Should I pull the trigger and buy now?

[karensi]

Hi, we're a family of 6 going to WDW during Easter week .
I've been looking at airfare and all the airlines are expensive for that week. It will cost us approximately $1000 each/ round trip.
So, my question is, should I just go ahead and buy now or do you think I should wait a bit, hoping prices might go down?
It's a gamble I know but just unsure what to do.
Also, I just looked and JetBlue has gone up as of this morning.
Grrr, should I just pull the trigger and go ahead and purchase now?

TIA,
Karen

 

[siren0119]

Use an aggregate like google flights, kayak or the Hopper app. They will tell you whether your flights are expected to increase or decrease in price, and you can set up notifications for price changes so that you can buy as soon as they are at their lowest. Those sites track trends in flight prices so their projections are pretty reliable.

 

[karensi]

Use an aggregate like google flights, kayak or the Hopper app. They will tell you whether your flights are expected to increase or decrease in price, and you can set up notifications for price changes so that you can buy as soon as they are at their lowest. Those sites track trends in flight prices so their projections are pretty reliable.

Thanks siren0119. So if I do that I am essentially waiting. Just wondering if anyone thinks I should buy the tickets now.
I just don't know if they usually go back down a bit at some point after going up. As I said in my prior post I know it's a gamble, I just wish I was a little more informed.
I guess I got nervous this morning when I saw that JetBlue had gone up this morning.

 

[Shanti]

Hi, we're a family of 6 going to WDW during Easter week .
I've been looking at airfare and all the airlines are expensive for that week. It will cost us approximately $1000 each/ round trip.
So, my question is, should I just go ahead and buy now or do you think I should wait a bit, hoping prices might go down?
It's a gamble I know but just unsure what to do.
Also, I just looked and JetBlue has gone up as of this morning.
Grrr, should I just pull the trigger and go ahead and purchase now?

TIA,
Karen

$6,000 for coach flights to & from a Disney World trip?

If we were coming from Europe, I would go with that. Coming from New York, I would either drive or go somewhere else.

 

[Jimsig]

...Also, I just looked and JetBlue has gone up as of this morning...

A couple things.

1. Make sure to clear your cookies etc. and search again and see if the price goes down. Sometimes the airlines sites use cookies to track you and the prices go up accordingly as they know you have been searching. Though I have not found that to be the case with JB.

2. Break your search up with the number of people for tickets. For example if an airline has 3 seats left at $500 and you search for 6 people it will only show you the next highest fare which could be $700pp. If you break your search up to 3 and 3 you would find those three seats at $500. So in the end you get three seats at $500 and three at $700 and you save $600 total. Play around with the number of people in each group (4 and 2, 5 and 1) to find the best deal if you have kids just remember when breaking it up to put one adult with each group.

 

[sam_gordon]

$6000? Ain't no way I'm spending that for domestic airfare. Is driving at ALL an option? Even if it takes a couple days? Or the auto train? You don't say where you're coming from though.

 

[pxidst119]

I would check prices at surrounding airports. Might be worth a 2 hour drive to save some money on flights. Friends and I have saved hundreds of dollars by flying out of airports a short drive away vs our closest airport. Especially during April break.

 

[_19disnA]

If traveling around a holiday, you are generally better off to buy now then wait. Most airlines have price brackets. Once the cheap seats are gone, the price goes up to the next bracket. They know that most holidays are busy travel times so seats sell out without offering any kind of special to encourage sales. If you wait, the lowest price tickets may already be gone.

You didn't say what city you are traveling from, perhaps there are other nearby airports with lower fares. Southwest and Frontier don't show up when using places like Orbitz or Google air, so be sure to check them separately if they fly from a city near where you live.

 

[siren0119]

Thanks siren0119. So if I do that I am essentially waiting. Just wondering if anyone thinks I should buy the tickets now.
I just don't know if they usually go back down a bit at some point after going up. As I said in my prior post I know it's a gamble, I just wish I was a little more informed.
I guess I got nervous this morning when I saw that JetBlue had gone up this morning.

If you plug your flight dates into one of those aggregates, they (kayak especially) will tell you right away whether prices are expected to go up or down, or whether it's better to buy now.

 

[focusondisney]

Where are you flying from & which airlines are you checking? $1000 each this far out is crazy, even for a holiday week. Well, maybe from Alaska or Hawaii. East coast, no way. Now I will say I have never traveled over a major holiday. We will be going Easter week for the first time next year too. I booked Southwest on opening morning. We fly from Buffalo & booked on points, non stop flights, early morning going & late evening return. It was about 33000 points round trip, about double what we have paid at other times of the year. I was online at 6 am & booked as soon as they came out. By later that day, the wanna get away fares on most of the flights showed as sold out. So on many flights, the only tickets currently available are the more expensive anytime fares.

We travel to WDW 3 times a year & I have seen SW do this same thing with WGA fares for about the last 2 years. WGA fares disappear after opening day & then return weeks or months later. I have seen it from Buffalo plus I checked several other cities each time & found the same thing. And the WGA fares returned to all cities at the same time. This was for random weeks in September & December — not holiday weeks. So while I can’t guarantee the lower fares will come back, I am still watching the SW site because I think they will. So I keep checking in case I can get some points back.

 

[MillauFr]

I would be checking going to Disneyland instead. You might be able to fly JetBlue Mint into LAX for $1,000 a person.

 

[karensi]

Hi all and thanks for your replies and helpful info.
For those who asked, I live in Staten Island, NY and have access to Newark, JFK and LaGuardia Airports.
I'll keep watching and will clear my cookies as a PP mentioned. JetBlue just went back down again this morning, so another decision.
Thank you all again

 

[sam_gordon]

I just did a google flight search for 4/20/19-4/27/19. I then looked at nearby dates and here's what I found...



Nowhere NEAR $1K pp. And these are not discount airlines... United, Continental, Jetblue all come up in the search.

 

[siren0119]

I just did the same on Kayak.com (notice it says now is a good time to buy because fares aren't likely to drop in the next week - that's what I meant by the advice you get on the aggregates!) You can definitely fly RT for under $500 per person during that week. Kayak is great for "hacker fares" - ways to get lower overall air costs by buying two one way tickets vs a RT ticket. You still get your flights but save some cash. If you're not parking at the airport, you have the benefit of being able to fly in and out of different airports with minimal difference in your transportation home.

 

[cassie58]

I don't know how flexible your travel days are, but sometimes flying the night before you planned or staying an extra day, etc. can get you a cheaper flight and might be worth an extra night stay. Also I know it doesn't always work with holiday weeks and school schedules, but if you can fly on Tues - Thur it's sometimes better.

I use my SW app(not sure if Jet Blue has similar), and put in all my airport combos and dates, then they are in my recent searches, and I can easily check them daily on my phone, so I can see if anything drops to a good rate to grab it. I put in one person so I can see the lowest rate, so if you want to split party as PP mentioned - if there is a limited number left at that price it will usually tell you when you click on it. We generally book one way at a time if we see a good rate, and then if price drops before we book other way , we can use credit towards that.

 

[Sandiz08]

It helps to be flexible around holidays, maybe flying in late at night or early morning for lower pricing. We had flights booked out of a neighboring city until around the 40 day mark when flight prices went down so we switched again.

 

[Jimsig]

I would be checking going to Disneyland instead. You might be able to fly JetBlue Mint into LAX for $1,000 a person.

That's just about what we did in AUG but without the Mint class, thought we were on a Mint plane. We were looking at maybe heading down to DW from BOS. The flights from BOS to LAX were just about the same price as BOS to MCO. So instead of DW we did SoCal for 9 nights with 4 days at DL/DCA.

 

[karensi]

Once again, thanks to all my Dis friends who have given me such helpful information. Keeping my fingers crossed

 

[Dis703]

Hi all and thanks for your replies and helpful info.
For those who asked, I live in Staten Island, NY and have access to Newark, JFK and LaGuardia Airports.
I'll keep watching and will clear my cookies as a PP mentioned. JetBlue just went back down again this morning, so another decision.
Thank you all again

Have you checked Frontier out of Long Island? How far is Philly for you? It's still going to be higher than other times of the year but we save a lot using Frontier out of Trenton and Philly.

 

[tinkerhon]

Same as the PP- accesss to Jfk and Lga - question for my DISer pals - does anyone know if JetBlue ( or any of the other airlines servicing NYC change their fares on the weekend ? Desperately waiting for a fare drop with JetBlue - traveling dec 20-29

Don't usually do "spilt" airports, but thinking about booking the return for $204 into Lga in the meantime and hoping for a lower fare out of either JFK or LGA on 12/20 - thoughts ?

Tia !