Flights $$$!!! Price tracking tips or tricks?

[JHUNTGOLF]

In many instances, I book cruises over a year into the future.  And, these cruises lately tend to leave from Ft. Lauderdale.  As a result, I always try to book an airfare as soon as It becomes available, which is 331 days into the future.  For example, last Friday, it was 331 days before my January 29 to February 5, 2023, Beyond cruise would arrive back in Ft. Lauderdale.  I was able to book my Delta round trip air from Atlanta for the times I wanted at $273 per person.  Another couple going with us used miles and it was 22,000 miles per person.  Today, when I checked the cost had gone up to $333.  Ultimately, you need to come up with what you think is a reasonable price and, when you see it, employ a modification of that phrase from the old Hawaii 5-0 program, “book it Dano.”

 

I also used this 331 day strategy for my September 21-October 3, 2022, Summit New England/Canada cruise.  I got Delta round trip tickets to Boston for $287 per person.

 

John

Edited March 13, 2022 by JHUNTGOLF
Added Boston

[terrydtx]

8 minutes ago, JHUNTGOLF said:

In many instances, I book cruises over a year into the future.  And, these cruises lately tend to leave from Ft. Lauderdale.  As a result, I always try to book an airfare as soon as It becomes available, which is 331 days into the future.  For example, last Friday, it was 331 days before my January 29 to February 5, 2023, Beyond cruise would arrive back in Ft. Lauderdale.  I was able to book my Delta round trip air from Atlanta for the times I wanted at $273 per person.  Another couple going with us used miles and it was 22,000 miles per person.  Today, when I checked the cost had gone up to $333.  Ultimately, you need to come up with what you think is a reasonable price and, when you see it, employ a modification of that phrase from the old Hawaii 5-0 program, “book it Dano.”

 

I also used this 331 day strategy for my September 21-October 3, 2022, Summit New England/Canada cruise.  I got Delta round trip tickets to Boston for $287 per person.

 

John

We used Flights by Celebrity for our flights last August from San Antonio to FLL on Delta, we got First class seats for $600pp which included the $100 off flights promo from Celebrity. I was pleasantly surprised  how cheap they were.

[terrydtx]

On 3/12/2022 at 3:17 PM, terrydtx said:

We have our business class tickets booked with Flights by Celebrity (FBC) business class to Rome in August for our Reflection cruise. We originally booked in January with FBC RT on Delta for $3267pp. I check with FBC every day online to see if fares drop, on Thursday I saw flights on United from San Antonio to Rome one stop in Newark drop dramatically to $2518pp and I called FBC and got rebooked to these flights for no added fees and a much better flight itinerary.  This is how we stay on top of airfare costs, I do not expect any better deals than this so will only check every couple of days. The advantage of using FBC is if I had booked on Delta directly and when costs drop like they did on United I would not have been able to switch bookings.

I went to Celebrity flights today and found another great fare for our August cruises. We rebooked and now we have a flight from San Antonio to Rome on United through Newark and back from Venice through Atlanta on Delta for business class $2339pp. This saved us another $330 total on flights. I love FBC. We now have one stop flights both directions all business and first class all with excellent departure times.  I have gotten very good at checking flights and booking and rebooking with FBC.

[Zach1213]

Looks like this has been moved over here to the Cruise Air forum from somewhere else, so I'll add some insight as a frequent flier. 

 

The Ukraine situation isn't really much of an issue, because fuel prices aren't much of an issue. Airlines hedge their fuel, meaning they pay for it at a certain pre-negotiated price. If fuel prices go up, they win; if fuel prices go down, they lose. That's just the game they play, and have for decades. So the price you're paying at the pump, and the rate at which it's accelerating, has little to no impact on the airlines...at least, for now. 

 

The biggest issue is that demand is rising at a rate not seen since...ever. You have a lot of pent-up vacation demand AND business demand, combined with some staffing issues, and the demand is skyrocketing while available seats are...well, not. If you combine that with a vacation destination during peak demand for vacations, you'll see how quickly rates can rise. 

 

A couple of examples I've given recently (I forget the exact dollar amounts, so I'll ballpark it) - my colleague and I had to run to LAX for an overnight trip. I booked the nonstop Monday morning Southwest flight about 12 days out, he booked it the next day. He paid like 40% more than I did, just waiting one more day. On the flip side, I had to go to Green Bay in February, a place with very little demand that time of year...I was able to book three days out for some ridiculously low rate. So you can see where the places that have business and/or vacation demand (like your destination) can result in drastically different fares than Green Bay in winter 🙂

 

So, there really aren't any tips or tricks these days, nor are there chances it will go down. I say just lock in the fare and don't look back, otherwise you'll likely wish you had locked in the fare when it keeps going up. 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Zach1213

[terrydtx]

2 minutes ago, Zach1213 said:

Looks like this has been moved over here to the Cruise Air forum from somewhere else, so I'll add some insight as a frequent flier. 

This was originally in the Celebrity forum, not sure why it was moved as the OP question pertained to flights by Celebrity.

[Zach1213]

5 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

This was originally in the Celebrity forum, not sure why it was moved as the OP question pertained to flights by Celebrity.

 

I kind of get why. OP's main question was asking experienced travelers how to get cheaper airfare. This forum probably has the most experience air travelers, so mods probably thought this would be a good place for it. 

[FlyerTalker]

3 hours ago, terrydtx said:

This was originally in the Celebrity forum, not sure why it was moved as the OP question pertained to flights by Celebrity.

 

OP never asked about buying flights from Celebrity.  It was a suggestion of some other posters.

 

[FlyerTalker]

Following up on Zach -- there is no "magic" time to buy tickets, no special website, no "trick" that will save you big bunches of dollars.  Simple rule -- airline tickets are priced on the basis of inventory and follow the law of supply and demand.  Econ 101.  There are very sophisticated algorithms that are used to maximize revenue for each and every flight.  And trying to outthink those algorithms is a fool's errand.

 

The biggest suggestion is to do research.  Know what pricing (which is different than "fare") typically is for that particular city-pair.  Don't think distance - think markets.  Think of supply, then think of demand.  As Zach said, Memorial Day weekend is a high demand time for air travel.  Supply is relatively fixed, so Econ 101 says -- prices will resultingly be higher.

 

If you see a price drop, do not expect it to either drop further, or to stay at that point for a long period of time.  Do not have "hope" as a strategy to pay less.  Do not try to get "the lowest price", because the only time when that is known is when the door closes and the aircraft pushes back from the gate.

 

Finally, know that tickets bought through the cruiseline are almost always different than the ones you would get from the airline directly.  Might be the same flights, times and dates, but the underlying fare rules can be quite different, and quite restrictive.  Especially when things go wrong, which is when you most need flexibility and liberal rules.

 

Good luck.

[FlyerTalker]

On 3/12/2022 at 11:13 AM, Lovey Life said:

The round trip airfare was just a little bit under the cost of our cruise. OMG!!!

 

There is zero relationship between the two.  Any any comparison is misplaced.

 

As someone once said, if the price of the airline ticket is the same as your cruise, and you are upset by that, buy a more expensive cruise next time.  🙂

[genealogyfan]

Thank you for those who recommended Google Flights. I had been looking at Air Canada for a return flight from Quebec City and the price had gone up slightly and had stayed the same for awhile. I was looking directly at the Air Canada site.  When I went through Google flights today and selected the exact same flight, and that brought me to the Air Canada site, the price was $55 cheaper.  I had gone directly to the Air Canada site earlier and it was more expensive.

 

I had a similar thing happen to me when going through Kayak, it was cheaper to go to Kayak, which brought me to an airline website then going directly through the airline site.

 

I've looked at all the details multiple times just to make sure I didn't mess up and I didn't.

[terrydtx]

On 3/13/2022 at 5:27 PM, terrydtx said:

I went to Celebrity flights today and found another great fare for our August cruises. We rebooked and now we have a flight from San Antonio to Rome on United through Newark and back from Venice through Atlanta on Delta for business class $2339pp. This saved us another $330 total on flights. I love FBC. We now have one stop flights both directions all business and first class all with excellent departure times.  I have gotten very good at checking flights and booking and rebooking with FBC.

Follow up, after I changed our flights on FBC above, I did another check today and the same flight itinerary was $3856pp or $1517 higher than yesterday. I guess the fare we booked yesterday was a one-day window.

[NutsAboutGolf]

11 minutes ago, genealogyfan said:

Thank you for those who recommended Google Flights. I had been looking at Air Canada for a return flight from Quebec City and the price had gone up slightly and had stayed the same for awhile. I was looking directly at the Air Canada site.  When I went through Google flights today and selected the exact same flight, and that brought me to the Air Canada site, the price was $55 cheaper.  I had gone directly to the Air Canada site earlier and it was more expensive.

 

I had a similar thing happen to me when going through Kayak, it was cheaper to go to Kayak, which brought me to an airline website then going directly through the airline site.

 

I've looked at all the details multiple times just to make sure I didn't mess up and I didn't.

 

If you experience this, copy the link, open a new incognito mode tab or window and paste the URL

[MamaFej]

Sites like One Point at a Time and The Points Guy show some good ways to save. Last December, there was an article about an amazing deal from Finnair. We bought points, with a 100% bonus, and used those points to book two Business Class roundtrip tickets From Scandinavia to LA and back between our two Europe trips this year for a total of $2449. The deal also came with Sapphire status for One World and Gold with Finnair. 

 

We happened to be in Tahiti with our travel agent, who is also a very dear friend. He came to breakfast very excited about the deal, and we jumped on it that day. He has turned us onto some very good deals, even when he doesn't make a penny on them, as in this case. 

[FlyerTalker]

28 minutes ago, MamaFej said:

We bought points, with a 100% bonus, and used those points to book two Business Class roundtrip tickets From Scandinavia to LA and back between our two Europe trips this year for a total of $2449.

 

Remember that there is a huge downside to buying points, even with a bonus.

 

You also need to have award inventory available for the flights that you want.  It does you no good to buy the points, and then find that you have no way of using them for the flights that you want.  Especially if you have to fly on very specific dates.

 

Not that there is anything wrong with this technique -- I've done it myself on several occasions.  The key is that you are flexible in your travel plans, and that you can use the points elsewhere if you find no options for your intended trip.

[MamaFej]

37 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Remember that there is a huge downside to buying points, even with a bonus.

 

You also need to have award inventory available for the flights that you want.  It does you no good to buy the points, and then find that you have no way of using them for the flights that you want.  Especially if you have to fly on very specific dates.

 

Not that there is anything wrong with this technique -- I've done it myself on several occasions.  The key is that you are flexible in your travel plans, and that you can use the points elsewhere if you find no options for your intended trip.

You're absolutely right. I should have mentioned that we made sure we would be able to use them before buying them. We booked the flights immediately as soon as the points showed up.

 

We ended up changing one of the flights when we added another cruise to our first trip. That required an extra hotel night, but we got a good deal on it, too, and an extra night in Stockholm is fine by me. 

[fbgd]

10 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Remember that there is a huge downside to buying points, even with a bonus.

 

You also need to have award inventory available for the flights that you want.  It does you no good to buy the points, and then find that you have no way of using them for the flights that you want.  Especially if you have to fly on very specific dates.

 

Not that there is anything wrong with this technique -- I've done it myself on several occasions.  The key is that you are flexible in your travel plans, and that you can use the points elsewhere if you find no options for your intended trip.

 

Also that you forgo earning miles and status requalification points/miles/<insert whatever your airline FFP calls them> on a miles ticket.

 

11 hours ago, terrydtx said:

Follow up, after I changed our flights on FBC above, I did another check today and the same flight itinerary was $3856pp or $1517 higher than yesterday. I guess the fare we booked yesterday was a one-day window.

 

What is more likely is that revenue management added only a handful of discounted seats to the inventory and you purchased them resulting in the next cheapest fares showing.

 

A lot of people don't realise that airlines don't adjust prices at will per se but there are buckets of seats available at different prices. When those seats sell out or you are no longer able to buy them (because discounted seats often have an advance purchase requirement) then you are buying seats in the next cheapest bucket instead. This has the effect of looking like prices going up.

 

A couple of very good videos to explain a lot of this:

 

 

 

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by fbgd

[iancal]

We check prices to MIA, FLL, and PBI.

We price based on return air fare AND as two one ways on different airlines.   On a few occasions this has been very advantageous.

[NutsAboutGolf]

I just don't want to give people false hope with points, don't buy points unless you know what you're doing.  Even so called experts make mistakes, they find a good points rates, buy points, go to book and forget they still need to pay for fees and/or fuel surcharges which negates the perceived savings.   Airline promotions try to bait the naïve with 100% (or more) bonuses if you spend at least $500 but you are usually overpaying for them.  Also right now most airlines do not charge change fees, on award tickets it may cost you a few hundred to make any adjustments.

 

Some experts only book flights with cash so it counts to their status and transfer all their airline miles to hotel points when transfer bonuses are active.  If you wanted to stay at the Waikiki Village Hilton, its far cheaper to book with points, you get the 5th night free when using points, avoid the $50/day resort fee and don't pay fees and taxes.  Using points for a typical 5 night stay there often saves you $750-$1000 and if you need to change or cancel there's no charge/penalty.  Hyatt can also offer a tremendous savings when using points vs cash.

[iancal]

We save our points, airline and hotel, for travel on routes or to hotels that are typically more expensive because they are less competitive.