Airfare Sticker Shock

[Roz]

Back story - I was supposed to take a Yuletide cruise thru The Netherlands and Belgium last year, but canceled before final payment because of the onerous Covid testing requirements.  I had already booked and paid for flights thru Tauck.  I rebooked for this year, but couldn't get the same dates.  Ended up with a cruise over Christmas (Dec. 20 - 27) and waitlisted for the Dec. 6 sailing.  

 

I've been monitoring the Tauck website, and it looks unlikely there will be any Dec. 6 cancellations in the category I need to not pay a single supplement.  Contacted my TA and told her to go ahead and book premium economy flights for me for the Dec. 20 sailing.  I'll be flying into Amsterdam on Dec. 16 - 17, and leaving Brussels on Dec. 27.  TA came back with $ $2237.00 for flights on AA and BA.  Much more than I expected, so I checked to see what the fare would be if I booked directly with the airlines - $4,655! 😲🤑  I know I'm flying before and after a major holiday but I wasn't expecting that.  I have a credit with Tauck from last year which will ease the pain a bit but still, it's an expensive proposition.

 

Moral of the story, if you're traveling overseas for a river cruise, book flights sooner rather than later.  With the price of fuel going up every few days, I don't see flights going down or even staying the same.  

[NBG1998]

I would also recommend using Google Flights to monitor airfares on your desired routes. If you're not ready to book for whatever reason, it will at least give you a sense of what typical fares are for the route. I'm tracking a route right now and just two days ago, Google alerted me that the fare was expected to rise within the next 24 hours.

Not sure it does that with every route but it was helpful info for me. 

[Roz]

@NBG1998, thanks for the info.  I told my TA to go ahead and book me thru Tauck, as I don't see any relief in sight with Christmas fares.  

[ljandgb]

My daughter is flying home from Korea and tickets went up 100% from when we looked a month ago.  Yikes.  I also just read an article that said fare predictor sites were having a hard time accurately predicting "best time to buy" right now due to the volatility.

[Roz]

Update - TA booked flights and sent me an updated Tauck invoice.  No credit for last year's canceled flights that I paid $1,011 for.  There was a $450 cancellation fee, but Tauck said they thought they could get that waived if I rebooked, which I did.  In any event, I should have a credit of either $561 or $1,011.  

 

I have 3 cruises booked between October of this year and March of next year.  They are all turning into a lot of work.  Sigh....

[LWFM]

We received an AMA river cruise as a gift for our 40th Anniversary. Leaving June 13,2022 out of Basel. $2000 of the gift was designated for air. I was stunned when the cost was @$1400 per person for economy. We felt so bad we just paid the difference but the flights are not great even with the assistance of AMA and we have no idea where we are sitting because it is a code share. 

[Roz]

My flights are almost equal to the cruise fare.  I can see this happening a lot going forward with ocean cruises which are generally much less expensive than river cruises.  

[milling73]

Viking is offering free air on many of their river cruises, and maybe ocean as well. We just booked 2 back to back cruises with them. Flying into Prague July 25, and return from Zurich on Aug 24. And we received awesome flight connections and times from their travel department.  
With the prices of air right now, (in fact anything right now) that was a welcome savings. 
 

[KathyK13]

Where are you flying from?  I'm flying from Rochester NY to Budapest Dec 2, returning from Munich Dec 15.  plan to book within a week; I just checked and can fly United Premium Economy for $1287, about $100 cheaper than flights booked for last year.  Out of curiosity I checked for flights on the same itinerary you are doing and it was around $1600.   

[Roz]

@KathyK13, I'm flying from Nashville.  The think the main reason the fares are so expensive is because I'm flying right before and right after Christmas. 

[KathyK13]

8 minutes ago, Roz said:

@KathyK13, I'm flying from Nashville.  The think the main reason the fares are so expensive is because I'm flying right before and right after Christmas. 

Probably.  Flights from our small airport are usually more expensive than most.  I was surprised that the cost for this December is the same that we paid last year.  

[Roz]

I would have been thrilled to have gotten last year's fares.

[Canal archive]

Your lucky to be able to fly we’re having flights cancelled when passengers are buckled into their seats. Not good.

[NBG1998]

Delta is giving me agita with that, I keep reading about people that it happened to.

[cleobella]

So true that airfare is currently inflated.  We bought return tickets for a Med cruise in October many months ago, during one of the last lockdowns,  and got a great deal on Premium Economy  seats.  Just bought return Premium Economy tickets to Germany/going home from Switzerland in early December and got absolutely soaked. Paid $1000 more then what we were expecting to pay.  We grabbed the tickets feeling that it could get worse and because we were able to get the seats we wanted.  The cost of travel in these crazy time I guess.  Just crossing our fingers that our trips go off without too much trouble!

[Roz]

Update, for anyone interested. 😁

 

Tauck finally came through, and gave me full credit for last year's canceled flights.  This speaks well of them as a company, and shows the value of having a TA who goes to bat for their clients.  I will continue to do business with both of them.

 

 

[marieps]

We booked premium Economy thru Ama and saved $800 compared to direct with Delta/Air France.

[patrickmoran]

Working off Covid-related credits for cruises and airfare this Fall. After that I plan to take a hiatus until prices return to a reasonable level. Probably some car trips in my future next year.

[CastleCritic]

I know the feeling, I just put $1500 of an American Airlines credit towards a cruise next May that..lets see started as I want to say $2500 for airfare for a cruise  in may 2020, was canceled and AA lost the voucher until I called them then was partially used for a trip in the US then the remainder was booked again with AA and they canceled the flight (but refunded the trip back as credit)...the fun part is that AMA cant use credit towards their booked airfare so I cant get their discount and use it.

 

Even better part I looked up a business class ticket to Australia...$16k-$20k.

[Coral]

1 hour ago, CastleCritic said:

 

 

Even better part I looked up a business class ticket to Australia...$16k-$20k.

OMG.

[Pompein]

I just booked our business class tickets Lufthansa and paid the same price as  2019. We don’t live in hub city, so for some reason AMA never has the flights we want and has never had a lower price. I wish we could book aus with them.