a one off bad flight.

 

[igk]

Well... I pulled the trigger this morning and booked Virgin LHR-MIA miles+money 24th Oct-5th Nov. The outbound date is one day later than I preferred (Sunday), but m+m wansn't available for the Sat, and the 'family consensus' was to have one day less and travel with Virgin rather than spend £200 more and go with AA (Virgin for the extra day was another £200 on top). We paid ~£1550 for 3 adults, 1 child, so feel we did fairly well in the end.
Now I can stop worrying about it continuously

 

[MyBubbles]

I've booked my flights to the world with BA for Sept. I'm hoping all stays good with them - I paid a little over the odds than normal but I wanted a direct flight from UK to MCO. Virgin for some reason were more expensive, which is unusual cause I normally get the better deal with Virgin.

I flew BA to NYC a couple of years ago and managed to book flight for 3 and a great hotel in NYC for 7 nights for £500 each in the New Year Sale - so you never know what will come up in the next few days...

I was a little apprehensive about holding off flights for Orlando next year so just booked - at least I have a seat... I hope ;-)