Fly to Fun fare "no longer available"?

[EllieinNJ]

I am doing a B2B cruise on the Pride next May/June and been pricing the fares on FTF and United since August.  Originally they seemed to be coming down weekly on both but in the last two weeks they have gone up a few hundred dollars.  Today the fare on United came down two hundred and there were plenty of economy seats available.  But when I went to the FTF to see the exact flights it said the flexible fare was not available and the non refundable fare was more than United's. 

 

Do you think the flexible price will come back?  It was about $500 less than United.

 

[klfrodo]

Probably not.

Those tickets were negotiated months if not years ago. If FTF no longer has any of those tickets in that bucket, then they are gone. FTF is probably negotiating tickets for 2024/2025 now.

 

FTF is a consolidator. They don't just go to the airline today and say Hey, we need 2 tickets for May of next year.

[loanshark]

Almost all of the negotiated fares used by the cruise lines today are filed by the airline with ATPco that allow the cruise lines to book seats at a discount off the regular fare if the airline has seats available in specific fare buckets (generally, the lower priced ones, but each airline is different).

 

In the meantime, the airlines will release seats into the lower priced fare buckets if they feel a flight is not selling well.  They use computer algorithms to help determine if a particular flight is selling well.  If necessary, they will add more inventory to the lower price fare buckets to help stimulate demand for a particular flight.

 

Thus, it is possible for the OP to see the price they originally had seen to come back, but it is also possible they will never see the fare again.  Generally, the best fares for leisure travel can be found 4 to 7 weeks out before departure, and there is plenty of time between now and the 4 to 7-week window of when the OP's cruise departs.  That being said, I would keep checking every couple of days at least until a better price becomes available at least until you find a good fare, or mid to late April.       

Edited October 21, 2022 by loanshark