Questions about international air - Charlotte to Europe

[seba1]

I've been struggling with this situation for a July 2023 cruise out of Barcelona. We are in the Washington DC area and can't believe the high ticket prices and lack of direct flights. We are open to a stopover in a city on the way there and taking a train to Barcelona later in the week too. Anyone have any suggestions? Or, do we need to manage our expectations for prices ($1500-1700 per ticket for economy).

[CruiserBruce]

21 minutes ago, seba1 said:

I've been struggling with this situation for a July 2023 cruise out of Barcelona. We are in the Washington DC area and can't believe the high ticket prices and lack of direct flights. We are open to a stopover in a city on the way there and taking a train to Barcelona later in the week too. Anyone have any suggestions? Or, do we need to manage our expectations for prices ($1500-1700 per ticket for economy).

Just picking some random dates, United has a non-stop.

 

You should always be managing expectations. Sometimes people base what they expect an airfare to be on numbers that aren't relevant. If you are talking about flying this coming July, those flights have been out for at least 4 months...the cheapest fare buckets are probably already used up.

[Zach1213]

28 minutes ago, seba1 said:

I've been struggling with this situation for a July 2023 cruise out of Barcelona. We are in the Washington DC area and can't believe the high ticket prices and lack of direct flights. We are open to a stopover in a city on the way there and taking a train to Barcelona later in the week too. Anyone have any suggestions? Or, do we need to manage our expectations for prices ($1500-1700 per ticket for economy).

 

It's summer peak season with very high demand. $1500-$1700 sounds about right, though it wouldn't have been even a few years ago. Especially when you start limiting yourself to nonstops. You might want to look at airlines like TAP (via Lisbon) and Aer Lingus (via Dublin), not necessarily as stopovers but as connection points. They're easy places to connect, and may bring the fare down. 

[FlyerTalker]

Everybody wants non-stop flights.  Guess what....prices are higher for those because of the increased demand.

 

A simple place to start is to recognize what are the primary gateways for European travel on USA airlines.  For United, that's Dulles and O'Hare and Newark.  For American, that's Philadelphia.  For Delta, that's JFK, Atlanta and Detroit.  So don't expect to find multiple carriers all with nonstops from the same gateway, except when you add in the national carrier of your destination.

 

Have to agree with Zach and Bruce - you are looking at high season and the lowest buckets were probably sold out by now.  That's likely to be the price you will pay - of course there may be limited, localized exceptions, but choosing to fly in summer and not buying tickets already is a recipe for higher expenditure.  Especially if you want a non-stop.

 

There are some random dates with pricing sub-$1000, all on TAP through Lisbon.  But since we only have "July 2023", that's the best I can do.

[fbgd]

3 hours ago, Zach1213 said:

 

Pharmaceuticals is what I was told, though I don't remember what company. Someone making pharmaceuticals in the RDU area and shipping them to Europe via AA's LHR route. 

 

GSK, IIRC. I believe when AA was operating the 767 on that route in the early 2000s they guaranteed something like a couple of dozen J seats per flight even if they weren't used.

[NCteacherlovescruising]

3 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

Everybody wants non-stop flights.  Guess what....prices are higher for those because of the increased demand.

 

A simple place to start is to recognize what are the primary gateways for European travel on USA airlines.  For United, that's Dulles and O'Hare and Newark.  For American, that's Philadelphia.  For Delta, that's JFK, Atlanta and Detroit.  So don't expect to find multiple carriers all with nonstops from the same gateway, except when you add in the national carrier of your destination.

 

Have to agree with Zach and Bruce - you are looking at high season and the lowest buckets were probably sold out by now.  That's likely to be the price you will pay - of course there may be limited, localized exceptions, but choosing to fly in summer and not buying tickets already is a recipe for higher expenditure.  Especially if you want a non-stop.

 

There are some random dates with pricing sub-$1000, all on TAP through Lisbon.  But since we only have "July 2023", that's the best I can do.

You’re saying they waited too long.  When do you think is the best time to buy tickets for summer flights to Europe?

[CruiserBruce]

42 minutes ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

You’re saying they waited too long.  When do you think is the best time to buy tickets for summer flights to Europe?

You can monitor prices of similar flights before the actual flights you are looking for are made available. Thus you can get an idea exactly how the airline operates it's fare offerings. It used to be the best fares were at initial time of release, but now its much more common for fares at date of release to be high, then drop at some point after release...10 days, 2 weeks, 30 days, 60 days. Every airline is different. If the OP is specifically looking at United for their IAD-BCN non-stop, the lowest fares will start 15-30 days after initial release. But if you don't do your research, you won't know when that is. And there isn't some magical date, each and every time. Again, you have do research, and monitor regularly. There are some programs/websites out there that can monitor for you.

 

This is critically important if you are doing award seats.

[The Other Tom]

On 1/7/2023 at 1:36 PM, NCteacherlovescruising said:

My husband and I have booked a cruise from Barcelona to Rome for June, 2024

Used to be (and probably still is), if a Norwegian cruise stops in Rome, you can embark/disembark from there.  We booked a western Med cruise that starts/ends in Barcelona but includes Rome as a stop.  We flew from CLT to Rome and spent a few days there, then boarded our cruise.  There were only a few people doing this since most people started in Barcelona.

You might want to call your travel agent and see if you can do this as well. (Or you might want to talk to someone at NCL who knows the rules). You'll probably have to cancel your current cruise and rebook.  I assume you haven't paid in full yet and maybe you can transfer your deposit to the new cruise.  Even if you lose your deposit, it still may be cheaper to do it that way.

Edited January 12, 2023 by The Other Tom

[NCteacherlovescruising]

On 1/10/2023 at 7:41 PM, CruiserBruce said:

You can monitor prices of similar flights before the actual flights you are looking for are made available. Thus you can get an idea exactly how the airline operates it's fare offerings. It used to be the best fares were at initial time of release, but now its much more common for fares at date of release to be high, then drop at some point after release...10 days, 2 weeks, 30 days, 60 days. Every airline is different. If the OP is specifically looking at United for their IAD-BCN non-stop, the lowest fares will start 15-30 days after initial release. But if you don't do your research, you won't know when that is. And there isn't some magical date, each and every time. Again, you have do research, and monitor regularly. There are some programs/websites out there that can monitor for you.

 

This is critically important if you are doing award seats.

So I should start monitoring at what point American Airlines reduces prices from Charlotte to Europe?  I think they are the only airline that flies nonstop to and from Barcelona and Rome. 
 

I don’t think we can possibly earn enough miles in time to use them for our flights, although we will try. 
 

1 hour ago, The Other Tom said:

Used to be (and probably still is), if a Norwegian cruise stops in Rome, you can embark/disembark from there.  We booked a western Med cruise that starts/ends in Barcelona but includes Rome as a stop.  We flew from CLT to Rome and spent a few days there, then boarded our cruise.  There were only a few people doing this since most people started in Barcelona.

You might want to call your travel agent and see if you can do this as well. (Or you might want to talk to someone at NCL who knows the rules). You'll probably have to cancel your current cruise and rebook.  I assume you haven't paid in full yet and maybe you can transfer your deposit to the new cruise.  Even if you lose your deposit, it still may be cheaper to do it that way.

 

We aren’t cruising with NCL. We will be on Celebrity.  I’m not quite sure what you’re suggesting. We love the itinerary, it’s the main reason chose this cruise. It’s Barcelona to Rome and we plan to spend time on each end in those cities. I do have one scheduled with NCL that I haven’t got around to canceling yet. I jumped ship after Celebrity came out with their 2024 Europe itineraries. I booked while onboard so we got a lot of OBC. I have zero intention of canceling and rebooking. We only had to pay $200 in deposits, but we have $1350 in OBC. 

[fbgd]

14 hours ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

So I should start monitoring at what point American Airlines reduces prices from Charlotte to Europe?  I think they are the only airline that flies nonstop to and from Barcelona and Rome. 

 

Not worth your time.

 

The simple version is that there are limited supplies of fares at given prices (the cheaper being less flexible tickets) and as those sell out only higher priced, more flexible tickets remain. If demand for a flight is high then those cheaper tickets may sell out very quickly leaving only higher priced, more flexible ones available. In some extreme cases the cheaper fares are never offered by the airline.

 

Revenue and yield management could theoretically add more cheaper seats in at any time, but the ultimate goal is to fill the plane with the highest fares possible. So there is no set time that prices drop, and they may never drop...

 

There are some excellent videos, even though they're a few years old the principle is still valid. This is a worthwhile watch with a particular noteworthy part starting 4:50 in.

 

 

[FlyerTalker]

That video should be pinned at the top of this forum.  Might head off a number of inquiries.

 

Then again....

[NCteacherlovescruising]

3 hours ago, fbgd said:

 

Not worth your time.

 

The simple version is that there are limited supplies of fares at given prices (the cheaper being less flexible tickets) and as those sell out only higher priced, more flexible tickets remain. If demand for a flight is high then those cheaper tickets may sell out very quickly leaving only higher priced, more flexible ones available. In some extreme cases the cheaper fares are never offered by the airline.

 

Revenue and yield management could theoretically add more cheaper seats in at any time, but the ultimate goal is to fill the plane with the highest fares possible. So there is no set time that prices drop, and they may never drop...

 

There are some excellent videos, even though they're a few years old the principle is still valid. This is a worthwhile watch with a particular noteworthy part starting 4:50 in.

 

 

Thanks for sharing the video.