Cruise or Air. Which to pay for first?

I might be over-thinking this. Our cruise, Panama transit is not until January. I've been looking at air fare prices

GEG-MIA Jan 23 and LAX-GEG Jan 27 and am seeing good prices. Around $327 for each person We paid closer to $500+ this past year to go to FLL round trip. I am thinking that I should purchase the air tickets since those prices can change. My cruise price is locked in.

What would you do?

A 4 day transit cruise?? Use hopper app & input your itinerary. It'll tell you whether to book now or wait. Sounds like a decent fare if it's on a legacy carrier. I'd book it if you've already locked in the cruise!

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

That price for air sounds pretty good...I'd book it, but as the above posted illuded to, I think the dates of your cruise was a typo somewhere as I don't think any canal transit cruise is only 4 days.

We always book air as soon as we can. Where we live there are no longer a lot of flights to anywhere.

I might be over-thinking this. Our cruise, Panama transit is not until January. I've been looking at air fare prices

GEG-MIA Jan 23 and LAX-GEG Jan 27 and am seeing good prices. Around $327 for each person We paid closer to $500+ this past year to go to FLL round trip. I am thinking that I should purchase the air tickets since those prices can change. My cruise price is locked in.

What would you do?

I'd purchase the airfare. But are your dates correct? I've never heard of a Panama Canal transit being only four days, not even when it's only a partial transit.

Plus, I would suggest booking your flight to Florida at least a day ahead of your cruise. Especially as you're talking about a winter cruise.. Even if you're not coming from a snowy area, if there's some bad storms, it can affect many flights all over.

We book the cruise first since we try to book 18-24 months out. We only fly SWA and watch the prices daily for a price drop. SWA has been great to honor price drops as we use that for our next R/T for the next cruise.

Go Cougs!

You can't compare this price to a RT to Florida from Spokane. If you like the price, book it.

Sorry, my dates were wrong.

The trip is Jan 14-Jan 27. Miami to Los Angeles.

I did go ahead and purchase air. We will be flying United as Southwest doesn't have fares out yet.

Thanks for helping me to decide.

We also will be flying in Jan 13.

Congrats on getting a good price. Whenever we are flying to the West Coast for a cruise, I make sure we can get a good price on airfare before booking the cruise. But we are always booking at the last-minute--after the final payment date in most cases. I'll have our TA place a 24-hours hold on the cruise if I find a great bargain so I can have time to check out airfares.

We do exactly the same, though sometimes we can only get a hold for eight hours-which is usually enough time. Quite often we are shopping for late booking cruises and airfare at the same time. One or two cruise lines actually allow us to go into their cruise air system prior to booking to determine if there are any well priced cruise air options. In one instance, this was the clincher-great cruise fare and a very good one way air home from Europe.

On numerous occasions we have actually found buying airfares closer in to be more cost advantageous than buying them six months out. Especially overseas airfares. Busy holiday seasons are an exception.