Rocketing prices.....aaaaghhh!

[Pinklepurr361]

I've been looking at prices for a family holiday to Florida in 2012 and I am feeling a bit depressed! It is just sooooooo expensive!!

We last went to Florida at Easter 2008 and paid £3200 for the seats, out Econ and back PE on VA. Including villa, car hire, park tickets, spending money etc we spent around £7000. Now, even without the luxury of flying home PE, we are looking at at least a thousand pounds more!

The trouble is that I have two school aged children and I also work in a school so there is zero chance of me going in term time.

We are considering either Easter or August 2012. I can see that VH are sold out already for their fly drives for Easter next year so either we can wait to see what their prices are for Aug 2012 (when will they be available?) or try and book flight only nearer to the time (which means stumping up the cash there and then instead of being able to keep it in the bank)! I looked at First Choice and they were quoting £4700 for a family of 4 flight only !!!!!!

Is it me or have prices gone beyond the ridiculous for the school holidays?

Rant over!

 

[Pegasus928]

You rant away. You will find yourself in good company

We decided to cancel our last holiday because flights alone were beyond ridiculous. There are bargains to be had - but you really need to be on the ball to get them. Try Kayak for flights - you put in your dates and it emails you when any offers come in - or daily so you can see if there are any cheaper flights available.
And I get so annoyed when TA's go on about how prices don't go up in school holidays when all the evidence says it does. They do it for one reason and one reason only. Greed because they know they can get away with it

 

[wayneg]

For school hols it is getting harder, there are less direct seats available due to airline collapses, mergers and generally cutting flights to a minimum.
Book at the right time, do DIY instead of a package, go indirect, fly from alternative airports (both UK and US) and you could save substantially. I know many are flying indirect into Jacksonville or Fort Lauderdale this August for £300-400pp instead of Virgin direct £800-£1000pp

I can't agree with Kenny on greed, I know I would not want to run an airline, a high % of people want school holiday dates, offpeak no matter how low fares are planes go half empty (I remember one internal US flight with about 50 of us on a 300 seater) the only way to survive is charge a premium for peak time.
Virgin Atlantic lost £132million in their last set of accounts.
We all like a bargain but look at other companies who have tried to do low cost, FlyGlobespan, Travel City Direct.... It doesn't work.

 

[WiganTony]

As Wayne notes above, it always pays to keep an eye on these boards for bargains. For example, for our holiday July/August last year, flight prices from Manchester to Orlando or Tampa were coming in at almost £800 indirect or around £900 direct.

We found out about an American Airlines sale and booked direct LHR - Miami flights for £400 each. We did use Air Miles to book MAN-LHR flights as we didn't fancy driving back home after an overnight flight. Only other expenses were Travelodge at LHR (£19), taxis at LHR (around £30) and petrol/tolls from Miami to Orlando (approx $50/£35) so we ended up saving almost £1,000 which paid for all our park tickets.

May also be worth noting that there may be the chance of free Disney Dining in August. We got a studio at OKW for £100/night which included the DDP free of charge. If we had stayed off-site, we would probably have paid £60 per night for accommodation, so £40 for food (plus saving on parking costs) made it a fairly easy decision.

 

[Goofy Gaz]

For school hols it is getting harder, there are less direct seats available due to airline collapses, mergers and generally cutting flights to a minimum.
Book at the right time, do DIY instead of a package, go indirect, fly from alternative airports (both UK and US) and you could save substantially. I know many are flying indirect into Jacksonville or Fort Lauderdale this August for £300-400pp instead of Virgin direct £800-£1000pp

I can't agree with Kenny on greed, I know I would not want to run an airline, a high % of people want school holiday dates, offpeak no matter how low fares are planes go half empty (I remember one internal US flight with about 50 of us on a 300 seater) the only way to survive is charge a premium for peak time.
Virgin Atlantic lost £132million in their last set of accounts.
We all like a bargain but look at other companies who have tried to do low cost, FlyGlobespan, Travel City Direct.... It doesn't work.

Hi Wayneg,
I'm the other half of Cornish pixie, who you have helped with some info in the past. We are looking for our family of Four to travel August 2012 for possibly 4 weeks. The options we are looking at for flights is to contact Virgin Direct and use our air miles in the deal where you buy one and get the other free if you see my meaning. Are these easily obtainable for August as we will not be able to book until 11months (October) from our return date, which will infact be the beginning of September.
The other option is to fly indirect.. We live in Cornwall so any UK airport is far away, if the price is right we will travel. I enjoy driving in Florida, so alternative airports are not a worry. In your opinion, when is the premium time to book these deals? When did the flights for Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale become available for August this year?

Accomodation planned is for OKW for 2 weeks, commencing around the 10th, depending if free DDP is available, cruise on the Dream for 5 nights, 2 nights RPR and probably a priceline deal at the beginning to take in some shopping and maybe Seaworld.

All in the planning stages, but very excited and especially looking forward to staying on site for 2 weeks with the DDP ( if the deal is still on!!)

Thanks for all your help.

 

[wayneg]

I don't know anything about the Virgin deal, I believe its only available on certain tickets (not cheapest) but hopefully someone else will post with advise.

The indirect deal started in Dec, been reading some have had changes, when they rang to sort it out they have been changed for free to better routes (direct London to Miami or indirect to MCO)

Deals like this can happen anytime, or not at all.
Good luck finding something.

 

[DjdBrit]

I am right there with you, the cost of airfare is too much! I am an Ex-pat living in the US and I have all but given up flying home to the UK to visit my Dad and family.

When I moved here 14 years ago it was under $300 a ticket now with 3 school aged kids I am looking at $1,000 a ticket (for our family of 5) It kills me!!

I have started just taking my little guy and the 2 of us going home during school and can get airfare down to around $600 each.

My kids have to now decided WDW or England as we cannot afford to do both, they are picking WDW! Even then airafare is silly, again not taking them out of school has me looking at $300 a ticket to go to FLA!

 

[joolz1910]

I feel your pain. I wanted to go to WDW in 2010 - DH said no because the kids were too young. Then I wanted to go in 2011 - DH said no because DD was starting secondary school. Then I stopped listening and we're going in Oct 2012 - unfortunately the price has gone up by about £2000. The moral of that story is...

 

[Disneymadhouse]

We are planning to go Dec 2012, so I have been looking at the prices for Dec 2011. I have a price on £952 r.o at POP or ASMo through WDW travel co UK.

I phoned Complete Orlando today to see when their prices are out for all of 2012 - and she was able to give me r.o price!
POP 14nts 13 Dec 2012 - £ 1384!
Asmo 14 nts 13 Dec 2012 - £ 1438!!

Not sure why POP is cheaper than ASMo - maybe because they are just starting the re - furb now and it will be "fresher" for stays next year?

Anyways, you can see the price hike for yourselves!

VA flights for this Dec are £1556 for the three of us. Early Oct 2012 is £1800 for the three of us. I looked at these prices as in the brochures early Oct and mid Dec are generally the same price.

Me thinks the split stay off and on site is possibly going to be the only option.

Just waiting for the brochure to see what shocks they have in them!!

Claire

 

[joolz1910]

Shocked at those price increases! My Maths is really poor, but doesn't that represent a 50% increase for ASMo?

 

[wayneg]

Asmo 14 nts 13 Dec 2012 - £ 1438!!

Thats a crazy quote, you can get 14 nights at Hard Rock Universal for £1,443.82 inc. tax & fees this Dec.

 

[2Tiggies]

Thats a crazy quote, you can get 14 nights at Hard Rock Universal for £1,443.82 inc. tax & fees this Dec.

I was going to say!! Not December, but September/October we are paying less for 15 nights at a moderate with free dining. Good grief! But I have to say, as far as prices go these days, I am getting beyond the stage where it is easy to surprise me.

 

[Disneymadhouse]

I am just hoping complete orlando have got it ever so slightly wrong!!

When I spoke to WDW UK they said even though the US site doesn't release their prices until August they should have them April or May, so we'll be able to compare then!
Lets just hope my jaw has recovered by then from hitting the floor today, just in case it heads south again!!

Claire

 

[wayneg]

I am just hoping complete orlando have got it ever so slightly wrong!!

When I spoke to WDW UK they said even though the US site doesn't release their prices until August they should have them April or May, so we'll be able to compare then!
Lets just hope my jaw has recovered by then from hitting the floor today, just in case it heads south again!!

Claire

Personally I would not book with Disney.co.uk or Complete Orlando if its for room only, they are both very good if going for the free dining deals but for room only you will probably pay a very high premium.
See this thread (post #34) for example. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2675677&page=3
Disney.co.uk asking £1060 for 10 nights
Disney.com £828
Octopus travel £629

Room only usually gets discounted, either direct with Disney.com(or agent like Dreams Unlimited) or UK agents like Expedia/Octopus/numerous others. But you have to be patient, discounts could be as late as 3-6 months out. They will sting you for booking early.

 

[kazdav]

You rant away. You will find yourself in good company

We decided to cancel our last holiday because flights alone were beyond ridiculous. There are bargains to be had - but you really need to be on the ball to get them. Try Kayak for flights - you put in your dates and it emails you when any offers come in - or daily so you can see if there are any cheaper flights available.
And I get so annoyed when TA's go on about how prices don't go up in school holidays when all the evidence says it does. They do it for one reason and one reason only. Greed because they know they can get away with it

They were talking about it this morning on Daybreak or whatever its called. (I usually listen to Chris Moyles but he is catching up on his sleep so had the telly on instead).

The woman from the travel magazine was saying that the prices are not put up because of the school holidays but was more of a true price and that the prices off peak were substantially reduced. She used the argument that you wouldn't expect to go out on New Years Eve and pay the same price for dinner as you would at any other time.

 

[wayneg]

The woman from the travel magazine was saying that the prices are not put up because of the school holidays but was more of a true price and that the prices off peak were substantially reduced.

Although I would not go as far as to say summer prices are the true price I would agree to a certain extent what she is saying, There is no way airlines can survive on offpeak fares and empty seats so that only way to provide that service is charge a higher premium for peaktime fares. In effect school holiday travellers are subsidising offpeak travellers. Totally not fair for the peak time traveller but can anyone offer another solution?
It happens in many businesses, not just airlines, I sell more red roses at Valentines day than rest of year added together yet they are 3-4 times the price, supply and demand.

 

[Disneymadhouse]

Personally I would not book with Disney.co.uk or Complete Orlando if its for room only, they are both very good if going for the free dining deals but for room only you will probably pay a very high premium.
See this thread (post #34) for example. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2675677&page=3
Disney.co.uk asking £1060 for 10 nights
Disney.com £828
Octopus travel £629

Room only usually gets discounted, either direct with Disney.com(or agent like Dreams Unlimited) or UK agents like Expedia/Octopus/numerous others. But you have to be patient, discounts could be as late as 3-6 months out. They will sting you for booking early.

Hi Wayne, thanks for that I will look into Octopus travel.
The problem is though I don't think there will be any discounts anywhere as we are going over Christmas, so no free dining either! I guess they don't have to try too hard to fill the rooms at that time!

Claire

 

[wayneg]

Hi Wayne, thanks for that I will look into Octopus travel.
The problem is though I don't think there will be any discounts anywhere as we are going over Christmas, so no free dining either! I guess they don't have to try too hard to fill the rooms at that time!

Claire

No there won't be free dining but I wouldn't rule out discounts, especially for earlier in your trip, Peak time is Xmas thru New Year.
Is onsite essential? personally I would not pay Disney's prices for a value room. epecially at £100/nt.
Compare to offsite 13th Dec 2011 for 14 nights would get you the 5 star Peabody, Idrive for £70/nt. or just outside Disney the 5 star Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress LBV for £77/nt
From £44/nt would get you a 4 star on Hotel Blvd opp DTD.
Go down to 3 star which is what the values are, from around £30/nt.

 

[Disneymadhouse]

Hi Wayne, yes I am considering off site for part of our stay. We stayed at the BWL in 07 and really liked it. For next year their prices are around $70p/n.
We will probably end up doing 10 nts BWL and 4 nts POP or Asmo as we really want to be on site for our daughters birthday on Christmas eve.

The only trouble is of course, i can't book any hotels yet as am not sure what the price bands will be for the flights, and they won't be released until Jan! For example travelling this year on 13 Dec is £1500 for three of us, but go a day later the 14th and the price goes up £300!

Unless Disney bring out a whole of year discount I don't think 14 days on site is a go-er!

Claire

 

[2Tiggies]

Claire, this is such a big challenge for all of us. As Wayne said, if you don't get a special offer and want to do a real DIY with room only, Disney US has better discounts. The problem is, the best discounts with disney.com come out 3-6 months in advance. But unlike the UK and other Disney agents here, they typically have black out dates within their special offer periods so you have no idea whether those dates are likely to cover your check in date. We are stuck with the need for flights and to get a half decent (yeah right ) price on a flight these days, you need to book asap unless you can afford to wait.

It is worth keeping in mind that with Disney US to take advantage of any offer or promotion it only has to be available on the day you check in for you to benefit from said offer for the entire duration of your stay. For example, if free dining offer ends on 15th October and you check in on that date and stay for 2 weeks, you are eligible to take advantage of it. With Disney UK the offer has to run from the date you check in until your check out date inclusive for you to be able to add it onto your booking.