Best time to book San Juan flights?

[TwoMateys]

We are going to do the southern cruise out of San Juan in March 2009. Can anyone offer any clues as to best flight options and best flight booking times for these flights (from the northeast). Thanks.

 

TwoMateys

[parody]

For this particular itinerary, there are no magical dates or times that will insure the lowest possible airfare. Rather, you should determine a fare that you think is reasonable (go to history.farecompare.com to see the historical variation in fares in this market) and if in your monitoring phase you come across a fare that is reasonable, book it. If the conditions are right, you can tag your flights at yapta.com and they will email you if fares decrease by a sufficient amount.

[Cause_I_Like_Cruising]

best time to book (as the poster above described) or best time of day to schedule a flight?

[FlyerTalker]

"From the Northeast".....

 

Lots of possibilities to consider -- you could be coming from anywhere from Madawaska, Maine to at least Philadelphia in the south.

 

Is there some vagueness disease going around lately??

[TwoMateys]

Sorry for the vagueness but I go out of a number of airports depending on price; Buffalo, Syracuse, Burlington, and environs. I am wondering when during the year, as opposed to what time of day. Thanks for the referals to some of the fare sites.

[FlyerTalker]

There is no "magic date" when you'll find the lowest prices. It's not like the day after Christmas when you KNOW that you can pick up Christmas cards for next year at half off -- or more. Ticket prices are more a function of when the travel will take place (demand) and on marketing decisions to make seats available in lower fare classes (sales). For example, demand is high at Christmas and Thanksgiving....higher prices. Same with Spring Break on flights to Florida. Often, sales don't correspond with desirable travel dates, so your best weapon is to determine your particular price points and pull the trigger when you find something you are happy with. Note that the window for finding such a ticket is continually shortening as the days go by, so you have that consideration as well.

 

Farecast is quite good for forward-looking analysis, while FareCompare has great historical info for you to get a rear-looking picture of what has happened in the past.

 

If you are willing to travel to alternate airports (and it seems you are in upper upstate NY with a bunch of options), you'll have a lot of options. Not necessarily low-price options, but still options to keep your eyes on. At any given time, the bottom could fall in any market, so watch them all. Yes, it is work....only you can decide what your time and effort are worth.

[tiyana4]

I use sidestep dot com to find the flights I am looking for. Sidestep shows what all the major carriers are offering and at what price (with the exception of Southwest - you have to leave their site to see the pricing)

 

Once I find out who has the cheapest fares, I use yapta dot com to track the flights/dates. What I like about Yapta is that you can continue to track the pricing even after your purchase. Just tonight I called UA for a travel voucher since my flight price dropped $30, they are sending it to me via snail mail. No other search engine that I am aware of sends you an email to notify you of a price decrease.

 

Good luck in your search.