When do you throw in the towel...

[Bird-Mom]

and buy airline tickets? We are very loyal NW/AS flyers. Especially the AS nonstop from SEA-MCO. I think that was the greatest flight ever invented! However, they want $377/pp right now and that is too much. We usually pay around $215, but with the price of gas, maybe the rates won't go so low. I can get them on AA for $239/pp, a much more attractive price even with a layover (not a bad one though) which we prefer to avoid since we are traveling with 2 children. The price difference is huge when you multiply it by 4-huge enough to not worry about the miles from one trip, so says dh. We aren't going until September, so I know there could be a sale. I just would hate to lose the AA fare and there not be a sale.

How long do you wait to buy? I should add that we usually don't plan so far in advance, but we couldn't go at our regular time in February, so I'm a little obsessed with trip planning this time around.

TIA!

 

[seashoreCM]

Unless we are talking choice peak season dates such as Thanksgiving, at least try to wait for "a fare war" as opposed to buying at their everyday low price.

Also do you have any flexibility of dates including being able to tentatively block out your vacation to within plus or minus two days and then unilaterally firm it up after you buy your tickets? It is not unusual for the previous day or the next day to show lower fares.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[DebbieB]

It's a tough call. One of the reasons prices are high is the airlines are flying flewer planes and the ones they do fly are fuller. I fly alot for business and it seems every flight I have been on is jam packed. I've also been hit with 2 cancellations in the past month for mechanical problems, which I wonder if they were really flight consolidations.

I'm paying $201 PIT/MCO this weekend (Air Tran). I only paid $135 last December. I was holding out, the flight jumped to $247. It went back down to $201 in early March and I grabbed it. It has been around $600 for the past 6 weeks, which indicates the flight is pretty full.

 

[Brian Noble]

I'm in the same boat; I have status on NWA, so tend to consolidate my miles on NW/CO/DL/AS/KL and the rest of the skyteam carriers. Flights across the board from DTW are up for September, but it's a very low time for central florida, and it is still a good 4.5 months away. So, I'm going to hold out for a bit longer, and probably won't bite until mid-late july, unless southwest comes out with great fares. Nearly all of the NWA flights still have K or L fare buckets, so the flights aren't sold out, they are just priced high.

Even spirit is high, which is unusual.

 

[scoutsmom99]

I agree with Brain Noble! The Flights on NW here in MN are a little bit less than what I was pricing them at this time last year for September, but not by much. I'm going to hold off until mid to late July for airfare and hope for a sale like last year.

 

[safetymom]

I doubt you are going to see many fare wars this year. Airlines have gotten better at managing their loads and the price of gas is still expensive. So I would book in the next several months if you aren't flying soon.

 

[beccasmom]

I waited unti about three weeks ago to purchase tickets for our late June trip. We are paying $178/pp on USAirways, which tends to be somewhat competitive in our area because of SW. SW had no availability (but they also have fewer flights). I checked prices every day and kept an eye on flight availability, which was becoming sparse right before I purchased tickets. As it is, we have an early morning flight home which I would not have chosen under better circumstances. The presence of SW tends to keep fares fairly decent for us, although I have done better (albeit in better times!). We consider anything under $200/pp a good price for travel to Orlando from our area. I can't remember the last time we were not able to do that....we are very fortunate in that regard.

 

[CarolMN]

I threw in the towel last week and purchased my December tickets on Sun Country - glad I did, because prices went up since I did. NWA wants quite a bit more for RT than SC right now and the times on SC worked perfectly for us.

NWA matched the last increase by American. They do not have any fuel price "hedge contracts" (like SWA), and I don't believe that fuel will go down this year. So I don't expect to see much in the way of sales - at least here in MSP for non-stop flights.

If you have some discount airlines flying out of Seatac - NW will probably match any sales they have. As far as I can tell, they are only matching prices on highly competitive routes.

Best wishes -

 

[golfgal]

I rarely buy tickets much more then a month in advance. The prices always seem to drop around the 21 day mark. Prices out of MSP just dropped the other day for travel at the end of May-June. THe prices had been in the $275 range and are now in the $150 range. The prices have been everywhere from $104 to $300+ from MSP to MCO since December for various travel times. Sign up for fare alert from travelocity and they will email you when prices change. It is a great way to track ticket prices.

 

[daisy2000]

We are wondering about the same issue. We are going next February school vacation week, and the fares for non-stop from Hartford are close to $600 for a non-stop and between $250 to $300 with a layover.

Since its a prime week, am I correct in thinking I should just grab the flight right now for $285 that I'm looking at?

 

[Brian Noble]

For grins, I went back to check on my assumption that 6-8 weeks is the low point for flight prices. Historically, if I can get a price under $200 from DTW at any time other than the lowest of low periods, I figure I'm doing okay.

We have relatively constrained travel days for an upcoming (and still not for-sure) september trip: we have to leave on a wednesday night or thursday morning, and return on a sunday. My wife works M-W, and bills hourly. At her rates, flights need to be *drastically* different in price to justify missing even a few hours of work. And, this is a budget trip; if we can't hit our target for total price, we aren't going to go.

So, I looked on ITA Software's search tool for every W/Th->Su DTW->MCO->DTW trip from now to the end of September. The absolute cheapest was $180, and that was for a departure tomorrow (the Mother's Day promos that everyone seems to be running this weekend.) The next cheapest was over $230. So, even for the relatively calm period of late may/early june before schools get out, and at the time when historically the prices should be budging, prices are not budging for "in-demand" travel days (namely, a Sunday return.)

Suspecting the Sunday return, I then expanded it to *any* 3-4 night trip for the 90 day period starting 21 days from today. Even with complete flexibility, the best price is $210, and that is only one trip in that three month period. There are a few others pricing out at $220 or so. Most are about $225.

So, it could be fuel costs. It could be that central FL tourism has finally recovered. It could be the airlines better matching capacity to loads and/or a recovery in business travel, becuase I too am on constantly full flights on my twice-monthly DTW/SEA run, and am seeing Platinum Elites not get upgrades even on Boeing metal (with 8 rows of F). But the bottom line appears to be that, at least for DTW flyers, we may need to adjust our notions of the "good deal" threshold from $200 to $225, or more, even with Spirit's 2-3 daily runs between DTW and MCO. (In fact, on many days I've checked, Spirit is above NWA.)

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Towel thrown!

I bought our tickets for October on Monday.

There isn't much competition out of DFW so the rates don't go down - they go up!

Our tickets were $632 (for three) in January/February when I started planning. They are now at $722. Our dates aren't flexible and the flight times we need aren't really flexible, either, so even if there is a sale chances are it won't cover our dates and/or flight times.

Better to just be done with it. Tickets purchsed, seats chosen, done.

I did sign up on Travelocity for e-mails when the fares change. If we were going to WDW now (by the end of May) and going mid-week we could go for $163 per person. Apparently the e-mail doesn't JUST show you deals for your selected travel dates. But like I said, we can't travel mid-week so evenif there is a sale this Fall it wouldn't help.

 

[Brian Noble]

Travelocity's fare watcher triggers for any fare. Orbitz' "Deal Detector" can be set up to watch only specific dates (but not specific times of day.)

 

[Bird-Mom]

Thanks so much for all of the insights and info. We do have a couple of discount carriers (but I checked Jet Blue and it was more than NW!), and I have seen much better fares in the past. However, they all usually matched at the same time, so I'm being thrown for a loop with the low AA fare.

I'm wondering if Alaska won't drop the fare because it is the only nonstop. We discussed how much more we would pay for the nonstop, which was something like $75 more pp. The savings with AA would be so nice. I'm ready to buy, but my dh is worried because 1) he wants to wait for the fares to potentially drop, and 2) we might be moving to LA and he doesn't want to pay a change fee if we do.