Best time for booking air travel

[Bristol5]

I have booked my first Alaskan cruise for next May. Now I have become obsessive about trying to plan the Air portion of the trip. It will be a multi ticket, flying into Vancouver and out of Seattle. If I book now the prices are in the $515.00 pp range. Is it too early to book our flights? What are the chances that the fares will go down? I know that no one has a crystal ball, but wondering about past experiences of others.

 

I am always excited about a future cruise, but I think this one has them all beat! :D

[NancyL2]

I originally booked our flights in early March for a September cruise to Alaska.

The airline cancelled our return flight in early May. The latest flight out of Seattle is at 11:20am....we are now walking our bags off the ship asap.

My take on this...I will never book flights that early again. The price of our RT ticket has not changed.

[Keith1010]

I figure out what a good price is and then I book it.

 

I prefer to book early and get the sets we want and this approach works well for me.

 

Keith

[KirkNC]

I have rarely seen fares go down so we usually book early.

[slider728]

I have to admit I am not familiar with the airfare patterns out of Georgia where you profile says you are from.

 

However, as a rule of thumb, there tends to be sales on airfares to/from Alaska for several weeks when the PFD is payed out in Alaska.

 

The PFD is the permanent fund dividend or the "free money" non-Alaskans tend to call it that Alaska residents get every year. This year, it looks like the payout is October 2. As virtually everyone in the state gets this payment, there tends to be sales as companies jockey to get the money from the people.

 

I live in Chicago area and I usually buy my airfare for the year during the PFD sales. Then again, Alaska Airlines flies into Chicago. I'm not sure if you'll get the same kind of sales in Georgia. It is something to watch for though.

[Bristol5]

Thank you VERY much, all of you, for your responses. You have been very helpful to me.

[martincath]

Some of the better online services, like Kayak (.com), have information of this type - listing a comparison of current pricing along with an estimate of whether prices are likely to go up or down, and a % chance of doing so.

 

I've found it to be pretty accurate, as well as a much more versatile tool for checking available flight times & routing than expedia, travelocity, or individual airline websites - it's become my go-to site for flight planning.

[Floridanamaw]

I booked our flights into Seattle and out of Vancouver for our September cruise back in April. The fare worked out to 550.00 per person. It has steadily gone up since then to now about 650.00 per person. I spent a month watching them go up before I just said the heck with waiting for them to go down and booked. I'm glad I did. When I first started looking they were less than 500.00 per person.

 

 

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[Bristol5]

Thank You, again. I will check out the Kayak site, and then try to make a decision. If I don't book in the next few days, I think I need to take a break and wait for the PFD as recommended by Slider 728. You can make yourself crazy , of course this helps to pass the time while waiting for your Cruise. :D

[tlcoke]

I set up a price watch on Kayak.com when prices became available and found my best prices in Late December - end of January for my flights to Vancouver and from Anchorage for my August Cruise. Which was roughly $10 cheaper than opening pricing.

Just be aware, the airlines WILL adjust their flights and schedules within a couple months of your trip. I have had an outright cancellation which after a 45 minute call with the airline, I was upgraded to a exit row for free and the extra money paid for extra legroom was refunded as the new flight did not have any seats in this category available. My other flight legs have had minor adjustments in schedules also.

[hollon]

I have booked my first Alaskan cruise for next May. Now I have become obsessive about trying to plan the Air portion of the trip. It will be a multi ticket, flying into Vancouver and out of Seattle. If I book now the prices are in the $515.00 pp range. Is it too early to book our flights? What are the chances that the fares will go down? I know that no one has a crystal ball, but wondering about past experiences of others.

 

I am always excited about a future cruise, but I think this one has them all beat! :D

 

I'm from Tennessee and if it were me, I'd grab that price and run.... I've been to alaska from knoxville and am looking again for next year and our prices are around 688.00 as of a month ago. Good Luck

[CruisingGiants]

Bristol it sounds like we are on the same ship! I'm planning on booking a one way flight to Vancouver using kayak (cheapest flight) and then booking with Southwest coming from Seattle (they don't fly to Vancouver). Southwest tends to have great prices -- plus two free bags! -- but they don't let you book as in advance as other carriers (and for some reason don't show up on kayak or Expedia or Travelocity). After calculating, I think we can save about $100 doing it this way.

[Bristol5]

Bristol it sounds like we are on the same ship! I'm planning on booking a one way flight to Vancouver using kayak (cheapest flight) and then booking with Southwest coming from Seattle (they don't fly to Vancouver). Southwest tends to have great prices -- plus two free bags! -- but they don't let you book as in advance as other carriers (and for some reason don't show up on kayak or Expedia or Travelocity). After calculating, I think we can save about $100 doing it this way.

 

Thanks, CruisingGiants, I had looked into one way flights, but found that the price for one way from Seattle was as much as round trip! I did not check Southwest, so will do that.

 

We are on Carnival Legend, May 18th, have not gotten to the Roll Call yet.