High Airfare

[DieHard]

When I booked our cruise on the Maasdam for 10/23 I paid $452 for two people. I checked Delta today and the fare is $2172 an increase of $1720. Has anyone else checked their airfare lately? I know if the airfare was this hiigh at the time I booked the cruise I wouldn"t have. Would the high airfare keep anyone else from booking?

[heathriel]

It's within 7 days of your cruise - airfare is traditionally higher this close to travel.

[jmps]

Yes. For example, it prevents us from cruising from San Juan. I like being so far south at the start of the cruise so deeper southern ports can be reached easiliy. The cost of airfare really affects the total cost however. You can see this in the lower cruise cost for these sailings (in general).

 

I fly a lot for work and the airlines have cut back flights so much they are charging a lot now for flights in demand. Especially close in to the departure. There was a $1200 fare ORD to DFW on AA a few days before the flight. This is between two major hubs and I have never seen prices that high. It looks like airfare is going to be a much higher percentage of cruising cost. I think it willl really lower last minute fares (like the one you got) because only people that can drive to the port can take it.

 

I am now really watching for sales and trying to book when I catch a drop. The sweet spot seems to be a few months out. Sometimes booking way ahead also works for times like spring break. This worked for us for March 2010 ORD to FFL. Those prices are very high right now.

[m steve]

and wanted 1st class flight. Lufthansa was $12000 but was able to use United miles for 2 tickets. That had a value of 10c a mile. Best return I have had using miles.

[kelleherdl]

I was thinking of taking the family (6) on the NCL Pride of America for a week around the Hawiian Islands. When we added the airfare from North Caroline, forget it. No discounts on anybody.

[Iris5383]

I booked 4 air fare tickets on Frontier to San Diego from Denver on 07-13-09 for our 11-21-09 departure and 12-07-09 return. Price - $210 each. Today, same flights, price is $345 each.

[CowPrincess]

Before I get too excited about booking a cruise, I always check airfare. Sometimes the cheapest cruises are out of our reach by the time we add in airfare.

[texancruzer]

That is why I use my American Express to pay bills (when I can) and to buy even groceries or gas....... we use our rewards points for airfare.

 

Sometimes we don't quite make it...... you can purchase points too. Or - use points for one ticket and buy the other......

 

have seen many recent items on the news about airfare going uP (no pun intended :o) That is also why you see specials for just about any hotel or resort that requires a flight....... right now Puerto Rico has "book 4 nights and two of them are free :eek:" offers. Thats 1/2 off folks......

[DieHard]

I forgot about the $50 each way for $100 for our 2 suitcases. Also there is another charge of about $60 to park my car for 15 days (Which is cheap compared to some cities).

[CowPrincess]

I forgot about the $50 each way for $100 for our 2 suitcases. Also there is another charge of about $60 to park my car for 15 days (Which is cheap compared to some cities).

 

That's REALLY cheap for 15 days of parking. The best we can do is around $160 or $170 for 14 days. And then there's the pet care :eek:

[Krazy Kruizers]

If we want to cruise -- we have no choice but to pay the airfares -- high or low.

 

We don't live close to any cruise ports and with both of us having health issues -- just can't drive long distances any more.

[bucktoo]

We're booked for a Spring one-way back from AMS to TPA. Delta was 12,000 for the two of us and finally found AA for half of that. Still a huge amount of money but we need business class for our old bones.

[Cruzin Terri]

I guess I was lucky. I managed a one-way from FLL to LAX on AA for $170 each.

I bought the tickets during the summer for January 2010

Terri

[Y's Owl]

Don't just look at the prices out of your local airport. I live near Philadelphia, but am taking a discount flight out of Atlantic City to save about $500. For a trip to Port Aransas, Texas once, I flew out of Baltimore Washington and got free parking at a nearby hotel for the week I was gone. Sure I had to stay a night in Baltimore, but I had a nice dinner at the Inner Harbor. I saved a similar amount then too. That's the fortunate thing about being in the Northeast where there are plenty of good airports competing for business. I have a cousin in Rochester, New York and she sometimes travels to Toronto to get better airfare than what's available for her in Upstate New York airports.

 

You can also get some deals flying on odd weekday times such as my flight coming up November 5th. I am flying down at Noon rather than at 9 AM or late afternoon. That saved me $100. Then I have a 9:00 PM return flight. You have to get creative to get a good price sometimes.

[alpal1993]

My first choice for next year was a land tour to Europe,but airfare was too expensive.When we learned about HAL 14 night Alaskan Cruise Sea/Sea we checked out fares they were too good to pass up so we went ahead and booked our first HAL cruise for June.(the fare has gone up over 100$ since we booked late August

[tarps14]

Can anyone out there give a good 'guesstimate' as to when airfare sales usually start in any given week? I had once been told Tuesday midnight to Wednesday morning. Just wondering if this has changed.

 

We have severely limited ourselves on our next cruise in January but for a very good reason. We currently have $600 each in vouchers from a voluntary bump we took on Delta. So, because we want that credit to go as far as possible, we are looking only on Delta for Atlanta to San Diego in January. The only problem is Delta has basically no competition for that route that time of year so it has gotten very frustrating. Oh well, a free flight is a free flight no matter how you look at it. Might just have to suck it up and accept the higher fare.

[serene56]

Can anyone out there give a good 'guesstimate' as to when airfare sales usually start in any given week? I had once been told Tuesday midnight to Wednesday morning. Just wondering if this has changed.

 

We have severely limited ourselves on our next cruise in January but for a very good reason. We currently have $600 each in vouchers from a voluntary bump we took on Delta. So, because we want that credit to go as far as possible, we are looking only on Delta for Atlanta to San Diego in January. The only problem is Delta has basically no competition for that route that time of year so it has gotten very frustrating. Oh well, a free flight is a free flight no matter how you look at it. Might just have to suck it up and accept the higher fare.

 

in the past I seen airfare cheaper on Tuesday/Wednesday but recently for the past two vacations I see prices stabilize and stay that way.

 

I already have my airfare for March. Most airlines release 300 days out- some at 6 months. With this being the end of Oct-- for a january-- what you see is what you get.

[doctork]

I sign up for farewatch at Travelocity so I get notices about prices for trips I want to take. I also check farecast to see what the price prediction is for that city pair - up, down or stay the same? I always do the "Alternate airports" check box on travelocity, as there can be huge price breaks for driving 50 miles to a different airport. I sometimes use a travel agent to book air, but not the cruise lines.

 

I just bought tickets to Europe for my two daughters and I, and the fares were $700 for IAD-BCN roundtrip, $600 for SEA-BCN roundtrip, and my own ticket CLT-BCN-FRA-CLT for $900 (bought on vayama.com). I was very surprised at those low prices one week in advance! I guess it's quite variable, though I just priced CLT-FLL round trip at $228 for about 4 weeks from now, also a pretty good deal. I tend to be a last minute type person though, and even for my Norway cruise, I bought it only about 1 month in advance. So far I haven't been burned.

[tarps14]

I sign up for farewatch at Travelocity so I get notices about prices for trips I want to take. I also check farecast to see what the price prediction is for that city pair - up, down or stay the same? I always do the "Alternate airports" check box on travelocity, as there can be huge price breaks for driving 50 miles to a different airport. I sometimes use a travel agent to book air, but not the cruise lines.

 

I just bought tickets to Europe for my two daughters and I, and the fares were $700 for IAD-BCN roundtrip, $600 for SEA-BCN roundtrip, and my own ticket CLT-BCN-FRA-CLT for $900 (bought on vayama.com). I was very surprised at those low prices one week in advance! I guess it's quite variable, though I just priced CLT-FLL round trip at $228 for about 4 weeks from now, also a pretty good deal. I tend to be a last minute type person though, and even for my Norway cruise, I bought it only about 1 month in advance. So far I haven't been burned.

 

You bring up some excellent suggestions of which we also use. Farecast has been saying wait for the flights we are looking at and this is really the only reason we haven't booked as yet. We also make use of Travelocity farewatch which will notify you by email if an airfare in your designated price range comes up. Not familiar with the website you mentioned (vayama.com). I will have to check that one out. The things you learn on here......Priceless!

[doctork]

I learned about vayama from some other website. :D

 

Vayama also offered a $30 off "sale" this weekend for trips from the US to Europe! The site is particularly good for international airfares from the US, and you purchase the trip there, rather than being linked to another site. My daughter had to change her travel plans once, and vayama actually obtained a refund for her on a "non-refundable" airfare she had purchased from them! I suspect that was some fluke or something.

[Cruisin'Lady]

I live in Alaska. For me to fly anywhere south costs me about 400pp round trip just to get to Seattle...then, depending on where the ship is there is another 200-600 added pp RT. Thus why just about everyone I know (including us) have a cc with Alaska airlines. Everything goes through the cc(and it gets paid off every month) and earns us mileage.

 

If it were not for the fact that we did this and have enough mileage saved up...we would not be cruising except for cruising Alaska. And that would not be as fun as cruising down south in the Caribbean. Alaska is great...but I see it everyday!:D

[coffeeclutch1]

I too am not taking a Panama Cruise because flying into Miami or Fort Lauderdale added $700 plus motel to our price. That was last summer, haven't checked this week. My DH finds sitting on a airplane 8 hours in a tight seat does bad things to his back anyway. We'll drive to Seattle or San Diego.

[V and S]

We just bought our airfare for 12/5-12/22 from the west coast to FLL (no stops!) on VA's new route for just over $200 roundtrip per person. We signed up with Yapta, and as soon as those fares dropped (from $550 per person!!) we booked! And only a couple of days before Christmas on the return! Yippee!!! They are having a 24 hour sale going on.

[m steve]

$60 might cover overnight parking for 1 car in NYC