Flights to San Juan

[Srp431]

I know that flights to San Juan are expensive, but wondering how expensive. We're traveling during spring break Mar 2020 on Freedom (family of 4). I'm starting to look at flights out of Minneapolis / St. Paul (MSP) and options are really limited. Delta is offering $1,700 main cabin seats (this is 6 months out) and this isn't even direct, these flights have 1 or 2 stops. I usually book early, but I'm wondering if I should wait another month or 2 or just bite the bullet. Spirit is also high around $1,000, but we won't fly them due personal issues w/ them.

Any advice would be appreciated. Delta is our preferred airline.

[Sweety]

19 minutes ago, Srp431 said:

I know that flights to San Juan are expensive, but wondering how expensive. We're traveling during spring break Mar 2020 on Freedom (family of 4). I'm starting to look at flights out of Minneapolis / St. Paul (MSP) and options are really limited. Delta is offering $1,700 main cabin seats (this is 6 months out) and this isn't even direct, these flights have 1 or 2 stops. I usually book early, but I'm wondering if I should wait another month or 2 or just bite the bullet. Spirit is also high around $1,000, but we won't fly them due personal issues w/ them.

Any advice would be appreciated. Delta is our preferred airline.

What about Southwest? I live in Chicago and just booked my spring break tickets.

[Srp431]

thanks for the reply Sweety! I forget about Southwest. I just checked and they are around $1,200 RT. We're hoping to leave on a Friday (Mar 20), 2 nights in San Juan. Cruise is from Mar 22 - 29 (Sun - Sun).

[AshleyDillo]

Airfare for the Freedom Blog Cruise Group Cruise this December was shockingly high.  Now I was expecting higher prices because this is a New Year's cruise, but even Southwest never even offered Wanna Get Away fares available for the return flight home the same day as the cruise.   

At about 130-150 days out from the cruise the airfare to get there dipped about $80 on Southwest.  At around 120 days out Frontier dropped their price for the return trip home by a large amount so I jumped on that.

The cheaper end of the choices that I had for flying from Orlando were on Southwest, Frontier, Spirit, Alegiant and Jet Blue.  None of the US domestic legacy carriers even came close to touching the prices.  JetBlue's price never waiver from when I originally was looking at the prices 5 months out.

Long story short, airfare prices are nearly impossible to predict with much accuracy.  Consider adjusting to stay extra before or after if it ends up being a cost savings when you figure in the hotel stay.  

[Zacharius]

1 hour ago, Srp431 said:

I know that flights to San Juan are expensive, but wondering how expensive. We're traveling during spring break Mar 2020 on Freedom (family of 4). I'm starting to look at flights out of Minneapolis / St. Paul (MSP) and options are really limited. Delta is offering $1,700 main cabin seats (this is 6 months out) and this isn't even direct, these flights have 1 or 2 stops. I usually book early, but I'm wondering if I should wait another month or 2 or just bite the bullet. Spirit is also high around $1,000, but we won't fly them due personal issues w/ them.

Any advice would be appreciated. Delta is our preferred airline.

So a couple of things:

1) Are you quoting prices per person, or for your family of 4? Of course, $1700pp for MSP-SJU is ridiculous...$425pp during spring break seems very fair. This is a very important distinction. That being said, if it is $1700pp, I still don't know what to tell you because of my second point, which is...

2)  In the case of Delta, the tickets have been out for quite some time now...since approximately April. So, odds are the lowest fare buckets are now gone for a peak season like spring break to the Caribbean. I would say the odds of it coming down are very, very small. They're unlikely to release lower fare buckets due to demand, and a sale for a high travel period like that is something that has about a 5% chance of happening. (Not a real statistic, just stressing it's very unlikely) 

The biggest "issue" is that the US economy is super strong right now, and there is an extremely high market for both vacation and business travel. That is all tied up with a relatively static number of seats for sale, which results in high fares. 

[Srp431]

The prices I mentioned were per person and NOT a total for the 4 of us.

[Srp431]

Our last 4 cruises were out of FL over spring break (end of March) the last 4 yrs on Freedom, Harmony, Oasis, and Symphony  and we were paying around $700 - 800 pp

[Zacharius]

22 minutes ago, Srp431 said:

The prices I mentioned were per person and NOT a total for the 4 of us.

 

I'd be finding a way to drive to Puerto Rico

[MarvinS]

All I can say is "WOW" to that pricing...  It's sad that spring break and holidays is the time for the airlines to really take advantage of customers on pricing... 

I'm flying from Anchorage, Alaska to San Juan, Puerto Rico the first part of June 4th, and our tickets on American Airlines from ALASKA (with stops in Seattle & Charlotte) were only $379 each (one-way)!!!

[Bella]

The last time we sailed out of San Juan, we flew into Ft Lauderdale the day before,  stayed overnight and took the first flight out of Ft Lauderdale to San Juan the day of the cruise.  It was a lot cheaper breaking up the flight.   You may want to price airfare per segment.  Sometimes the price is better.  You might even be able to use two different airlines depending on prices.  

[BunnyHutt]

What about flying back on Monday? I just checked JetBlue and the price drops $450/pp if you fly home on Monday 3/30 instead of Sunday. Their timetable stinks, but that price differential may be indicative of what you could see on other airlines. I would also be open to  booking different airlines to/from. 

Flying to SJU over spring break hurts, period. Even with my husband’s crewmember discount for positive space seats, we paid close to $700/pp to fly down there for spring break 2017 cruise. 

[Tmsmith]

I concur with Bella. We are cruising out if San Juan in Nov and I found fares higher than usual.  We ended up doing one-way New Orleans to Orlando and then one-way orlando to san juan a lot cheaper than NOLA to San Juan. Granted, we have to get our bags but we broke it up to a late friday after work flight and then leave 1st thing in the morning to PR (staying a free night in Hyatt in the Orlando airport) so getting bags isn't a problem.  The total cost was 1/3 of what it would have been and we get to start vacation a little earlier.  Coming home, we did PR to NOLA but booked it later after watching prices.

[Sweety]

On 9/27/2019 at 2:32 PM, Srp431 said:

thanks for the reply Sweety! I forget about Southwest. I just checked and they are around $1,200 RT. We're hoping to leave on a Friday (Mar 20), 2 nights in San Juan. Cruise is from Mar 22 - 29 (Sun - Sun).

I lived in Minneapolis for a year and a half. 

[Jill]

Have you checked with RC to do their Air/Sea? 

How about using a travel agent to hunt down flights? 

[Mrs. RoyalMoyal]

I agree with Jill, we flew to SJU last Easter week for 370 pp from Elmira, NY.... changed planes twice, beginning in a Barbie Jet (SRJ 700)... changing to bigger planes at each airport. 

I found this price using choice air. We picked our seats. Economy...

Price would have been $825 pp directly through Delta. I did not see this price difference between choice air and booking direct with other nearby airports. I booked the flights the week they came out... 

[Srp431]

I did check w/ Royal about the Air / Sea flights and they were very competitive with what I was finding on-line the only difference was they were' not showing early morning flights only evening one, but I think I'll look at one-way flights and changing planes and we'll see what happens, Thanks all for the ideas, much appreciated as always. Overall, its going to be an expensive flight.

[KathyC]

We got a SW $140pp flight home from SJU to EWR for a repo cruise we have coming up next month.  We tracked prices for a very long time and that was the best we could do.  We have to fly to Detroit, I think, or maybe Chicago first, and will be a 9 hour trip total...but man the flights were killer doing it any other way.  

[CurtisM]

September 5th 2019 cruise, my wife and I paid roughly $1800 for 2 out of Richmond, VA with American.

[WAAAYTOOO]

33 minutes ago, CurtisM said:

September 5th 2019 cruise, my wife and I paid roughly $1800 for 2 out of Richmond, VA with American.

YIKES !!!

[PurdueFlyer]

we've seen high prices ex. SJU for Sunday returns also, unless you are departing at 6 or 7am.  since that's too early for most cruise pax to book a return flight with regards to disembarkation procedures, airlines know this and price accordingly.  

last time did a SkyMiles award ticket going into SJU on a Saturday, and booked a one-way on Frontier SJU-ATL for $120 one-way at 4pm coming back.  it was a third of the price of Delta at the same time.  sometimes it helps to split it up, but not always. 

[Zacharius]

8 minutes ago, PurdueFlyer said:

last time did a SkyMiles award ticket going into SJU on a Saturday, and booked a one-way on Frontier SJU-ATL for $120 one-way at 4pm coming back.  it was a third of the price of Delta at the same time.  sometimes it helps to split it up, but not always. 

With domestic US flights, there's almost no instances where booking a roundtrip saves money versus two one-ways. The only concern is, if your plans change, there are two change fees to deal with. But that's a calculated risk that is sometimes worth it. I've done it plenty of times. 

[ellcee]

22 minutes ago, Zacharius said:

With domestic US flights, there's almost no instances where booking a roundtrip saves money versus two one-ways.

I have not found that to be true but I'll test it out again when I book my next trip. I also don't like certain airlines and will avoid them if at all possible.

[coneyraven]

We're on the cruise right after you (March 29th) ..... one of the ideas that my wife came up with, fly down to MCO the day before, stay the night at my mothers (about 20 minutes from the airport), then fly to SJU the morning of the cruise (that's one of the upsides to Freedom not leaving till later)..... thereby saving us the cost of the hotel ..... I'll have to tinker with the numbers when I get home this evening.

[Jolly Ogre]

I would check on flights to Miami then check flights from there to San Juan. Either that or other Fla airports to see if there is a better deal that way. From Ft Myers it is about $200pp.

[JBC]

I have been looking hard at that Freedom cruise out of San Juan, but the airfare is crazy.  With the wife being a teacher and also really not wanting to take the kids out of school, we are limited to the winter and spring break weeks, which greatly compounds the problem.  The flights are just about more than the cruise.  Flights to Florida at those times have gotten crazy in recent years, but San Juan is worse.  I really try to stick to the major airlines, some of the budget airlines are brutal.  

Frontier just got added recently to our airport, although I have heard mixed reviews.  I would ride in the bed of a pickup truck before flying Spirit again.  

[BD1157]

We used Air2Sea for our 2/24/19 Freedom of the Seas out of San Juan from MSP. I bought 4 tickets on United Airlines at $784.00 each.

That was last February and the fares seemed really high compared to other destinations.

[Zacharius]

1 hour ago, ellcee said:

I have not found that to be true but I'll test it out again when I book my next trip. I also don't like certain airlines and will avoid them if at all possible.

Interesting. I live on the road, I book about 500,000 miles worth of travel per year for myself and colleagues. Much of that is domestic US, and we're always comparing prices. I almost never see instances of two one-ways being more than a roundtrip (for example, AA1234 ORD-DFW and AA4321 DFW-ORD are priced the same whether booked as a roundtrip or two one-ways). 

[Zacharius]

Duplicate post, sorry 

[WAAAYTOOO]

1 minute ago, Zacharius said:

Interesting. I live on the road, I book about 500,000 miles worth of travel per year for myself and colleagues. Much of that is domestic US, and we're always comparing prices. I almost never see instances of two one-ways being more than a roundtrip (for example, AA1234 ORD-DFW and AA4321 DFW-ORD are priced the same whether booked as a roundtrip or two one-ways). 

My how things have changed.  Back in my travel agency days (WAAAAAYYYY back.  We used Official Airline Guides - BOOKS !!) it was always cheaper to book RT and 1Way.  The airline industry is nothing like it was back then though.

[ellcee]

2 minutes ago, Zacharius said:

 see instances of two one-ways being more than a roundtrip

Didn't mean to imply that two one ways were more expensive - just that I've never noticed a real benefit of booking 2 one ways for my flights.

[PatsFanBrian]

We cruised out of PR in March '17.  At the time, flights from Logan (Boston) were $900/pp.  I looked at Newark and the price was $550/pp.  So we booked Newark, drove 3.5 hours the night before, stayed in a hotel that included 7 days of parking and saved over $400 overall.

We're looking to take Freedom out of PR in March '21.  We'll be looking at the same options when it comes time to book flights.  It helps to have multiple choices of airports within a reasonable driving distance.

[CruisinUpinLife]

We got so lucky and were able to find flights for $800 total for 2 people for trip there and trip back.  We did one way flights due to how the flight schedules were released.  We had the flight there available for a while and I just kept checking on Southwest constantly.  American had a good priced flight but it was an ON flight arriving at 3am or so which wasn't ideal so I kept looking.  Then suddenly I checked one day and found a flight to SJ (of course not nonstop but that is not possible to do where we are from) for $260pp.  Then I saw where Southwest would open the next chunk of their flight schedule on August 15th.  I kept looking all morning on the 15th until bam...the new dates appeared to allow us to book a return flight.  What do you know...found a flight coming home the day of our cruise for less than $200pp.  I was shocked...like seriously shocked but quickly got the OK from my husband and booked it.

Bottom line....just keep looking and note when the airline will release the flight schedule for a particular time period.  I've also heard from others on here that if you book a flight with no penalty to reprice/rebook then go ahead and book but keep looking.

[Zacharius]

16 hours ago, ellcee said:

Didn't mean to imply that two one ways were more expensive - just that I've never noticed a real benefit of booking 2 one ways for my flights.

Gotcha. I do it when schedules aren't good on the same airline out or back, or there's a substantial savings versus a roundtrip on the same airline (for example, Southwest charging $100 out and $300 back, but AA charges $100 back...I'll fly Southwest out, AA back, all other things equal...just an example). 

[AshleyDillo]

16 hours ago, Zacharius said:

Interesting. I live on the road, I book about 500,000 miles worth of travel per year for myself and colleagues. Much of that is domestic US, and we're always comparing prices. I almost never see instances of two one-ways being more than a roundtrip (for example, AA1234 ORD-DFW and AA4321 DFW-ORD are priced the same whether booked as a roundtrip or two one-ways). 

I don't see it much on AA, but I do see it on Delta.  Those are the most prevalent domestic carriers from my smaller airport.  There's actually a fair amount of hidden-city ticketing that I can do to get cheaper prices, but that's only good if you aren't going to be checking bags.  (For example it's often cheaper to book from my home airport with a layover in MIA and then to another destination than it is to book the straight up flight to MIA..and yes it IS the same flight number for that leg to MIA!).

But then it's usually WAY cheaper (like hundreds of $) for me to suck it up and drive 2.5-4 hours to a larger airport.  Just not as convenient, but I'm not much one for paying for convenience a lot of the time.

[Dan Curtis]

We are doing a cruise in January out of,San Juan, we ported out of their last year and really enjoyed San Juan, but the cheaper flights home left before you could get to,airport. We fly from cvg(Greater Cincinnati airport) where delta has the most flights, we turned points in 25 thousand points and a small 6 dollar fee for,one way on delta to,Sju. But return on delta was outrages, so,we are using United via,Houston for 220 dollars a peace, so the total for,sju and back will cost around 450 dollars, so you really have to be inventive to,port out of San Juan.

[Zacharius]

1 hour ago, Dan Curtis said:

We are doing a cruise in January out of,San Juan, we ported out of their last year and really enjoyed San Juan, but the cheaper flights home left before you could get to,airport. We fly from cvg(Greater Cincinnati airport) where delta has the most flights, we turned points in 25 thousand points and a small 6 dollar fee for,one way on delta to,Sju. But return on delta was outrages, so,we are using United via,Houston for 220 dollars a peace, so the total for,sju and back will cost around 450 dollars, so you really have to be inventive to,port out of San Juan.

Last time I flew out of SJU (last year) it was absolutely dirt cheap...like $180 each way, each person from SJU-CLT-MCI. Yes, we did spend a night after the cruise, but it still came out ahead. Definitely can be worth doing the math of flights on one day, versus flights + hotel + meal on the next day. In our case, we still saved like $50 and justified an extra night of vacation, so it was worth it. 

[Jim82Mac]

On 9/27/2019 at 11:40 AM, Srp431 said:

I know that flights to San Juan are expensive, but wondering how expensive. We're traveling during spring break Mar 2020 on Freedom (family of 4). I'm starting to look at flights out of Minneapolis / St. Paul (MSP) and options are really limited. Delta is offering $1,700 main cabin seats (this is 6 months out) and this isn't even direct, these flights have 1 or 2 stops. I usually book early, but I'm wondering if I should wait another month or 2 or just bite the bullet. Spirit is also high around $1,000, but we won't fly them due personal issues w/ them.

Any advice would be appreciated. Delta is our preferred airline.

Google.com/flights is a good flight aggregator. I used them to find decent flights to SJU out of Seattle this past April. And ended up booking a flight through Flightsbank. Paid just $595rt/pp with our flight leaving the Sunday we docked. Though, like all aggregators Southwest is not listed. 

[coneyraven]

On 9/30/2019 at 4:40 PM, PatsFanBrian said:

We cruised out of PR in March '17.  At the time, flights from Logan (Boston) were $900/pp.  I looked at Newark and the price was $550/pp.  So we booked Newark, drove 3.5 hours the night before, stayed in a hotel that included 7 days of parking and saved over $400 overall.

We're looking to take Freedom out of PR in March '21.  We'll be looking at the same options when it comes time to book flights.  It helps to have multiple choices of airports within a reasonable driving distance.

This gave me the idea to checked neighboring airports .... normally we fly out of BWI due to being a hub for SW ....... So, I checked Dulles & National Airport in DC .... both were more expecsive, in fact, no return flights to Dulles at all for the date we needed ....... so, we're sticking w/ Baltimore.