Are Airfares Affecting Your Cruise Plans?

[Z0nker]

Delays and cancellations are as much a concern as price right now for us. So our next booked cruise is out of a local port. 

[zeberdee]

4 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

We live about an hour east or north of MCO. 

 

Definetely booked through MIA to save $1000 a ticket twice now.

As we don't live in the USA we would incur some additional expenses such as car hire/ gas plus we'd have the boring drive up from Miami.
Where as, flying to Orlando we could just stay overnight at the airport hotel and book a transfer to the port.  Cheaper than hiring a car.

 

We're now looking at all inclusive such as Sandals, flights and transfers included.

 

[BecciBoo]

13 hours ago, ldubs said:

Agree. First flight of the day

5:00 dark thirty seems to be the flights we end up on every time.

[jcnick]

On 7/11/2022 at 4:58 PM, Ukigirl said:

We have a cruise booked in November out of Fort Lauderdale, I check daily and right now airfare for two is $1100.00 from Detroit, eek. Well, I’ll only fly Delta and since I’m an extremely anxious flyer, only non-stop. I check daily so hoping prices drop somewhat.

I’ve found Scott’s Cheap Flights a good resource for alerting me to lower priced flights w/reasonable schedules. They simply search and then provide links directly to airlines. Google flights is also a good resource for price alerts. Just got RT airfare for 2, SF to Singapore in Feb for $800 each w/days & times I was looking for. Hope you find a good deal!

[Peggy and Mossey]

On 7/11/2022 at 1:39 AM, LittleMissMagic said:

Yep, I'm definitely feeling the airfare sting.

 

On 7/11/2022 at 1:44 AM, FlorenceItaly said:

Flight prices are definitely a consideration.  

 

On 7/11/2022 at 1:51 AM, Tee & Chilli said:

Not willing to book Canada/ New England this Fall due to airfare prices.

 

On 7/11/2022 at 2:59 AM, John&LaLa said:

Are flights high, yes. 

Is that stopping me, no.

 

I do believe its a worrying reality now. That and all the cancelled flights.

[Hammer61]

On 7/11/2022 at 10:30 AM, HicksRA said:

Are any others rethinking some cruises based on the current steep airfares?

YES!

 

Can get a great deal on a Transpacific in October from Hawaii to either Sydney (Ovation) or Brisbane (Quantum) but a one way flight from either city to Honolulu have more than doubled in the last few months from A$400/500 to A$1400!!!!

[Big_G]

Not yet. We had so many Southwest points from cancelled flights and large purchases through the pandemic we were able to book the next 2 round trips for almost zero dollars with points to spare. We'll see how long they'll last though.

[John&LaLa]

Went to the $59 sale page for SW.

 

Flight to Richmond ended up at just over $300, and that was with the wanna getaway and lousy times 🤣🤣

[AlohaLivin]

17 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

Went to the $59 sale page for SW.

 

Flight to Richmond ended up at just over $300, and that was with the wanna getaway and lousy times 🤣🤣

That’s the issue that we have with Southwest - if you get a ticket with a reserved seat from ATL to FLA, after paying for our luggage the price is almost the same as Delta. And then with SW if there is one non-stop flight it is very, very early and extremely late in the day. The worst part is that all other flights have a layover in random place like Salt Lake (!?) making for a 7-9 hour flight. Nope, not happening. We could almost drive it in that time 😳😂

[barbeyg]

Flight reliability is more of an issue than flight costs for me.  However, when we would jump on a quick flight to FLL from here, we won't if it's pricey.  My car is much more reliable than the airlines right now.

[SimplyAlbert]

24 minutes ago, barbeyg said:

Flight reliability is more of an issue than flight costs for me.  However, when we would jump on a quick flight to FLL from here, we won't if it's pricey.  My car is much more reliable than the airlines right now.

 I agree.  We're cruising this fall and booked a non-stop flight to and from.  We're going in two days early to give us some wiggle room.  If we have to drive to the port we'll need those two days (24+ hour drive).

[ARandomTraveler]

2 hours ago, Big_G said:

Not yet. We had so many Southwest points from cancelled flights and large purchases through the pandemic we were able to book the next 2 round trips for almost zero dollars with points to spare. We'll see how long they'll last though.

The bummer with that is it's costing you more points and therefore you're benefitting less from all the points. Where you normally could get 4 flights for those points, you're now only getting 2. 

[ARandomTraveler]

1 hour ago, John&LaLa said:

Went to the $59 sale page for SW.

 

Flight to Richmond ended up at just over $300, and that was with the wanna getaway and lousy times 🤣🤣

I can never find a $59 flight to anywhere except Albuquerque or some obscure place nobody wants to go when they have that sale. They should stop advertising those fares because they don't exist to anywhere good.
 

During the pandemic I did get a lot of $79 fares to San Francisco which was cool, but I'm paying for it now with flights that are 4x the price (or more).

 

 

Edited July 14, 2022 by ARandomTraveler

[rudeney]

1 hour ago, AlohaLivin said:

That’s the issue that we have with Southwest - if you get a ticket with a reserved seat from ATL to FLA, after paying for our luggage the price is almost the same as Delta. And then with SW if there is one non-stop flight it is very, very early and extremely late in the day. The worst part is that all other flights have a layover in random place like Salt Lake (!?) making for a 7-9 hour flight. Nope, not happening. We could almost drive it in that time 😳😂

 

I'm not sure what you mean by " if you get a ticket with a reserved seat from ATL to FLA, after paying for our luggage the price is almost the same as Delta."  Southwest doesn't offer reserved seats or charge for luggage.  Are you saying that after paying for that on DELTA that it's the same as SWA?  I find that most of the time, SWA fares are lower or just slightly more than Delta BEFOER paying Delta to reserve a seat and check bags.  

 

Living in ATL, you have plenty of choices.  For my, flying out of BHM, flight schedules are crap.  I fly often to Richmond and Chicago.  For Richmond, I actually drive to ATL and take a direct SWA flight.  It's cheaper and I spend less overall travel time doing that.  I'm an hour from BHM and 2.5 hours from ATL so that extra 1.5 hours of driving easily saves me 3 hours of layovers and other flights.  We have 2 daily BHM-MDW flights a day so that works for me.  I've priced these flights with other airlines and it's always cheaper (and more pleasant) on SWA.

[MississippiMom]

Yes!  For 2023, we are back to looking at ports and cruise lines within reasonable driving range.

 

When we booked our June 2022 multi-generational family cruise, airfare was very reasonably priced to Orlando, but by the time it was time to purchase plane tickets . . . OUCH!!!  Add to that the insult of the many flight cancellations, which my immediate family unfortunately experienced, and it will be a long time before we get back to ever flying to a cruise embarkation port.

[ARandomTraveler]

1 hour ago, AlohaLivin said:

That’s the issue that we have with Southwest - if you get a ticket with a reserved seat from ATL to FLA, after paying for our luggage the price is almost the same as Delta. And then with SW if there is one non-stop flight it is very, very early and extremely late in the day. The worst part is that all other flights have a layover in random place like Salt Lake (!?) making for a 7-9 hour flight. Nope, not happening. We could almost drive it in that time 😳😂

 

17 minutes ago, rudeney said:

 

I'm not sure what you mean by " if you get a ticket with a reserved seat from ATL to FLA, after paying for our luggage the price is almost the same as Delta."  Southwest doesn't offer reserved seats or charge for luggage.  Are you saying that after paying for that on DELTA that it's the same as SWA?  I find that most of the time, SWA fares are lower or just slightly more than Delta BEFOER paying Delta to reserve a seat and check bags.  

 

Living in ATL, you have plenty of choices.  For my, flying out of BHM, flight schedules are crap.  I fly often to Richmond and Chicago.  For Richmond, I actually drive to ATL and take a direct SWA flight.  It's cheaper and I spend less overall travel time doing that.  I'm an hour from BHM and 2.5 hours from ATL so that extra 1.5 hours of driving easily saves me 3 hours of layovers and other flights.  We have 2 daily BHM-MDW flights a day so that works for me.  I've priced these flights with other airlines and it's always cheaper (and more pleasant) on SWA.

I had the same question, I had to read their post several times to try and understand what they meant by "...if you get a ticket with a reserved seat..." 

 

I think what they meant is that after paying for all the upgrades on Delta (reserved seat, baggage) the cost is the same as Southwest. 
 

I still think Southwest is better, even if the price is the same, because Southwest makes it so easy to make changes, get price drops, and cancel your flight without losing any money. You also get 2 free checked bags and 2 free carry-on bags. I'm guessing that when doing the Delta vs SW price comparison, people are often only adding the cost of 1 bag on Delta, which isn't an equitable comparison.
 

Plus Southwest has the best points system of any airline. It's very inexpensive to purchase flights with points. I often find flights that cost anywhere from 3,500-11,000 points that would cost 30,000-50,000 on another airline. 
 

 

Edited July 14, 2022 by ARandomTraveler

[John&LaLa]

1 hour ago, rudeney said:

 

I'm not sure what you mean by " if you get a ticket with a reserved seat from ATL to FLA, after paying for our luggage the price is almost the same as Delta."  Southwest doesn't offer reserved seats or charge for luggage.  Are you saying that after paying for that on DELTA that it's the same as SWA?  I find that most of the time, SWA fares are lower or just slightly more than Delta BEFOER paying Delta to reserve a seat and check bags.  

 

Living in ATL, you have plenty of choices.  For my, flying out of BHM, flight schedules are crap.  I fly often to Richmond and Chicago.  For Richmond, I actually drive to ATL and take a direct SWA flight.  It's cheaper and I spend less overall travel time doing that.  I'm an hour from BHM and 2.5 hours from ATL so that extra 1.5 hours of driving easily saves me 3 hours of layovers and other flights.  We have 2 daily BHM-MDW flights a day so that works for me.  I've priced these flights with other airlines and it's always cheaper (and more pleasant) on SWA.

 

Used to live in Huntsville, we'd drive to Birmingham for flights on occasion 🤣🤣

[grandgeezer]

No, cruise price vs value is. Until this changes, if it ever does, air prices is moot.

[poocher]

3 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

Went to the $59 sale page for SW.

 

Flight to Richmond ended up at just over $300, and that was with the wanna getaway and lousy times 🤣🤣

Not all flights, not every time.  But our flights home to CT from FLL started at 17,300 points ($225) price has dropped twice since then, now 9600 points ($148). Got 7700 points back so far.

[BeginnercruiserHD]

We had originally booked through TAP portugal a year ago, but they changed their flight schedules to where return flight was a day earlier.  We booked a different airline for the return trip.  We wanted business class on the way out, so I kept an eye out and found a deal for roughly the same price with a much better itinerary (arriving at 9 AM instead of 7:30 PM), only 3 1/2 hour layover.

 

We're really excited that the original airline changed their dates, because we were able to get a better time slot.  IT did end up costing us about twice as much as the original tickets, but the return tickets + the original tickets were roughly the same price and  at least now our transport times are much slower.

[AlohaLivin]

2 hours ago, rudeney said:

 

I'm not sure what you mean by " if you get a ticket with a reserved seat from ATL to FLA, after paying for our luggage the price is almost the same as Delta."  Southwest doesn't offer reserved seats or charge for luggage.  Are you saying that after paying for that on DELTA that it's the same as SWA?  I find that most of the time, SWA fares are lower or just slightly more than Delta BEFOER paying Delta to reserve a seat and check bags.  

 

Living in ATL, you have plenty of choices.  For my, flying out of BHM, flight schedules are crap.  I fly often to Richmond and Chicago.  For Richmond, I actually drive to ATL and take a direct SWA flight.  It's cheaper and I spend less overall travel time doing that.  I'm an hour from BHM and 2.5 hours from ATL so that extra 1.5 hours of driving easily saves me 3 hours of layovers and other flights.  We have 2 daily BHM-MDW flights a day so that works for me.  I've priced these flights with other airlines and it's always cheaper (and more pleasant) on SWA.

 He seems like you might’ve reacted a bit strongly to what I said. I’m saying you can get a reserved seat on Delta, but with SW you end up paying nearly as much even if you pay a lot extra to get on early to get a decent seat. And most flights are not non-stop on SW going to FL.  I have been flying out of ATL pretty much since 1960, I am very well aware of the options. But I was directly responding to John about a very specific topic, it wasn’t an indictment of SW but a report on our legit experiences (which is that time and again Delta makes more sense for us). 

[aubreyc1988]

4 hours ago, barbeyg said:

Flight reliability is more of an issue than flight costs for me.  However, when we would jump on a quick flight to FLL from here, we won't if it's pricey.  My car is much more reliable than the airlines right now.

I agree with this. Basically have to fly in the day before, first flight of the day in hopes of no interruptions. 

[poocher]

Early bird check in is only $20 per ticket, not a lot more.🤷‍♀️  Frankly in 15 years of flying on SWA I’ve never had an issue getting a decent seat without paying for EBCI.  I use it only when checking in at 24 hrs is a problem, like when I’m on a cruise!

Edited July 14, 2022 by poocher

[aubreyc1988]

48 minutes ago, AlohaLivin said:

 He seems like you might’ve reacted a bit strongly to what I said. I’m saying you can get a reserved seat on Delta, but with SW you end up paying nearly as much even if you pay a lot extra to get on early to get a decent seat. And most flights are not non-stop on SW going to FL.  I have been flying out of ATL pretty much since 1960, I am very well aware of the options. But I was directly responding to John about a very specific topic, it wasn’t an indictment of SW but a report on our legit experiences (which is that time and again Delta makes more sense for us). 

the key to SW is not sitting next to your traveling companions. I can be in late # Bs and still get a decent seat solo within the first 10 rows. I don't need to sit next to my husband lol. 

 

but yes, SW is usually more because of the checked bags and I would not check a bag even for free these days. I always pray they don't make me check my carry on these days. 

[poocher]

How is SW more because of the checked bags?  SW doesn’t charge for checked bags.