Flights

I am looking or experience with flying through multi cities. We will be flying into Vancouver before our cruise. Flying back from Anchorage. I have only ever booked round trips. The flight to Vancouver is a good price right now. Anyone had issues with booking the two flights separately? Anything to consider when buying the trip out now and holding off for a hopefully better cost on the trip home?

Are you looking at booking in the "multi cities" tab or the one way tab?

As the season approaches, prices to/from Alaska tend to rise rather than go the other way.

The "multi city" or open jaw booking method (usually) tends to produce the best pricing overall.

I would do some research on the Cruise Air board, here:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=128

I agree, "multi city" is the tab you should be looking at. I also agree that prices for Alaska and the involved airports are very likely to go up, not down.

But I disagree that booking open jaw is the best outcome. It is some times, but you need to look at the options for booking two one way trips. Vancouver is essentially considered a domestic flight for most airlines, and domestic one ways can turn out cheaper than open jaw. Again, not all the time, but you should check it.

We are flying from MSP to YVR, then on the cruise, and ANC back home to MSP. I tried all sorts of options, from one way, to open jaw, to different carriers on different days, etc. It was a pain in the rear! In the end, we decided to arrive in Vancouver 2 days before the cruise departs so we can see some of the city. After the cruise, we are spending one night in Anchorage, so we can avoid a red-eye flight home + the time change. We will have 3 kids with us age 10, 10, and 6 so a red-eye flight and/or connecting through LAX in the middle of the night sounded horrible for us. We booked non-stop flights both ways with Delta. At the time I bought our tickets, the non-stop flights were almost the same cost as flights with layovers.

My advice is to pay attention to the flights you like (flight number, departure and arrival times, and price) and book it as soon as you can when you like the price. The cost will go up, not down.

Booking multi city flights on line or through your travel agent is not a problem. Many times when I did this for business I got some better deals than round trip.

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I have been looking at all options and spot checking for a year. I had been mostly watching multi city. Today Hopper notified me the one way to VAN was a good price, which led to me trying to decide

It can go either way...Multi city versus 2 one way tickets...we have done both depending on price. for July this year, it was cheaper to book two one way tickets than multi city for United Houston to Vancouver and then Anchorage to Houston.

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Explore all options..including using a combination of different airlines for outbound and return.

I used Google flights for our trip last year. We flew into Vancouver and out of Anchorage. The best combination of price and flight times turned out to American to Vancouver and Delta returning from Anchorage.

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I always book as two one ways. This gives me the option of using different airlines to get the cheapest price. I get off a cruise in Anchorage July 7. I booked a one way on Icelandair to Ireland for $385 on the 9th, spend two weeks in Ireland and then booked a return from Ireland on British Airways to Denver with miles. It takes some time and effort, but it seems to always work out cheaper.

If you are looking for flights for the May cruise that is in your signature, I would not wait to book, doubtful you will find anything lower. We are also sailing in May and booked our flights months ago.

If May is your cruise....not knowing your exact dates.....I am seeing open jaw, MCI>YVR, ANC>MCI for +/- $465 (Alaska Air).

I would grab that so fast....:cool: