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FLIGHT COST


Glo

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24 minutes ago, Glo said:

I have never paid as much for flights.  Usually there has always been flights with discounts for cruising.  Is everyone having problems with international flights?

I live on the west coast of Canada so I am used to paying lots of $$ for flights to Florida. I don't believe there are discounted flights for cruise passengers available. NCL offers a program for discounted domestic flights but you just end up paying more for the cruise so not sure if the discount really amounts to anything in the end.

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Another service to have a look at if you fly a lot (as there is a subscription fee for using it long term) is www.faredrop.com (I am not affiliated, nor have I used the site).

For future flights, you can set where you want to go and when and they will send you an alert when discounted pricing becomes available.

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Flights for us are always expensive...approx. $650ish is the norm....we get sales sometimes where $500 is a steal.......I drive 6 hrs to get to a US airport that has some low cost carriers and have paid as low as $75 return....but the normal is about $250ish so far when I have booked..but mu flights for Nov have doubled in cost all ready so glad I booked them when I did..

 

We need a good recession to lower these high cruise and flight prices......

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oh I wasn't joking.......during the last recession I could travel often for so cheap all over the US and Caribbean....prices have doubled-tripled what I used to pay back then.....from hotels to AI's to cruises to flights.....AND our dollar was about par to the US during that time which helped as well.....

 

Or if the CAD could gain about 40% now, that would work as well.....

 

I think we are headed for a recession no matter if we want one or not very shortly, but time will tell. 

 

 

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"International" is pretty vague. I can fly nonstop, round trip, next week from Los Angeles to Tokyo for $700. I would say that's pretty good.

Strong US economy (assuming that's where you're leaving from, you don't say), lots of demand, and a generally fixed number of seats bring on high fares.

 

3 hours ago, mcoler18 said:

We are flying form the UK in October and have paid just shy of £2k for 2 adults and 2 children, practically the same price as the cruise.

I get what you're saying, but comparing the two aren't realistic or fare. Airlines and cruise lines operate on two very, very different economic models and cater to different types of travelers. An airline can offer a plane ticket and not much else...sure, a little bit extra for seat selection or bag check, maybe (many don't charge that either), but a cruise line generally has oodles of extra costs that they rely on - dining options, drinks, activities, etc. etc. These help off set an often under-priced cabin, whereas airlines don't have that option.

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3 hours ago, mcoler18 said:

We are flying form the UK in October and have paid just shy of £2k for 2 adults and 2 children, practically the same price as the cruise.

Yip, i look to pay about £500 pp from uk to new york, then have to get from new york down to San Juan which is almost the same price. 

 

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9 minutes ago, Zacharius said:

"International" is pretty vague. I can fly nonstop, round trip, next week from Los Angeles to Tokyo for $700. I would say that's pretty good.

Strong US economy (assuming that's where you're leaving from, you don't say), lots of demand, and a generally fixed number of seats bring on high fares.

 

I get what you're saying, but comparing the two aren't realistic or fare. Airlines and cruise lines operate on two very, very different economic models and cater to different types of travelers. An airline can offer a plane ticket and not much else...sure, a little bit extra for seat selection or bag check, maybe (many don't charge that either), but a cruise line generally has oodles of extra costs that they rely on - dining options, drinks, activities, etc. etc. These help off set an often under-priced cabin, whereas airlines don't have that option.

I wasnt making a comparison, just a light hearted statement of fact. ?

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2 minutes ago, mcoler18 said:

I wasnt making a comparison, just a light hearted statement of fact. ?

Just checking. I hear a lot of people make the argument/complaint that their airfare shouldn't cost more than their cruise since the cruise is what they really care about...I always try to let them know that it's just not quite fare to compare them.

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@Glo look at where you are cruising out of, if Miami, price tickets going to Fort Lauderdale and then taking a car down to Miami, that is what I have done recently to keep my airfare cost down. Also look at combinations of flying in to FLL and out of Miami or the opposite. 

I have to fly to almost all cruise ports, and my cheapest airfare recently was flying in to Newark for an Anthem cruise and my most expensive ticket is flying in to Orlando for a Harmony cruise. 

For those asking about @Ray I know from other post that he fly's in to NY, so that his wife can shop.

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53 minutes ago, Levi said:

Flights in general have gone up as the amount of flying aircraft have gone down with the 737 MAX grounding. At the airport near me they've outright canceled three routes due to plane shortages. 

There is an impact from MAX grounding, but it's often overemphasized. AA's MAX fleet is 24 out of 968 total aircraft, or 2.48%. United is 14 or 784, or 1.79%. Southwest was most hit, but still MAX is only 24 out of 754 aircraft, or 3.2%. The bigger impacts are the economy itself and the increased demand for travel. That being said, I wouldn't put it past AA/UA/WN to claim MAX groundings have some monumental impact on their fleet capabilities and they must raise fares as a result, but really...the three US airlines combined that operate MAX combine for only 62 out of 2,506 aircraft (2.47%).

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15 minutes ago, Zacharius said:

There is an impact from MAX grounding, but it's often overemphasized. AA's MAX fleet is 24 out of 968 total aircraft, or 2.48%. United is 14 or 784, or 1.79%. Southwest was most hit, but still MAX is only 24 out of 754 aircraft, or 3.2%. The bigger impacts are the economy itself and the increased demand for travel. That being said, I wouldn't put it past AA/UA/WN to claim MAX groundings have some monumental impact on their fleet capabilities and they must raise fares as a result, but really...the three US airlines combined that operate MAX combine for only 62 out of 2,506 aircraft (2.47%).

The problem is all the carriers were taking 3-7 max aircraft per month.  It’s not 62 at this point that are absent from the system, It’s a few hundred.  That’s had a huge impact.  SWA RPMs were flat summer over summer.  They had planned to grow 5%.   UAL and AMR affected a little less but still affected.   When planes are flying around at 90+% load factors the prices are going to be high because demand outweighs supply.  

 

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That is the other reason we are moving back to Florida. Flying out of Knoxville is a joke.  On the other hand we  use our air mile credit cards for almost everything. The points have made our airline costs almost non existent .  Also having a good travel agent is beyond beneficial at times.  I used to book our airlines for years and would do all kinds of connecting flights to save money.  It was a lot cheaper to connect than a lot of the direct flights.  We agree it is a hassle.

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7 hours ago, RG306 said:

We paid almost double what we usually pay for our Florida flights in November (and they've gone up exponentially since) and cancelled Barcelona for the May 2020 because of the insane price points of flights.  

Did you check KLM/Delta ?

I don't know your location but from JFK they have incredibly cheap tickets to Barcelona (for Canadian standards)

https://www.klm.com/offers/us/en/campaign/cheap-flight-offers-economy

 

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Fares are disgusting.  Alaskan cruise has been on my bucket list for years.  Flights to Vancouver were actually half of what it was to come home from Anchorage!  Fortunately,  I had about 100K frequent flyer miles and that paid for most of the airfare.  Investigating other options for traveler cards - mine was American Airlines and their flights are not really comfortable and couldn't use Alaskan (partner with AA) because flight times were horrible.  

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16 hours ago, Finally Retired said:

Fares are disgusting.  Alaskan cruise has been on my bucket list for years.  Flights to Vancouver were actually half of what it was to come home from Anchorage!  Fortunately,  I had about 100K frequent flyer miles and that paid for most of the airfare.  Investigating other options for traveler cards - mine was American Airlines and their flights are not really comfortable and couldn't use Alaskan (partner with AA) because flight times were horrible.  

You can always fly in to SEA and take the very easy road trip (via car, bus, train) up to Vancouver. Often can save a good chunk of change because you avoid Canadian taxes.

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On 8/15/2019 at 12:22 AM, RG306 said:

We paid almost double what we usually pay for our Florida flights in November (and they've gone up exponentially since) and cancelled Barcelona for the May 2020 because of the insane price points of flights.  

i would have waited to cancel the cruise out of Barcelona. You are still a long ways out and a very good chance there will be an airfare sale before then.

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This is very interesting topic as I thought I was the only one (of course I knew that wasn't the case) looking at these high prices and wondering if driving to Miami may be the answer. It is 14 1/2 hours from my house and that is doable just not as convenient. My cruise is March 8, 2020 out of Miami on Oasis of the Seas. I have a wide-range to look at from D.C. area airports to Richmond Virginia, and even my local airport, Charlottesville, VA. The flights that are within decent price range have me going on all over the place to include LaGuardia, and Philadelphia to go south to Miami. In March old-man weather can generate all kinds of weather that can stop you; but, normally going south first helps. Well, so far driving is starting to look better and better every day.  We shall see ?

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2 hours ago, Tim B. said:

This is very interesting topic as I thought I was the only one (of course I knew that wasn't the case) looking at these high prices and wondering if driving to Miami may be the answer. It is 14 1/2 hours from my house and that is doable just not as convenient. My cruise is March 8, 2020 out of Miami on Oasis of the Seas. I have a wide-range to look at from D.C. area airports to Richmond Virginia, and even my local airport, Charlottesville, VA. The flights that are within decent price range have me going on all over the place to include LaGuardia, and Philadelphia to go south to Miami. In March old-man weather can generate all kinds of weather that can stop you; but, normally going south first helps. Well, so far driving is starting to look better and better every day.  We shall see ?

I've been driving myself crazy with that same thing.  Flying from NJ to Miami.  We will not drive to JFK or LGA to fly south - no lower price is worth the time, traffic & tolls.  So we look at EWR, PHL, AC and even ABE.  Won't fly Trenton as they cancel those flights a lot.  We look at flying into MIA, FLL, PBI and even MCO.  Our friends live near Orlando and offered to put us up for the night and drive us to Miami as they are on the same cruise. I started tracking flights around 6 months out - those were the cheapest.  Every other day I'd log on to the various airline sites,  (gotta watch because most of the sites that search the various airlines give you the basic rates which don't even allow carry-ons) and put in all my scenarios, write down the prices, and move on.  We finally chose a flight from PHL to FLL.  Once or twice a week I look back at our flight and see if they prices have dropped, and so far they've gone up.  We're almost at 90 days so going to look until then, and finally close the search tabs and be done with it.

I can't wait to be in a position, one day, to not have to put all this work into flight costs and just book when we want, to where we want, without watching the bottom line.  One day...

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I need some advice from seasoned international flyers. Flying to Italy next year for the first time. Does booking 6mos out seem like a reasonable time frame? I know that flight prices can jump all over the place without rhyme or reason. I would just like to book a flight at a fare price. I need to have a guaranteed seat. I am not one of those people who can, pun or no pun intended, depends how you look at it, fly by the seat of my pants. I'll pay a little extra for the peace of mind.

I know like booking a cruise, at some point you just have to pull the trigger and don't look back.

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2 minutes ago, FManke said:

I need some advice from seasoned international flyers. Flying to Italy next year for the first time. Does booking 6mos out seem like a reasonable time frame? I know that flight prices can jump all over the place without rhyme or reason. I would just like to book a flight at a fare price. I need to have a guaranteed seat. I am not one of those people who can, pun or no pun intended, depends how you look at it, fly by the seat of my pants. I'll pay a little extra for the peace of mind.

I know like booking a cruise, at some point you just have to pull the trigger and don't look back.

Track the prices for a little bit.  Google Flights has a graph that pulls the prices so you can see how they trend.  Check what they are 2, 3, and 6 months out right now and see if you can tell where a sweet spot is.  You can also pick up on things like Tuesday flights are always the cheapest and Sundays are highest, etc.  Just gives you a bit of reference to know when to start paying attention and take the gamble.

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1 minute ago, AshleyDillo said:

Track the prices for a little bit.  Google Flights has a graph that pulls the prices so you can see how they trend.  Check what they are 2, 3, and 6 months out right now and see if you can tell where a sweet spot is.  You can also pick up on things like Tuesday flights are always the cheapest and Sundays are highest, etc.  Just gives you a bit of reference to know when to start paying attention and take the gamble.

Thanks @AshleyDillo. I've looked at the prices this year and it seems like the prices didn't vary much between 6mos and 3mos out. From 3mos in is where they seemed to take a jump. Seems a reasonable action.  Who knows what next year will be like though. I've been following Flightscanner and they seem to offer some of the best prices through their partners.  

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