Next Level Traveling

[Sweety]

I buy SWA the moment the schedule changes to FLL and Seattle.

[craig403]

I totally understand the pain of airfare.  We booked DFW to MIA last November.  Economy, preferred seating for $500 each on AA for an April flight.  I looked this morning and the fare has gone up to $686 each for a three hour flight.  

[Orange Crush]

I've actually had excellent results using Google's built-in flight search.  Just search "[City Name/Airport Code] to [City Name/Airport Code]" (i.e. "BOS to FLL") and it comes back with a box where you can select your dates and look through available flights across several airlines.  It doesn't include Southwest, but I'll usually do a search directly on their site as well.

[tiny260]

@Orange Crush I use Google flight search as well, it is actually my very first stop when I start searching airfare and I have just recently starting using it to track notifications using my Google account, I use the others that I mentioned above on more long term flight searches.

In 2016 I used the Sky Scanner app to help me book some really cheap business class tickets to Barcelona for a cruise on Harmony, but I used Google first to use the calendar feature and saw that it was cheaper to fly on certain dates verses dates I thought I wanted.

[Lovetocruise2002]

2 minutes ago, tiny260 said:

@Orange Crush I use Google flight search as well, it is actually my very first stop when I start searching airfare and I have just recently starting using it to track notifications using my Google account, I use the others that I mentioned above on more long term flight searches.

In 2016 I used the Sky Scanner app to help me book some really cheap business class tickets to Barcelona for a cruise on Harmony, but I used Google first to use the calendar feature and saw that it was cheaper to fly on certain dates verses dates I thought I wanted.

@tiny260 I started using skyscanner after you recommended it a few months ago and that is how I found the United flight for under $1000 for all 4 of us.  To bad that didn't work out in the end.  Great tip though!

[melski94]

Thanks @Sabrinaklai

Its interesting what you found. I'm flying to FLL on the March 23rd and returning the 31st. So my Jet Blue tickets that I purchased August are $358pp, todays price is $468 but I think my 90 day is technically Saturday. Southwest "wanna get away fares" are sold out on the return and so those are crazy high ($750 pp). We prefer to fly direct when we can and those are the only airlines that don't have a connection. Although a quick search today, still shows even with a connection the cheapest airlines are $10 more than what I paid direct and only if I want to push the return time or stay really late. 

If we fly SW, I do buy the early bird for all of us. 

How do you keep track of it all the ups and downs of both the cruise fare and airlines? Spreadsheet or app?  Do you keep track of it on a PP basis or based on the staterooms (we need 2 for 6 people).   

[DunkelBierJay]

I've found Google flights and the airline's booking apps to be the most competitive from where I usually fly (Nashville). I use a Southwest Visa for my kids college tuition and pay it off, so I am able to accumulate enough points to cover quite a lot of airfare on that airline down to Ft Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa and even Jacksonville for Port Canaveral sailings.

[Lovetocruise2002]

14 minutes ago, melski94 said:

Southwest "wanna get away fares" are sold out on the return and so those are crazy high ($750 pp). We prefer to fly direct when we can and those are the only airlines that don't have a connection.

We fly direct too especially when travelling with our kids.  The landings always give them trouble (motion sickness) so the less landings we do the better.  Your findings are pretty similar to what @JLMoran was posting earlier as well as what my dad has been finding as he is trying to book for a March 31 sail date.  The prices are ridiculous for that weekend.  Will be interesting to see what the few weeks brings with those fares.  

15 minutes ago, melski94 said:

How do you keep track of it all the ups and downs of both the cruise fare and airlines? Spreadsheet or app?  Do you keep track of it on a PP basis or based on the staterooms (we need 2 for 6 people).   

Lol!  I am not the spreadsheet person at all!  I think of @JLMoran when read that!  I basically book my cruises and vacations really far out so I start tracking airfare when it comes out (9 months prior).  I take a screen shot of it and save it in OneNote so I have some point of reference.  Then I check daily to compare it to that.  I can remember most of it in my head.  I keep track of it on a pp basis. Those numbers are easier for me to remember.  @tiny260 also gave a really good tip a few months ago by using Skyscanner and I have found that I really like that app.

[tiny260]

@Sabrinaklai SkyScanner would have saved me a $1000 on my Barcelona trip If i had been patient, but I booked early, I had read an article talking about how far in advance to book tickets for specific areas of the world (According to the ticket algorithms there is a sweet spot for different regions) for the Mediterranean it was 210 to 240 days out, I jumped the gun and booked at about 250 days, I had been tracking them daily like you had, but at around the 210 day mark the prices came down the $1000, so I called the airline and changed the airfare (asked for the cheaper price) I was charged the $250 change fee per person, so I netted a $500 savings. I was afraid to cancel and re-book, thinking I would miss out on the dates and times I wanted to fly (That was my first time flying international).

Lesson learned... 

[Orange Crush]

28 minutes ago, Sabrinaklai said:

We fly direct too especially when travelling with our kids.  @JLMoran

I got stuck in the Nashville airport once when a power outage delayed my outbound flight well past any possibility of connecting to the last leg home out of Atlanta.  Fortunately, I had friends in that city and could stay with them and work out a return flight home the next morning, but the fact that 30 minutes and a twist of fate would've had me stranded overnight in the Atlanta airport was not lost on me.

I make every effort to fly direct from now on.

[Lovetocruise2002]

11 minutes ago, tiny260 said:

@Sabrinaklai SkyScanner would have saved me a $1000 on my Barcelona trip If i had been patient, but I booked early, I had read an article talking about how far in advance to book tickets for specific areas of the world (According to the ticket algorithms there is a sweet spot for different regions) for the Mediterranean it was 210 to 240 days out, I jumped the gun and booked at about 250 days, I had been tracking them daily like you had, but at around the 210 day mark the prices came down the $1000, so I called the airline and changed the airfare (asked for the cheaper price) I was charged the $250 change fee per person, so I netted a $500 savings. I was afraid to cancel and re-book, thinking I would miss out on the dates and times I wanted to fly (That was my first time flying international).

Lesson learned... 

Wow.  It's that far out for the Mediterranean?!  Thanks!  I will have to keep that in mind for one day when we go back.  I never watch those prices.  We have only taken one Mediterranean cruise so far (one of my favourites to date) but that was long ago and we booked airfare directly with Royal that time because I wasn't familiar with the Barcelona at all and did not want to take a chance and miss the cruise.

[tiny260]

If you use Hopper, it will actually tell you to either wait or buy now. They use an algorithm that supposedly has checked or does check millions of tickets sold.

I have it following a trip for me right now, I have an October 2018 cruise out of San Juan on Freedom, so I put in the travel dates and I get a weekly reminder on my phone, right now it is telling me to wait. The only problem that I have with Hopper is that it only checks coach tickets, on a flight this long I will probably fly Business class and it doesn't track those, far more restrictions due to fewer seats.

SkyScanner sends me weekly updates to my email, it tells me the current price according to my search criteria, if the price has gone up or down.

As @Orange Crush stated, Google is also excellent also, if your travel days are flexible, it shows you a calendar view that you can see a price approximation on the different days of the week, IE if you could travel on a Tuesday verses a Friday when all the business travelers are trying to get home. If you are like me I have limited time off and very limited flights out of Tulsa, OK and the airlines know that. Sometimes I can fool them by checking in a private browsing window (Incognito, not tracking the Cookies on my PC), then logging in when I get my price.

[Lovetocruise2002]

1 minute ago, tiny260 said:

If you use Hopper, it will actually tell you to either wait or buy now. They use an algorithm that supposedly has checked or does check millions of tickets sold.

I have it following a trip for me right now, I have an October 2018 cruise out of San Juan on Freedom, so I put in the travel dates and I get a weekly reminder on my phone, right now it is telling me to wait. The only problem that I have with Hopper is that it only checks coach tickets, on a flight this long I will probably fly Business class and it doesn't track those, far more restrictions due to fewer seats.

SkyScanner sends me weekly updates to my email, it tells me the current price according to my search criteria, if the price has gone up or down.

As @Orange Crush stated, Google is also excellent also, if your travel days are flexible, it shows you a calendar view that you can see a price approximation on the different days of the week, IE if you could travel on a Tuesday verses a Friday when all the business travelers are trying to get home. If you are like me I have limited time off and very limited flights out of Tulsa, OK and the airlines know that. Sometimes I can fool them by checking in a private browsing window (Incognito, not tracking the Cookies on my PC), then logging in when I get my price.

Thanks!  Out of reactions today 

Is Hopper an app or website?

[tiny260]

1 minute ago, Sabrinaklai said:

Thanks!  Out of reactions today 

Is Hopper an app or website?

Hopper is only an APP as far as I know.

Here is the article, it's getting old, was written in 2015, so some of this may have changed.

https://www.cheapair.com/blog/travel-tips/how-far-in-advance-should-you-book-an-international-flight/

When I first looked at Barcelona I was planning on using Royal to book air also, but I eased up my travel dates and went 2 days early and stayed 1 day longer after the cruise so I wasn't as concerned about missing the boat, plus i saw the flights they were booking, when I first looked at flights I had no idea what a +1 day flight was, what do you mean you leave one day and arrive the next day?

[JLMoran]

@tiny260, thanks for the tip about using SkyScanner. Just downloaded the app and immediately found a couple of flights in my preferred window, one on Jet Blue and one on United, that I've saved for tracking and alerts. Interestingly, United is actually the cheaper flight right now, by $56 pp. Still crazy expensive, though -- $2,333 for the four of us on United, $2,557 on Jet Blue (via the JustFly site, not Jet Blue's site). Both United and Jet Blue have a first-bag fee of $25 per person on their cheapest rates, so it's genuinely less.

That said, I'm definitely watching this. If Jet Blue stays this relatively close as I get closer to the magic 90-day mark, I may still go with them for the better leg room and at least moderate certainty I won't be assaulted if they need a passenger to get off the flight. At 6' 3", I've got some long legs to cram into an airline seat space.

Here's the interesting part. If I could convince my family to fly down on Wednesday instead of Thursday (which would mean missing a full day of school and having to leave early on Wednesday), the seats going down are almost $200 cheaper per person for the same departure time, and the price for the four of us (still coming home the same day) goes down to $1,794. United also gets cheaper, going down to $1,622 for the four of us. Still stupidly high on both airlines, but a bit more palatable when it's $700-$800 less out of pocket. And that would give us another day to explore FLL area at our leisure. Just have to see what the hotels are charging those nights (looking back at the ones recommended here in a separate thread), to see if the savings from the earlier flight would be gobbled up by the extra hotel night.

God, it's like I'm back in high school taking a financial planning class! 

[tiny260]

2 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

I may still go with them for the better leg room and at least moderate certainty I won't be assaulted if they need a passenger to get off the flight. At 6' 3", I've got some long legs to cram into an airline seat space.

On a recent flight home from Salt Lake, I missed my connecting flight because of a delay, the airline thought they made it up to me by seating me in an emergency exit row, great leg room, no issues, but the arm rest are fixed/solid, so I had no wiggle room, needless to say I was not comfortable, but it was only a 50 minute connecting flight so I lived. That said, I know what your saying on the leg room.

[Lovetocruise2002]

21 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

@tiny260, thanks for the tip about using SkyScanner. Just downloaded the app and immediately found a couple of flights in my preferred window, one on Jet Blue and one on United, that I've saved for tracking and alerts. Interestingly, United is actually the cheaper flight right now, by $56 pp. Still crazy expensive, though -- $2,333 for the four of us on United, $2,557 on Jet Blue (via the JustFly site, not Jet Blue's site). Both United and Jet Blue have a first-bag fee of $25 per person on their cheapest rates, so it's genuinely less.

That said, I'm definitely watching this. If Jet Blue stays this relatively close as I get closer to the magic 90-day mark, I may still go with them for the better leg room and at least moderate certainty I won't be assaulted if they need a passenger to get off the flight. At 6' 3", I've got some long legs to cram into an airline seat space.

Here's the interesting part. If I could convince my family to fly down on Wednesday instead of Thursday (which would mean missing a full day of school and having to leave early on Wednesday), the seats going down are almost $200 cheaper per person for the same departure time, and the price for the four of us (still coming home the same day) goes down to $1,794. United also gets cheaper, going down to $1,622 for the four of us. Still stupidly high on both airlines, but a bit more palatable when it's $700-$800 less out of pocket. And that would give us another day to explore FLL area at our leisure. Just have to see what the hotels are charging those nights (looking back at the ones recommended here in a separate thread), to see if the savings from the earlier flight would be gobbled up by the extra hotel night.

God, it's like I'm back in high school taking a financial planning class! 

I'm out of reactions today but there are several LOL moments in this!  Warning about united though....I booked and cancelled them because they changed my schedule changed 3 times in the 1.5 months that I had it booked for. So even though they were cheaper it wasn't worth it for the uncertainty. 

[Rose City Cruiser]

I have not done it personally but been reading a lot about people signing up for credit cards to take advantage of bonus miles by manufactured spending.  Some people were taking advantage of the Canadian Mint promotion where they allowed you to purchase coins at face-value.  You would order them online with your travel rewards credit card and then cash in coins to your bank account to pay off the credit card bill.