Airfare around the Holidays

[warmwinds]

We booked a New Year's cruise for the end of this year long before the airfare would have been available 330 days or so out.  Now we're finding that the fares are astronomically expensive for that timeframe (not a big surprise, but a little).

 

Has anyone found that airfare drops closer to the Dec. 28- Jan 4 or so dates?  Or should we just forget about this cruise?

[bEwAbG]

Airfare for the two weeks around Christmas is always high.  It's been that way for the couple of decades I've been flying.  I have to fly to visit family every year, and it's ridiculous that the trip always costs twice as much as pretty much any other time of the year.  The cheapest flights going will usually be on Christmas Day or late on Christmas Eve.

[waterbug123]

9 hours ago, warmwinds said:

We booked a New Year's cruise for the end of this year long before the airfare would have been available 330 days or so out.  Now we're finding that the fares are astronomically expensive for that timeframe (not a big surprise, but a little).

 

Has anyone found that airfare drops closer to the Dec. 28- Jan 4 or so dates?  Or should we just forget about this cruise?

 

No.  Theoretically anything is possible, but holiday travel is high demand time and it would be highly unlikely to see prices drop as you get closer to the travel date. 

[Bo1953]

As has been echoed before, holiday travel by most modes of public transport can always be high and flights booked to the max...

 

You may want to consider watching flights up and through final payment date before deciding weather to cancel or not. As well, if possible, look at alternative airports and itineraries, if you have not already.

 

sounds like a wonderful time to cruise too..

 

bon voyage

[Cruise Junky]

If you were to fly out Christmas Day it may help but not too many people are willing to do that and you certainly spend more in Hotels but get a longer holiday.  We spent Christmas and NY in Hawaii a couple of years ago, and flying weekends was eyewatering but weekdays certainly weren't as bad.  

[Bo1953]

4 minutes ago, Cruise Junky said:

If you were to fly out Christmas Day it may help but not too many people are willing to do that and you certainly spend more in Hotels but get a longer holiday.  We spent Christmas and NY in Hawaii a couple of years ago, and flying weekends was eyewatering but weekdays certainly weren't as bad.  

Something to think about for sure, yet the cost of the added days (hotel/food) may equal the airfare difference, as well.

 

bon voyage

Edited March 15, 2019 by Bo1953

[Cruise Junky]

2 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

Something to think about for sure, yet the cost of the added days (hotel/food) may equal the airfare difference, as well.

 

bon voyage

Yes, I said that in my initial post. But the trade off is a longer holiday, rather than a donation to the airline 🤗

[kenevenpar]

10 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

Something to think about for sure, yet the cost of the added days (hotel/food) may equal the airfare difference, as well.

 

bon voyage

 But then it is a much longer vacation.

 

Where is the flight from/to?

[Rob the Cruiser]

Check several times per day. We have always been able to find high-season flights at off-season rates. Check on the airlines' website and also a few of the large on-line websites. It just takes some time and perseverance. 

[Jim_Iain]

You will find that fare go up and down continuously according to bookings and expectation of bookings.   I find a good resourse is Google.com/flights    you can select flights and have google monitor.   They will send you an alert if the prices go up or down and also show the trend in the fare.

 

I am watching a couple of flights and the price of a First class on the same date and flight has varied from $471 to 750. 

 

While I have not yet used it since the change,   Flights by Celebrity (ChoiceAir) now allow you to book with no payment until final payment.   They lock in your price and if the price drops you can have them adjust the price down.

[sddsddean]

As said, fly Christmas Day or New Years Eve if you can. We flew Christmas night Heathrow to Dubai a couple of months ago. Heathrow was a ghost town! The check in girls actually asked us to go to their desk to give them something to do! We spoke to a girl on security and she said she always does Christmas night, because its really quiet and she gets triple time! The airfare was about 2/3 of normal too.

 

Simon

[warmwinds]

Thanks all.  I've been checking almost daily and I won't cancel until it gets nearer to final payment (October).  Unfortunately I'm pretty set on the dates because of the cruise timing so not a lot of flexibility.

 

If it doesn't happen it wasn't meant to be.

[mikkelhansen]

We (4 persons) are in a similar situation, will be on the January 2, 2021 Western Caribbean Equinox sailing, and just like you, I have tried looking out for flights around that date period, but for the upcoming New Years days 2019-2020 instead (no airlines have released tickets 1½ years in advance, so can't check for our actual flight days). It is clear that ticket prices are already way higher around the New Years holiday than another flight on the same weekdays in eg. October 2019 or later in January 2020. Our plan is still to fly to Miami/Fort Lauderdale on January 1, 2021, but depending on ticket prices we might actually choose to fly already on December 31, 2020, since the comments in this thread suggest that flying on the actual day of the holiday may get us lower prices. I will definitely consider flying December 31 instead.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

[deliver42]

Prices are usually lower day of holiday, but very high day before and day after, because those are the highest passenger days.

[Algebralovr]

We’ve found that flying on Dec 25 to be reasonable, and often dropping about 4 weeks out.  We’ve also found that flying late Dec 31 or early morning Jan 1 is generally not painful.

 

if you must fly on Saturday or Sunday, flying early morning out of Florida is less than later in the day.  We’ve stayed the night and more than saved the cost of the room and meals.  

[cruisequeen4ever]

Christmas/New Years flights are always high unfortunately. The sweet spot is to fly on Christmas Day and return on the Monday after the cruise. Since Celebrity is now offering what Princess and Holland America have, the opportunity to book flights now but change anytime up til final payment, I’d go that route. That way you won’t risk the price going up, and you may get a price drop. Check daily. Typical with holiday travel, it’s best to book as early as possible, but sometimes the price drops a bit in August/September.

 

Good luck!

[agcoolcruiser]

You can check google.com/flights. They have multiple tools to compare prices.

 

For example flight graphs shows you same flight across multiple days. It is true that closer to Christmas day prices go down.

 

you can also check a flight search engine as http://www.momondo.ca

 

My experience is that  prices go up for holidays flights. For example, last year I booked my Costa rica flights in April for 700CAD and in October they were like 2100CAD... go figure who would pay that kind of money...

 

This year, I already booked my flights for Christmas time cruise out of Puerto Rico for 560CAD and price already went up to 820 CAD. Note that my experience is with flying out of Toronto.

Edited March 19, 2019 by agcoolcruiser

[h20skibum]

If your area is serviced by Southwest, book the flights the day they release them.  Last year, that was the cheapest for holiday flights, and they will only go up in price and sell out fast after that release date.