Group Airfare

[villagenut]

July 2020 cruise on Magic booked!

Group of 12.  I'm now looking into flights for everyone.  Looking for advise and or experiences in trying to book flights for a group.  I am comfortable booking online however most sights limit to 6-9 tickets per booking.   I realize i can just do two bookings.  The way airfare changes and tickets come and go, I'm a little concerned that we may not all get same fare or same flights.  Odds of that are probably pretty slim.  Can also just call airlines directly but they sometimes charge extra for person to person bookings.  So, tell me about your experiences or offer me some advice.

Thanks

 

Edited October 11, 2019 by villagenut

[jc4me]

Before you book, check with Carnival.  We used them when we flew from NC to Seattle and the price was comparable to what we could get online, but it allowed us to make payments.  The total amount was due at the final payment date for the cruise.  We requested flexible air fare so that we could cancel if we found a better price. 

[coevan]

possibly some of the guests want different seating, like exit row or stretch coach. Get the dates, flight times, and all book as families or individuals. 

[MistyRo76]

Is everyone flying the exact same routing or will people be coming from other places? Personally, I would let everyone be responsible for their own airfare. Book the flights you want and pass along the flight information. Then people can choose the price point they want (economy, main, comfort, etc.) and choose their own seats. 

[tallnthensome]

Try the Cruise Air forum since this question isn’t Carnival Cruise Line related .

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/77-cruise-air/

[Zach1213]

Two things to consider:
 

1) If everyone is responsible for their own air travel, not only do they get to choose exactly what works for them, but if they need to make changes or cancel, it only impacts them. 

 

2) Sometimes, buying larger numbers of tickets can raise your rate. Why? Well, let's say there are 3x tickets left in the lower fare bucket, but you want to buy 5x. Instead of giving you 3x @ Price 1 (lower bucket), and 2x@ Price 2 (higher bucket), it'll instead give you 5x @ Price 2 (higher bucket). By allowing each person or family to book themselves, there's a better chance that a family of two or three can get in to that lower bucket price, and then you can see if the airline wants to release more tickets at that same price, or raise/lower the price for future tickets. 

 

If you all end up on the same flight, great. But I would really push you to follow the route of letting everyone do their own thing. Less pressure on the organizer, too. 

[keywest1]

2 hours ago, villagenut said:

July 2020 cruise on Magic booked!

Group of 12.  I'm now looking into flights for everyone.  Looking for advise and or experiences in trying to book flights for a group.  I am comfortable booking online however most sights limit to 6-9 tickets per booking.   I realize i can just do two bookings.  The way airfare changes and tickets come and go, I'm a little concerned that we may not all get same fare or same flights.  Odds of that are probably pretty slim.  Can also just call airlines directly but they sometimes charge extra for person to person bookings.  So, tell me about your experiences or offer me some advice.

Thanks

 

We have a group of 11, all immediate family.  I got a great group rate through AA.  Had to pay a $50 pp deposit which will be refunded when the flights are ticketed.  We know what our flights are (we got to choose), but they will assign a block of seats.  We will choose who sits where within that block.  Since DH and I are paying for all the flights, I won't have to worry about collecting payments.  This worked well for us. I booked about 11 months out, as soon as the basic fare dropped.  

[rukkian]

2 hours ago, villagenut said:

July 2020 cruise on Magic booked!

Group of 12.  I'm now looking into flights for everyone.  Looking for advise and or experiences in trying to book flights for a group.  I am comfortable booking online however most sights limit to 6-9 tickets per booking.   I realize i can just do two bookings.  The way airfare changes and tickets come and go, I'm a little concerned that we may not all get same fare or same flights.  Odds of that are probably pretty slim.  Can also just call airlines directly but they sometimes charge extra for person to person bookings.  So, tell me about your experiences or offer me some advice.

Thanks

 

We have 14 on magic in March, so basically same boat.  If Southwest works for where you are coming from, their group rates are nice.  You have to have 10 to get them, and you have to call.  Benefits - Once you get the booking, you have 10 days to pay a $50 pp deposit.  After that, the actual cost is due 45 days before the flight.  You can still make changes (changing flights, days, etc) as much as you want, with no penalties.  You usually get a slight (like 5%) discount off the rate you find online for it.  Drawbacks - You do not get ff miles, you have to call, and there can be a long wait when flights are released.  We had a group booked for our flight, but the day before the deposit was due, Delta added several flights that were perfect and were way cheaper than every other option, so we booked that through Carnival.  

 

Booking through carnival is another option, but again, you have to call.  The price is about the same (within 10%) of the cost you see online, and then no payment is due until final payment for your cruise.  You can use carnival gift cards to pay (saving 10%) off the cost, and they guarantee you will make it on the ship.  You can all get on one group call, and get them booked one room after the other.

[RWolver672]

Or you could go through a travel agent and let them do the work.

 

[Gardyloo]

On 10/11/2019 at 10:49 AM, Zach1213 said:

Two things to consider:
 

1) If everyone is responsible for their own air travel, not only do they get to choose exactly what works for them, but if they need to make changes or cancel, it only impacts them. 

 

2) Sometimes, buying larger numbers of tickets can raise your rate. Why? Well, let's say there are 3x tickets left in the lower fare bucket, but you want to buy 5x. Instead of giving you 3x @ Price 1 (lower bucket), and 2x@ Price 2 (higher bucket), it'll instead give you 5x @ Price 2 (higher bucket). By allowing each person or family to book themselves, there's a better chance that a family of two or three can get in to that lower bucket price, and then you can see if the airline wants to release more tickets at that same price, or raise/lower the price for future tickets. 

 

If you all end up on the same flight, great. But I would really push you to follow the route of letting everyone do their own thing. Less pressure on the organizer, too. 

This is the important thing to understand.  Airfares are published in "chunks" (called fare categories or "buckets.")  Each "bucket" will carry slightly different rules from the others - maybe having to do with change restrictions, advance purchase requirements, etc. - which won't have any impact on the actual flight experience most of the time.  Each bucket will carry a different fare - maybe a few dollars, maybe hundreds - from the others.  They'll all exist as published fares, but here's the deal - the airlines adjust the number of seats for sale in each bucket from time to time.  When fares are first published, maybe there aren't any seats assigned to the cheapest fare bucket, but they are later.  When you see a fare go "up," it means that a more expensive bucket is being sold, while a lower priced one has been zeroed out - for the time being.  The airline can - and they often do - put seats back into the lower priced bucket.  It's not the fares that are being changed, it's access to differently priced buckets.

 

For example, here's the fare bucket availability for an American Airlines flight from Little Rock to Dallas on January 6, 2020 - (business class) J7 R0 D0 I0 (economy) Y7 B7 H7 K7 M7 L7 G7 V7 S4 N0 Q0 O0 .  This means that today American will sell you a seat in one of the business class fare categories (the most expensive, J) but not in the cheaper R, D, or I "buckets."  In coach, they will sell you a seat in one of 9 economy categories (ranked from more expensive to least, Y to S) but not in the cheapest categories, N through O.  (Note that "7" is the most the computer systems lists as available in any one bucket, but it means "at least" 7.)  Don't add the numbers up, it just means they will sell a seat in any of the buckets with numbers next to them, until the actual available total is sold out - maybe 4 seats in "S," maybe 15 in "V."  

 

For somebody trying to get 12 seats on that flight right now, the computers would disregard the 4 seats available in "S," and instead price all the tickets in the cheapest bucket with 12 seats available.  Thus everybody pays the higher price by booking together, whereas 4 might have gotten cheaper tickets by buying independently.

 

But there's this - as soon as four "S" tickets are sold, the airline's computer might very well refill the "S" bucket right away - maybe adding three or four more, maybe 10 or 12.  Or they might wait a week, see how sales are going, and then add the seats back into "S."  There's no way to know; the computer programs that do this work are extremely complex and secret.  

 

I know this is bewildering to most people - it's kind of designed that way.  Transparency is NOT a goal in airline revenue management departments.  But - in general - the fewer tickets you buy at one time, the higher the odds you'll get the best available price at that time.  Tomorrow, it might not be.

[waterbug123]

To get that many in one booking on an airline, without the website defaulting to the highest fare bucket, you will need to call the airline and ask to speak to someone in group reservations.  They can do it for you.

 

That said, there is no way in hell I would let myself be responsible for booking a group that size. First of all, everyone has to be on exactly the same itinerary and chances are someone will want to leave earlier in the day or later in the day or fly in from another city for some reason.  Someone will insist on nonstop and someone else will want to break it up.  At the last minute, someone will decide they need to fly in the next day.   And on and on and on, and YOU will be the one constantly having to fix the problems. 

More importantly, YOU will be the one who has to make the payment and then in turn, get money from everyone else.  And there will always be someone promising to "send you the money on Monday."   And then Uncle Bob will change his mind because he found an amazing deal somewhere, and someone else will decide they want to use their air miles and now the group size has changed so the rate has gone up from what you told everyone initially, or maybe you don't even qualify as a group anymore.  And on and on and on.