When to book air for Alaskan july 2019 cruise

We will be travelling Toronto to Anchorage. I have read many times when you see a price you can live with, book it. Since I have no clue what is reasonable price, I am hoping I can draw on experience of Cruise Critic Members.

I have Hopper to watch fares and I look at Matrix. Can anyone share what month they booked for July’s Alaskan cruise? Wondering if we are still early. Any guidance would be appreciated.

Hopper has given me reasonable advice in the past but you've got to understand in general, the closer you get to departure, the higher the tickets get. It's all a supply and demand thing. As more tickets are booked, there are less seats available which drives up the price for the remaining ones.

Book flexible EZ Air. You can always cancel before final payment with no penalty. You can keep looking at EZ Air to see if you want to rebook as well. Once you have a booking, keep watching other travel sites. You'll then have a baseline fare for comparison.

We (4 adults) are travelling Toronto to Vancouver for a northbound cruise and returning Anchorage to Toronto July 2019. We booked flexible flights with EZair and now we watch. At least we have a baseline (and won't pay more than our current rates). I have changed the booking ( same foghts) already for a savings of $75/person.

I use various apps to monitor prices and then check ezAir. Today flights actually went up $200/person above our price.

Good luck.

I booked EZAir 5 days before our Alaska cruise in July. It was a bargain on Delta. $170 one way MCI-SEA. Southwest was never below $400 several months out.

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I booked several months out on EZ Air and kept checking prices--was able to get price reductions twice on the same flights we'd already booked.

There is no down side to booking EZ Air flexible as soon as flights are available (330 days prior to the flight; prior to return if booking round trip.) That's another benefit to EZ Air--you can book each way separately so that if your departure price goes up but return goes down, you can reap the benefit of the lower fare on one way. There is no cost penalty to one way bookings!

I was also able to check rates from my home airport as well as from my daughter's, and determined that it would cost less to book Southwest to daughter's location and then travel together to the cruise on EZ Air. It made life easier for everyone to do it that way.

Thanks everyone. Sounds like Ez Air a good option.

We (4 adults) are travelling Toronto to Vancouver for a northbound cruise and returning Anchorage to Toronto July 2019. We booked flexible flights with EZair and now we watch. At least we have a baseline (and won't pay more than our current rates). I have changed the booking ( same foghts) already for a savings of $75/person.

I use various apps to monitor prices and then check ezAir. Today flights actually went up $200/person above our price.

Good luck.

We are doing similar from Toronto, bu southbound. Did you use Air Canada? What did you do about seat selection? We booked EZ today and I was unable to get seats. Normally wouldn’t care but we are travelling with two other parties (families with kids) so we want to be together somewhat. How are you handling seat selection? I think I may have to deal direct with Air Canada.

Yes Air Canada. I understand seat selection has a cost and only can happen after you pay for your tickets. We are choosing to wait as AC tends to have seat sales every 3-4 months.

Yes Air Canada. I understand seat selection has a cost and only can happen after you pay for your tickets. We are choosing to wait as AC tends to have seat sales every 3-4 months.[/quote

 

Thanks great info. Got a little time to wait here :D

Princess EZ-Air is awesome because of the Flex fare! If you don’t use it, though, book Alaska Airlines during October because that’s their PFD sale, which usually offers the best pricing of the year.

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You have to wait until 330 days from when the cruise ends and you are flying home. Some airlines, like SW the booking window is a lot shorter.

book now thru EZAir - make sure it is the FLEX booking if that's what you want

We used Air Canada for our recent cruise. You have to wait until the flights have been ticketed (40-44 days before), and then pay for seat assignments made more than 24 hours before the flight. The cost of the seat depends on what seat is selected. Alternatively, you can wait till 24 hours before the flight and reserve seats at no additional cost--your choice.

FWIW, we did see the flight attendant speaking with someone, explaining that while they can't force anyone to change seats to allow parties to sit together, she would ask other passengers if they were willing to trade seats. Our return flight was not completely full.

We used Air Canada for our recent cruise. You have to wait until the flights have been ticketed (40-44 days before), and then pay for seat assignments made more than 24 hours before the flight. The cost of the seat depends on what seat is selected. Alternatively, you can wait till 24 hours before the flight and reserve seats at no additional cost--your choice.

 

FWIW, we did see the flight attendant speaking with someone, explaining that while they can't force anyone to change seats to allow parties to sit together, she would ask other passengers if they were willing to trade seats. Our return flight was not completely full.[/quote

 

Thanks for info everyone. We have AC Flex. We are party of 9 travelling together. As long as we can manage to get one adult with each child (3 of them) we should be fine. The boys are 10, so not babies, but we have one nervous nelly that needs a grownup close by.

We used Air Canada for our recent cruise. You have to wait until the flights have been ticketed (40-44 days before)' date=' and then pay for seat assignments made more than 24 hours before the flight. The cost of the seat depends on what seat is selected. Alternatively, you can wait till 24 hours before the flight and reserve seats at no additional cost--your choice.

 

FWIW, we did see the flight attendant speaking with someone, explaining that while they can't force anyone to change seats to allow parties to sit together, she would ask other passengers if they were willing to trade seats. Our return flight was not completely full.[/quote

 

Thanks for info everyone. We have AC Flex. We are party of 9 travelling together. As long as we can manage to get one adult with each child (3 of them) we should be fine. The boys are 10, so not babies, but we have one nervous nelly that needs a grownup close by.[/quote']

In my experience, no adult wants to sit next to an unsupervised child (I made that mistake once!) Most kids are quite decent, but I don't want to carry on a conversation with a 10 year old--I want to bury my nose in a magazine or otherwise entertain myself. Thus, most adults will gladly trade seats so that a parent can sit next to their child. The flight attendant will facilitate this for you.

 

Obviously, no one can be forced to trade their reserved seat, but trading seats is rarely a problem. And of course, there are two possibilities. Usually the person assigned next to the child is asked to trade, but it could also work if the person sitting next to the parent would agree to swap with the child.