When to book airfare for Oct 06 Med Cruise

[stoneybeach1]

...what time of year do you recommend booking airfare from the East Coast to Rome for a 10/06/06 Med cruise???

 

We will not be using ff miles for upgrade/free tickets.

 

I'm a big guy, so we're either gonna book 3 across (empty seat in middle) or splurge for British Airways World Traveller Plus (kinda like domestic first class... nothing like International first class).

 

Any ideas from Med cruisers who travelled in the Fall of 2005???

 

Thanks ahead of time for all your input !!!!

[Trixsea]

Hi Ted!

 

I sailed in Ocotber of 2005, and purchased my airline tickets in Feb. We flew BA and the price was fair. It did not seem to go up for several months after our purchase. Good luck and enjoy your cruise!!

[OBX Cruisers]

Stoneybeach1 - Will you be on the Reggata October 6 Barcelona to Venice cruise with us? We were able to use frequent flyer miles on American so can't help you much there. Thought you might like to know, however, that there's a Roll Call started at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=245222 if you'd like to meet others on this sailing. (Last post was mid- December so you may not have seen the thread.)

Happy New Year! Fran and Dick Larkins

[OBX Cruisers]

Stoneybeach1 - Sorry, I just noticed you will be on Celebrity, not Oceania's Regatta. Have a wonderful time.

[PoohUnderstands]

Ok, here is my input for what it is worth. I will be going on the BOS in September, 2006, to the Med for their 12 day out of Barcelona. I started looking on this site in May, 2005, when I booked my cruise. To put in a nutshell what I learned: if you cannot fly directly out of an intl. airport(i.e NY, EWR, Atlanta,etc.) then the best airfares I was seeing was around with taxes $650-850. The consensus for our time of year flight was that they were seeing the best fares in February and March. Then they started going up.

 

Well, I have some criteria for my flying. First of all, I only wanted one change of flight if I couldn't get a nonstop out of Miami(which I can't). Then I wanted that one stop to be in the states, not Europe(so as not to be affected by their lower luggage max. weight limits. Finally I wanted enough time between flights so I wouldn't have a heart attack(1 1/2 hours just doesn't cut it for me even though online places put it as normal!) That being said, I looked at 329 days out(early November, 2005) on all the kayak.com and bookingbuddy.com webb sites and I came up with flights that met the above criteria for $750 pp!!!!!! I was not expecting to purchase until February or March, but since I had done my homework and thanks to the guys at CC, I purchased immediately. So far it has been a good thing. The same flights are now $1100 pp. So you can never tell. If you don't mind the weird flights and 2 stops and 1 to 1 1/2 hours between flights, there are flights out there in the $665-$725 range.

 

Good luck and have a great cruise.

 

Pooh

[nparmelee]

Since you want to use FF miles to upgrade...book as early as you can so that all the ff upgrades aren't gone before you get around to it. FF seats for the freebie seats go fast so defintely call the airline asap and get it taken care of....

 

Have a great time!

[yorkshirelass]

We are sailing on the Millenium Sept '06 also using FF miles for our flights I booked last week and didn't get the flights I wanted so would book asap. Have good cruise.

[caudel]

We are going on our cruise on Sept 20 on the Brilliance of the Sea. We purchased our air from British Air with one stop in London from Seattle WA in late Jan. Price is still the same. We are flying from Seattle to Barcelona to Rome and Back to Seattle for less than $1150/pp. After the cruise, which ends in Bacelona we are flying back to Rome for 7 days. BA is a great airline and we have always had wonderful service on the flights.

[cusyl]

I booked 6 months out in order to get the best seats and best price. I have noticed when I check now the connections are not as good as I have.

[NANCYR2]

Our group is going on the Med cruise in Oct 2006. We got an early evening flight out of Boston stopping in Paris and arriving in Barcelona about 10am the next morning for $735pp. I am happy about the flights/prices which were booked in January.

[CruisingMemories]

We are going in Sept.2006 to Med. on Brilliance. We booked in Jan. because the flights we wanted were already filling up. If you want to pick and choose your times and actual seats, best to book now. We are paying close to $864.00pp out of Ft. Lauderdale and got great flights and seats. Good luck and have fun!

[Cruisingonceagain]

Another strategy you may want to consider is to contact your cruise travel agent and find out how much the cruiseline would charge for airfare. You can use this route as your fallback position. Usually, you will not have to make a final decision whether you will buy air from the cruiseline or not until your final payment date, which is usually 90 days. Of course, there are some drawbacks if you decide to get the air from the cruiseline - you have no control over the flight itinerary, you have to add $$ if you want to travel on a certain day, or if you want to take less connections than offered by the cruiseline. Prior to 90 days before the cruise, you can then wait and see if the airfares are dropping and if they reach a level that is acceptable to you, and you like the flight itinerary, then purchase the tickets on your own. If they keep on going up from today, then you have a back-up plan. This strategy, though, may not be for the fainthearted. You really need to weigh the pros and cons, and determine what will work for you. I wish I had a crystal ball as to when I should buy our tickets for Rome in June!

[PoohUnderstands]

I checked today and for the first time, if you don't mind two stops, there were flights out there with decent times and connection times and the price was a total of $566 per person!!! That is a great price. The one I looked at was Delta to EWR and then Ilatalia over and back to BCN and then Continental home. This flight stops in Newark and Milan. So I would look seriously today.

 

Pooh

[lindy2]

Do you feel comfortable booking Delta? We are looking at flights for 10/29 cruise. The first choice is Delta or Northwest but with all the instability I am really nervous about booking now.