Will airline prices for the fall go down or only up?

[Jay2009]

Also, jet blue lists deals on twitter if you follow them, usually on tuesdays.

 

[SnipsNSnails]

How do you find out about the sales?
Do you have to pay for baggage on JetBlue? We have 3 kids, so car seats and strollers add up.
Thanks!

As someone who flies with kids quite a bit, car seats are always free, the airlines may not charge for them because they are required safety devices by law for children. I've never heard of an airline charging for strollers either. We always gate check ours and have never been charged. We flew AirTran in Dec. without checking baggage but checked the two carseats through.

You should be able to read the airline's policies on baggage and carryons on their website for further information about what is allowed free of charge. Some airlines allow a diaper bag if you have a lap baby in addition to your carryon allowance.

 

[cheryterese]

As someone who flies with kids quite a bit, car seats are always free, the airlines may not charge for them because they are required safety devices by law for children. I've never heard of an airline charging for strollers either. We always gate check ours and have never been charged. We flew AirTran in Dec. without checking baggage but checked the two carseats through.

Thank you! We've only flown once with the kids (Southwest) and when we carried all of our carseats on the plane for the kids to sit in they told us they weren't approved so we would have to check them (which they then did). It was a real hassle. We figured from now on we'd just check them in the first place. They didn't charge us anything extra, but I thought they were just being nice since we were so frazzled. (We didn't know we could check our strollers at the plane, either, so had already checked those and were carrying 2 kids in arms plus hanging on to the other kid by the hand along with three car seats and a carry on each. It was nuts!)

 

[Satchmo128]

If you book with certain airlines, you can sometimes get reimbursed should the prices drop lower than what you paid. JetBlue will reimburse you if it drops lower at all, and AirTran will reimburse you if it drops at least $75 less than what you paid. Not sure about others.

About 4 years ago, DH and I went to Southern California and booked through Alaska Airlines (we booked flights, hotel, car rental, and park tickets/excursions all at the same time). We noticed about a few months later (still about 2 months prior to the trip) that the plane ticket prices had come down, so I called Alaska and they refunded us the difference. It was awesome! Not sure if that is still their practice (or other airlines), just our experience.

For our trip in November, we purchased our tickets (and air miles) once they were available. If you can afford the prices now, I would purchase now. You never know what will happen. Good luck!

 

[BrerNashville]

If fares go down, Southwest will allow you to rebook at the lower rate, and carry the difference as a credit into the future with no change fees. You have to use the credit within one year of original booking. You used to be able to combine different people's credits into one ticket. I booked 5 tickets to San Diego last fall for a March trip, and when the prices went down by $70/ticket a month or so later, I rebooked and was able to use the credits I received from the family's tickets to buy a $350 flight for a later trip of mine. Southwest was going to change that so that only the person who booked the original ticket could use the credit, but I'm not sure if it's gone into effect.

 

[cheryterese]

If fares go down, Southwest will allow you to rebook at the lower rate, and carry the difference as a credit into the future with no change fees. You have to use the credit within one year of original booking. You used to be able to combine different people's credits into one ticket. I booked 5 tickets to San Diego last fall for a March trip, and when the prices went down by $70/ticket a month or so later, I rebooked and was able to use the credits I received from the family's tickets to buy a $350 flight for a later trip of mine. Southwest was going to change that so that only the person who booked the original ticket could use the credit, but I'm not sure if it's gone into effect.

Good to know - thank you! We will most likely fly Southwest just because of the baggage allowance. Does anyone know when they will release the rest of the November calendar? It only goes for the first few days.

 

[DisneylandForever]

Looking at airline prices for Sept/Oct/Nov and wondering if they will stay the same, possibly decrease or only go up from here on out? In other words, should we book our flight now or wait?

Like everyone said it is so hard to predict. But based on my experience, yes prices will go down between now and the fall. Sometimes crazy deals just pop up. The key is to check every day, sometimes more than once (if you work in front of a computer it's easier to pull this off). My WDW flight for fall has been around $340 from SFO for a few months. Just the other day I did a search and there was a deal for $188! From SFO! Better believe I booked it on the spot. It went back up to over $350 just hours later.

But yeah, unless a great deal came out I personally would wait. It's hard to be patient though when it comes to flights. I know from experience.

If fares go down, Southwest will allow you to rebook at the lower rate, and carry the difference as a credit into the future with no change fees.

This is a good tip!

 

[Brian_WDW74]

I've moved this thread to the Transportation board.

 

[gometros]

How do you find out about the sales?
Do you have to pay for baggage on JetBlue? We have 3 kids, so car seats and strollers add up.
Thanks!

First bag is free, second one is $35 and third is $75. I'm a rewards member, so I'm on their mailing list.

 

[PHXscuba]

I WISH I could buy our tickets for October right now. We are still waiting on DS' fall schedule for some tournaments and won't have until likely middle/end of May. They usually don't schedule anything over fall break, but I have this sick feeling that if I buy airfare now, they will next year.

So I wait and suffer through daily Kayak fare alerts that jump all around,. The Bing "predictor" thingy actually just told me to wait, that price were steady or falling. But when I talk with my BIL, who works in finance for one of the big airlines, he just shakes his head, sad that I'm not able to book yet.

Oh well, if the prices are going to fall, it will be shortly after I'm able to buy, so I'll cross my fingers. The only good thing is that as prices for connecting flights approach the (mostly stable) price for non-stops, I might justify nonstop flights.

PHXscuba