How far ahead are you buying airline tickets

[Lesinindy]

With fuel prices on the rise and everything else that is happening in the world I wondered at what point folks are buying tickets. Our final payment is due Sept 28th, for a December 12 cruise, but I am thinking that this is waiting too long to lock in air fares. What do you think?

[Twickenham]

Lots of people hold off booking their air in hopes of a sale/price drop. Two main points work against the average cruiser in this regard:

-Your dates are fixed;
-You have at least a couple of thousand people booking flights for your dates to the same city, thus increasing demand.

In your case, you can add a third: as you are sailing on 12/12, you'd be returning 2 days before Christmas.

I'd try and lock in my air ASAP.

[sapper1]

I will be booking a flight to Fort Lauderdale for next April and plan to do it around mid August. We fly out of a small airport on puddle jumper planes and I don't want to be disappointed. Flights during the snowbird season fill up quickly.

[Randyk47]

With fuel prices on the rise and everything else that is happening in the world I wondered at what point folks are buying tickets. Our final payment is due Sept 28th, for a December 12 cruise, but I am thinking that this is waiting too long to lock in air fares. What do you think?

Really kind of a gamble one way or the other. Since we book about a year out that's typically outside of the airline schedules, meaning the airlines don't show flights that far out. The flight schedule just became available for our Silversea cruise next March just three or so weeks ago even though we booked the cruise back in February. We immediately started researching and finally decided to cash in our hoard of frequent flier miles so cost was not an issue. On our other cruises, like our Maasdam cruise this past March, we usually check flight schedules as early as we can and get initial prices for the flights that best fit the cruise. Once we have a price point to compare with then we start watching prices. Sometimes we pop for the flights right away, sometimes we watch for better prices. Of course, sometimes we've been lucky and caught a special sale or prices have fallen but then again sometimes they've gone up. Like Sapper we don't live in a major airline hub city so we also have to consider that connecting flights between here and Dallas fill up pretty quickly so waiting too long can be problematic. Like I said it's a gamble.

[adrift@sea]

Lots of people hold off booking their air in hopes of a sale/price drop. Two main points work against the average cruiser in this regard:

-Your dates are fixed;
-You have at least a couple of thousand people booking flights for your dates to the same city, thus increasing demand.

In your case, you can add a third: as you are sailing on 12/12, you'd be returning 2 days before Christmas.

I'd try and lock in my air ASAP.

The points made by Twickenham are spot on. One point to elaborate on is if you are indeed returning on 12/23 (11 day cruise) to Port Everglades, flights are going to fill up fast as 12/24 & 12/25 fall on a weekend this year. I would imagine that 12/23 is going to be a huge travel date. This may not be the best time to wait and see.

Have a great cruise. We sailed this itinerary on the Maasdam last fall and loved it.

[BumperII]

We like to have airline tickets in place about the same time that we make final payment on a cruise. For all the reasons stated previously on this thread, it is difficult to save more than a few dollars on tickets after that point.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We buy them as soon as they become available - 330 days out -- there are very, very few flights out of our airport to anywhere.

[Himself]

For what it is worth, I usually book about three months early.

[cruisinggranmama]

We buy as soon as we can after booking. I check flights daily over the weekend and up through Thursday to see if day of the week changes make a difference. I usually find that Tuesday-Wednesday have the best fares for International. I've seen on these boards that fares fluctuate greatly and sometimes do not come back to the low fare I saw once.

For domestic, I check all airlines going into the city I want, and book the cheapest whenever I'm looking. I've lost good fares waiting for a "good" fare domestically too.

It's a gamble either way.

[VermeulT]

For my next cruise - I'm anxious to book. The price is still right for my return (just after the Thanksgiving weekend)... but DH goes back a week early and we're meeting friends flying in from LA... so much to try and coordinate...

[Jemima]

We usually book flights around final payment date. We've cancelled three cruises prior to final payment and wouldn't want flights booked if we cancelled.

[Sonup2Sondwn]

Great Question! I am having the same dilema. I put a hold on a cruise on Friday 5/7 on the Zuiderdam for 12/27. As a precaution I always check airfares to see the lay of the land and was pleasantly surprised with MKE to FLL for $229 on Frontier. I booked my cruise on Monday 5/9 and when I rechecked airfare, holy moly they were now over $300. Frontier must have been having some type of sale and I didn't know it.

Southwest just released their Christmas fares but I'm hoping to say until saturday 1/7 and they cut the calendar on 1/6. I'm going to wait until some type of sale and see if it gets any better, it can't get any worse (right).

If it gets too extreme we can always drive...we had to do that last year when airfares to Tampa were going to cost our family of 4 more than our two week Easter cruise. That's definitely a last resort.

I do agree with booking early - but with a sale. Last August American had a sale and we booked a nonstop from ORD to Honolulu for less than $400 per person round trip for a land base trip in March.

I sooooooo wanted to take a European cruise this summer, but the airfares were insane. I just couldn't do it.

Happy Air Fare Hunting!

[TWOFERTWO]

While I do book very early, one other draw back, very often the flight time changes, sometimes often!:eek:

[LADYLAYLA]

We booked our flights for our Dec Cruise about a month ago. Found a good deal with the schematics we need. We have also elected to fly on Christmas day with the hope that it will be quieter then the 24th

[whogo]

Book now for the reasons Twickenham enumerated.

Airfare can be higher than the cruise fare on the itineraries we choose. I watch cruise fares and airfares for months before booking. When prices are favorable, or at least acceptable, I put a hold on the cruise and book my airfare. I then book the cruise and buy travel insurance.

For our Santiago to Rio de Janeiro cruise, airfare ranged from $900 to $2200 each. I missed out on the best cruise fare by $100 each and missed out on the best airfare by $300 each. I seldom get the lowest fares.

[iancal]

We usually look at cruise fares and air fares at the same time in order to get the best total value. We typically combine the cruise with a land vacation so quite often the air fares dictate whether we have a week a week or more precruise or just a few days followed my more post cruise time.. Once we do that, we lock in both immediately-then keep an eye out for decreases in the cruise fare. We also check our destination to ensure that we are not doing a precruise during a high occupancy period such as the Boat Show or a sporting event.

[kazu]

I start looking at flights as soon as they are available. If I can use FF miles, I do it. I know the sale prices from our limited airport and limited flight choices, so if I see a price that is 'good', I book right away. We have a cruise scheduled for March and the flight is already 1/3 sold out :eek: and yes, we have booked.:D

The point of fuel is a very good one.

[arzz]

If we are booking frequent flier miles we book as early as possible -- e.g. getting two business class seats to Europe on the same plane can be difficult.

For more conventional flights we watch the fares in hope of getting a good deal. We were in need of getting from Fort Lauderdale to home in Chicago on Dec 20 and found out quickly that not only are fares high, frequent flier seats were already completely unavailable on one major airline, and only the higher price frequent flier seats were available on the other major airline that we tend to prefer.

Luckily most airlines now sell one way tickets for half of what they charge for round trip so we shopped for a good price and purchased our December tickets yesterday. For our outbound flight to LAX, there are plenty of non-stop flights and plenty of choice and the date is Dec 5 -- much lower season -- so for the outbound we will wait a few months and watch for that good deal. These days one has to be alert, flexible and spend some time doing that shopping and planning.

[Jade13]

[quote=arzz;29296024]
Luckily most airlines now sell one way tickets for half of what they charge for round trip quote]

I have not found that to be the case.

[G&G]

With fuel prices on the rise and everything else that is happening in the world I wondered at what point folks are buying tickets. Our final payment is due Sept 28th, for a December 12 cruise, but I am thinking that this is waiting too long to lock in air fares. What do you think?

You need to book asap !!

If you retuen near Christmas good or low fares will not be available the longer you wait.

I am a frequent flyer with Southwest. No bag fees and you will not be charged a fee for changing flights. Currently Southwest has on line a flight to Ft lauderdale on 12/11/11 for $99/one way plus tax from Indy with one stop; no change in planes. Return is much more expensive. Try kayak.com. fares as low as $120/person with change of plans and fee charged for bags.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Fortunately every where we have needed to fly in the past three years with the exception of a flight home from Vancouver last spring we were able to fly Southwest. I am an avid SW flyer and I purchase those tickets the minute they become available because if they do go down in price you get the credit back. Only one time did they go down and because it was within 24 hours my credit card was credited.

The bad part with SW is they do not release dates as early as the other airlines. So I have been waiting for it to go past November 4th so my October tickets I needed for our Hawaii cruise could be round trip (we needed to return home November 5th) Luckily they just released last Friday and on Saturday when we were waiting for our flight home I jumped in and purchased on line the tickets. I doubt seriously I will find the tickets any cheaper than $49 PP each way from Las Vegas to San Diego. There is no way I could drive and park for two weeks that cheap :D

So my advise is to buy ASAP

[sapper1]

We usually book flights around final payment date. We've cancelled three cruises prior to final payment and wouldn't want flights booked if we cancelled.
Our agent puts insurance on the flights when we book and then adds the cruise to the same policy at the time of final payment on the cruise.

[Twickenham]

I am a frequent flyer with Southwest. No bag fees and you will not be charged a fee for changing flights. Currently Southwest has on line a flight to Ft lauderdale on 12/11/11 for $99/one way plus tax from Indy with one stop; no change in planes. Return is much more expensive. Try kayak.com. fares as low as $120/person with change of plans and fee charged for bags.

The OP's situation provides an interesting example for comparing the cost of flying on Southwest with its no bag fees vs. the legacy airlines with their baggage fees.

On Southwest, flying on Dec. 11 -return Dec. 23 on 1-stop flights costs $352.80. I found lots of options on Delta for the same dates on ITA Matrix (http://matrix.itasoftware.com) for 1-stop flights costing $282.80. Even if you were to check 2 bags on Delta - and pay the associated fees - you would come out $10 ahead on Delta.

[Lesinindy]

I took the suggestions to heart and went ahead and booked flights through Southwest today. Nice thing was that our flight home leaves at 1:40 so we don't spend all day at the airport or have to rush like crazy to make the airport for an early flight (been there hated that).

One of my pet peeves is having a big hassle on the way home. If all goes as planned we get back into Indy at 5:30 in the afternoon. Back home at a reasonable time.

Thanks again. You spoke I listened.

[m steve]

Several cruises incorporate a holiday and I don't want to be caught short. Also air fares can only go up so I don't want to pay more than I have to. It iused to be a flight to asnf from DC was $175. Now its around $300.

[Lesinindy]

Going from Indy to FLL was 92.09 per person
Coming back to Indy from FLL was 209.39 PP
Total air fare was $705.60 Considering the holiday dates coming back, I can handle this.

Bad part is now that we have 2 bags a person free.....there is no excuse for avoiding formal night:D I have used that excuse for the last 2 cruises.

[SJSULIBRARIAN]

Usually book our flights close to final payment of cruise to ensure we are going. Except for frequent flier miles flights which we book as early as possible. We either fly American, Alaska Air, or Southwest depending on which direction we are headed.

[G&G]

The OP's situation provides an interesting example for comparing the cost of flying on Southwest with its no bag fees vs. the legacy airlines with their baggage fees.

On Southwest, flying on Dec. 11 -return Dec. 23 on 1-stop flights costs $352.80. I found lots of options on Delta for the same dates on ITA Matrix (http://matrix.itasoftware.com) for 1-stop flights costing $282.80. Even if you were to check 2 bags on Delta - and pay the associated fees - you would come out $10 ahead on Delta.

Apparently you did not understand my post.

You can currently fly Southwest Airlines one way from Indy to Ft Lauderdale on 12/11/11 for $99 + tax per person, one stop w/no change of planes and first two bags checked per person are free.

You can return on other airlines (includes Delta) on 12/23/11 one way for $162/person plus possible baggage fees and a change of planes.

That totals approximately $270 roundtrip excluding baggage fees.

[Lesinindy]

Apparently you did not understand my post.

You can currently fly Southwest Airlines one way from Indy to Ft Lauderdale on 12/11/11 for $99 + tax per person, one stop w/no change of planes and first two bags checked per person are free.

You can return on other airlines (includes Delta) on 12/23/11 one way for $162/person plus possible baggage fees and a change of planes.

That totals approximately $270 roundtrip excluding baggage fees.
I did understand and figured out that you were correct, but decided to go for a more convenient time and no change of planes. Coming back two days before Christmas will be a challenge no matter what, but getting back in town here around 5:30 instead of much later is worth it to me. Bottom line after 11 days of relaxation, the last thing I want is a hassle getting home. Getting cheaper flights down there was a bonus.

[G&G]

I did understand and figured out that you were correct, but decided to go for a more convenient time and no change of planes. Coming back two days before Christmas will be a challenge no matter what, but getting back in town here around 5:30 instead of much later is worth it to me. Bottom line after 11 days of relaxation, the last thing I want is a hassle getting home. Getting cheaper flights down there was a bonus.

Glad to hear you got a good deal with few hassles. We also do not like any hassles flying home and prefer Southwest due to direct service to many cities from Tampa. We flew in January to Indy on Southwest, nonstop and fly to Buffalo next week on Southwest non stop flight. My DW has never seen Niagara Falls.

[kazu]

Fortunately every where we have needed to fly in the past three years with the exception of a flight home from Vancouver last spring we were able to fly Southwest. I am an avid SW flyer and I purchase those tickets the minute they become available because if they do go down in price you get the credit back. Only one time did they go down and because it was within 24 hours my credit card was credited.

The bad part with SW is they do not release dates as early as the other airlines. So I have been waiting for it to go past November 4th so my October tickets I needed for our Hawaii cruise could be round trip (we needed to return home November 5th) Luckily they just released last Friday and on Saturday when we were waiting for our flight home I jumped in and purchased on line the tickets. I doubt seriously I will find the tickets any cheaper than $49 PP each way from Las Vegas to San Diego. There is no way I could drive and park for two weeks that cheap :D

So my advise is to buy ASAP

Oh my heavens - if we could just get your prices here in Canada, we would be flying all of the time;) Sadly, prices are much higher here:(

[iancal]

I just kayaked our dates in Feb. to FLL. $793 from Vancouver, $351. from Seattle.

The Canadian fare is more than double the US fare. That is a saving of $884 for two people. Just imagine the savings for a family of four or five.

[DizzyDallasDi]

I really envy y'all being able take Southwest nonstop to your cruise destinations. The only nonstop flights from Dallas on Southwest go to cities in Texas and continiguous states (except St. Louis can be flown to nonstop even though Missouri is not contiguous to Texas...woohoo. ;))

The good news is the Wright Amendment will be completely repealed in 2014 and that will allow Southwest to fly from Dallas just like it does all the other cities it flies out of. That will be very nice. :D

[DaveOKC]

Alot of good info already posted about using SW. I like to book with them early, to nail down a price. Many places require a plane change from OKC, so I still shop around. If I can get a much better price later, I switch.

DaveOKC

[Tricia724]

Last year we went to Alaska in September, and I watched airfares for more than six months, and they changed very little. The up and down was never more than $20-30 for the flights we needed, and on airfares in the $600+ range, that isn't much variation. We paid the same fare in June that we would have paid in January.

This year I booked our flights a full six months ahead of time, and I'm glad I did. Our flights have gone up. There are other less expensive flights available, but those won't work for us.

That's the thing.....we're at an age where we don't take the least expensive flights. We don't want to fly out at 6:00 a.m. or have a 5 hour layover at an airport. We also don't want a minimum connection time in a large airport where we might have to run a mile to the next gate. So, sometimes the "bargains" are no bargain for us.

We choose the most convenient flights for us, watch them for a while (if there are lots of seats unsold), and book when we feel comfortable. Same as booking a cruise.

[ramtuf]

[quote=iancal;29303296]I just kayaked our dates in Feb. to FLL. $793 from Vancouver, $351. from Seattle.

The Canadian fare is more than double the US fare. That is a saving of $884 for two people. Just imagine the savings for a family of four or five.[/quote
I don't trust their prices. I found cheaper prices on Expedia for our trip from Calgary to FLL in Apr.

[McDaddy]

I will book as soon as Southwest releases the dates....late July.

[Howasaur]

For our trip Nov26th 2011 I booked Feb 19th cost including taxes for two people $1408.00 price is now $2485.00 Approx saving $1000.00 for booking early

[Zyzygy]

A couple of years ago, when airlines were posting terrible quarterly financial reports, there always seemed to be a sale near the end of each fiscal quarter: late March; late June; late September; late December.

Now that their financial reports are a little more solid, the airlines may not feel quite so much pressure to make their quarterly reports look better.

Still, as most airlines end their fiscal year at the end of June, I wouldn't be surprised to see some late June sales in an effort to make the current fiscal year look a little better to the stockholders.

If I didn't have the problem of facing potential holiday sellouts, I'd wait till the last week of June.

Because the OP is planning to travel at Christmas, it was definitely a good idea to get the tickets as soon as possible.

[tip]

I will book as soon as Southwest releases the dates....late July.


Same here for our cruise in late January. I love Southwest and book the same day that they release the seats. Their "web only" fares are usually a great deal and our local airport is a ten minute ride from our house.

[Bramcruiser]

Guilty as everyone else. I usually book quite ahead of time because I want to make sure I get something. Seat sales are usually at specific times of year when the airlines have some excess capacity to sell off but you are always taking a gamble waiting - especially if its a route where there is not a lot of competition or number of flights. Seat sales work best for those with lots of flexibility and who do trips at whim.

On the other hand booking extremely early has the issue of one continuously checking their reservation. Yes, the dreaded "airline changed my flight yet again" syndrome. The only plus is that if you are locked in and you get changed to an undesirable time you get a chance to still rectify the situation with time to spare.

[bahrain_not_dubai!]

I usually book with plenty of time to spare if cruising from the US or Europe, as thats a good 14 hours/7 hours flying to Bahrain. I did find that when I travel out of Istanbul (3 hours flying time) I tend to leave the booking quite late, but that didn't work out with me last time when all 3 daily flights were fully booked up and ended up having to fly to Abu Dhabi to catch an Istanbul bound flight from there. At any rate, I always reccommend arriving at the port at least one day piror to sailing- in 2007, on a transatlantic flight on the now defunct Northwest Airlines, from Amsterdam to Detroit with connection to FLL the aircraft was delayed 5 hours in Amsterdam, and then we had to make a forced landing in Montreal, where we were stuck inside the airport terminal for a further 17 hours ! Ended up arriving at FLL with about 3 hours to go before departure, had that happened on the day of the cruise, we would have missed the ship no doubt.

[jhannah]

On the other hand booking extremely early has the issue of one continuously checking their reservation. Yes, the dreaded "airline changed my flight yet again" syndrome. The only plus is that if you are locked in and you get changed to an undesirable time you get a chance to still rectify the situation with time to spare. So far, I've been lucky that flight time changes have rarely had a significant impact. Two times, though, it did. I spoke with the airlines and was able to get a full refund both times so I could fly a workable schedule with another carrier.

I always purchase airline tickets ASAP, because the lowest prices naturally sell first. Airlines have a wide range of pricing for their seats. X-number of seats are allocated at price A; X-number at price B; and so on. When the price A is sold off, pricing goes to price B; then on up the ladder. I've been online comparing prices when the price shifted. Within seconds, the fare was sold out. I went to book it and received a message that the price had gone up.

Find what works for you and book it as soon as you can. That's my mantra. YMMV.

[G&G]

On the other hand booking extremely early has the issue of one continuously checking their reservation. Yes, the dreaded "airline changed my flight yet again" syndrome. The only plus is that if you are locked in and you get changed to an undesirable time you get a chance to still rectify the situation with time to spare.

Unless you book Southwest Airlines. Once Southwest post their schedule, it is cast in stone. Only recently did they make a change to our flight schedule; flight left 5 minutes earlier than when I booked .

[Typhoon1]

We have booked at the 330 day point in the past. Found some great deals.

Until lately, with the many low cost carriers, we normally book at six to seven months in advance.

[we're sailing away....]

As soon as possible

[KirkNC]

My rule of thumb for Europe is if I can get tickets for less than $1,000, I buy them. For our trip next year I will probably raise that to $1,100 as higher fuel costs, increasing demand and less flights are putting upward pressure on prices.

Kirk