Air Fare

[jetsfan]

When do you buy tickets for international travel? We are cruising in May to Venice?

 

I have looked at Kayak and some other sites. It's hard to know if fares will go up or down. I guess if I find one I can live with, I should do it.

[bindy1]

Still playing game for April 2013 to SNA(Long Beach)

 

Delta is becoming my least favorite airline. If it were not for one free bag DH and I recieve--I would not book them.

 

Local airport small so we are at mercy of US Air and Delta

 

 

Have you tried flying out of Dulles or Charlotte? Not sure if the 3-4 drive would be worth any savings in airfare or not. My parents live in SW VA and those are the two airports they sometimes fly out of depending on fares.

[hattack]

There is no set rule regarding air fare..several factors come into play (hub city with lots of choices or dominated by one carrier, smaller city with less air choices, can you fly off peak (i.e. thursday night monday morning), are you aligned with one carrier's reward program, domestic or international, time of year)

the fewer your options, you should book as far in advance as possible...if it's a huge port (Fll,MIA) air fares are not going to drop...don't get sucker into a cheaper fare on a return trip early in the morning before noon...the carriers use that sales tool to move non cruise traffic off the peak cruise flights...if you are flying international to catch your cruise...air fares could go down closer to your travel dates based upon inventory...

I am fortunate to live in a major Southwest city and belong to their "bing program" other carriers may be cheaper on the base fare but when you add all the other stuff, SW looks real good. Air carriers are reducing seat miles in cruise cities and raising fares to make $$$$$

Most veteran cruisers know that if you can take Monday after your cruise off, then you can volunter for Sunday flights that are oversold and use the travel credits for next years cruise

[ZoeyVictoria]

We're driving 4 hours to Atlanta, got our flights down to FLL on points, got our flights back to Atlanta for $165 for both of us on Air Tran. Booked them yesterday for Sept.

 

Last month on a land vacation we drove from the Gatlinburg area to Atlanta, then flew to Fort Myers. The purpose was to avoid a rental car drop-off fee at the Knoxville airport, but the result was a lower fare and a valuable lesson about driving a few hours for a reasonable fare.