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The "90-day flight pricing rule" is validated again


JLMoran

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44 minutes ago, monctonguy said:

Air Canada started Rouge here a few years ago and sold it to us a something that was going to compete with cheaper charter airlines for flying south....all that happened is we got stuck with less space, less options and the same high prices Air Canada always have charged....

Don't get me started on Air Canada.  My father and I share common sentiments for them but they can't be shared on a good natured forum like this.

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54 minutes ago, monctonguy said:

Oh I am sure there are downfalls and pitfalls with ULCC's. Even with charter airlines I ran into an issue one year when the company just shut down a few days before my vacation. Luckily I was able to get my money back and ended up booking my first cruise ever so it was a blessing in disguise.

 

As a fellow Canadian, I get what you are saying.  Our options are limited for almost everything.  A similar thing happened to us about 3 years ago with a charter airlines...National Airlines.  They promoted themselves with direct flight to Sanford International Airport and it made it attractive because we would not have cross the border to fly out.  Well, less than two months before our trip they shut down services and we scrambled to get a flight on Delta.  Thankfully, we grabbed it just before prices jumped.  We are fortunate enough that it takes us less than an hour to get to DTW but @monctonguy guy, it must be frustrating for you out on the East Coast.

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2 hours ago, monctonguy said:

We have a couple ULCC airlines supposed to be starting up here in Canada...based on some American and European models. None have announced flights to the USA or Caribbean yet but they are both saying there will be.

 

I am really hoping we start to have more options than 2, which is basically what we have now. If airline prices go much higher..it will start to limit my cruising options....driving to NJ or MD maybe the only option to cruise if they were to go much higher.

I remember when I would go with WestJet once it went to Cayman direct as it was 1/4 of the Air Canada prices although, those I hear are much better now. But part of the blame might be the taxes. I remember leaving Hamilton, ON to Kelowna, BC was way cheaper than from Toronto. I think these other companies would benefit from leaving from some of these smaller cheaper airports. Its bad when driving over the border an hour saves you half the price.

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We got a good pricing on our last cruise out of Mia...(ended up flying to FLL as a result of flight cancellations but) the flights to Miami were about $189 CAd each way....I was pretty happy to say the least....we booked them about 60 days out but there were some good sales on during that time...

 

 

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2 minutes ago, monctonguy said:

We got a good pricing on our last cruise out of Mia...(ended up flying to FLL as a result of flight cancellations but) the flights to Miami were about $189 CAd each way....I was pretty happy to say the least....we booked them about 60 days out but there were some good sales on during that time...

 

 

That's not too bad at all!  The price I saw two weeks ago from DTW-MIA was $346USD/pp (all taxes in).  That was decent considering it was sitting over $400/pp since I started tracking it 3 months ago.  Still, I hesitated and didn't go for it because I checked mid-April prices (3 months out) and it was $313/pp  Like I said, I hope it was not a mistake.  It is back up to $484 now.?

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11 minutes ago, Sabrinaklai said:

That's not too bad at all!  The price I saw two weeks ago from DTW-MIA was $346USD/pp (all taxes in).  That was decent considering it was sitting over $400/pp since I started tracking it 3 months ago.  Still, I hesitated and didn't go for it because I checked mid-April prices (3 months out) and it was $313/pp  Like I said, I hope it was not a mistake.  It is back up to $484 now.?

Track FLL as well.  It's often cheaper than MIA.  With four flying it doesn't take long to pay for a shuttle or ride share.

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6 hours ago, Sabrinaklai said:

I'm tracking prices to MIA for July.  I saw a pretty big drop two weeks ago.  I almost bought it.  But were 6 months out at that point.  So I took a gamble and I'm holding off to test the 90 day again.  Hopefully I don't regret it.

I am tracking tickets to Tampa for July, the tickets are high.

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On 2/11/2018 at 3:55 PM, Sweety said:

What airline are you looking at? I booked SWA from Midway, leaving March 25.

For which trip?  We leave ohare on march 24 for ft lauderdale for the 6 day...we paid 550 on american...sw never did come down at all...   for paris we found flights out of ohare in july for 880...and thenthey dropped after we bought!  Argh.  

We are much closer to ohare (arlington hts) than midway so when i look at southwest i have to take into consideration time to midway, parking, etc.   But i really really like southwest airlines...of course i wasnt flying yesterday when they cancelled all flights when they ran out of de-icer.  Ouch!   Where in illinois are you from?   Jane

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15 minutes ago, mom2mybugs said:

For which trip?  We leave ohare on march 24 for ft lauderdale for the 6 day...we paid 550 on american...sw never did come down at all...   for paris we found flights out of ohare in july for 880...and thenthey dropped after we bought!  Argh.  

We are much closer to ohare (arlington hts) than midway so when i look at southwest i have to take into consideration time to midway, parking, etc.   But i really really like southwest airlines...of course i wasnt flying yesterday when they cancelled all flights when they ran out of de-icer.  Ouch!   Where in illinois are you from?   Jane

Chicago, Hyde Park. We are 20 minutes from Midway. What cruise are you taking in July? I love Paris. I work in Chicago and we had a day off Friday.

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22 hours ago, Sweety said:

Chicago, Hyde Park. We are 20 minutes from Midway. What cruise are you taking in July? I love Paris. I work in Chicago and we had a day off Friday.

We will be trying a river cruise for the first time...on Viking.   I'e never been to Europe so im beyond excited!   We will stay in Paris the week before so any advice would be hugely appreciated!   We were all off on Friday..I teach preschool and before/ after school and husband is a high school teacher... love snow days when you actually get to stay home and not drive in it!   Jane

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On 1/2/2018 at 6:49 AM, Sabrinaklai said:

Delta (which we usually fly) shows prices about 10-11 months out.  Other airlines are generally around 6 months out like @JLMoran said above.  My strategy is the same, I will check it as soon as it comes out (assuming I have a cruise booked out that far at that point) or as soon as I know I need a flight (for example my Anthem cruise in March we did not decide until October 2017 so I missed the 11 month out mark already).  I make note of the price and flight times by taking screen shots of it and noting the date I checked the price.  Nothing fancy like Joe who probably has some super spreadsheet.  Anyway, then I start checking daily.  I use my app so it's not really hard work.  Takes less than a minute to check.  If you don't mind taking the risk, the 90 day mark is usually when it drops.  But that drop is not necessarily (as I have found in some past cases) the lowest price ever.  Sometimes it could be just a bit up from the lowest price.  The trend I have found is that the price is low at the beginning, then goes up and down a lot in the middle, then drops at the 90 day to something slightly higher or lower than the beginning and then climbs again.  I have done both, grabbed a flight as soon as it is released and at the 90 day mark.  The last few times I have waited till about 90 days and have been happy with the results.

The disadvantages of booking further out is also that the airlines might change the schedules on you as time goes on.  Then you are left scrambling to either pick a new time (assuming you can without penalty) or to deal with the new (maybe not as ideal) times.  For our Anthem cruise I had originally booked with United in November but within a month they changed the schedule twice on us.  The last change was for a departure out of EWR at 8:30am which I knew I would not make even with express self departure.  But since the schedule change exceeded two hours from what I originally booked I was able to cancel completely without penalty.  I am now booked back with Delta (thinking more about @twangster's tip about staying loyal to one airline) and I grabbed that fare at the 90 day mark which there was a considerable drop.  

I have not flown to San Juan in a long time so I'm no help there as to a rough idea of cost.  But I can say that tracking does pay off.  I lately, I have really loved the Hopper app that @tiny260 recommended.  I like how it watches your fare and predicts if you should wait or buy.  I've been using that as well to track the fares for my flight in July.  We'll see what happens come April.  The research continues ?

When I tried to book a flight with Delta I was told the flights can't be booked til 331 days before the latest day of travel.  That means 331 day before your return date.  I wanted to book a trip to Europe where I left on Sept 10 and returned on October 10th and the flight couldn't be booked til 331 days before October 10th.  Hope that helps.

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So this morning I got to experience something @Sabrinaklai said had happened to her with United -- an email out of the blue saying my flight back home had been altered. Instead of our originally booked flight at 4:00, now we're on a flight home that's departing an hour earlier. So far not a problem, it actually was kind of good because it meant we'd be home in time for dinner (barring delays, of course).

They also left me in my Economy Plus seat that I'd bought, but... they went and changed the seats my wife and girls were in. To their credit, they did preserve everyone's prior seat type selections, so my wife was still in a window seat, and my kids were in window and middle; but now my wife was about 5 rows further back, while my kids were now over ten rows further back, almost to the last row of seats on the plane!

Thankfully, I was still able to change seat selections on this new flight since I had already paid for regular Economy and not Basic Economy. The kids are now in the window and middle seat directly behind me, and my wife was fine with me spending $70 to get her into the Economy Plus seat next to mine so that we're now sitting together. So a decent ending after some unexpected hoop jumping (and a little more cash out of pocket).

Hopefully there won't be another change like this, but if there is I'll just have to do my best to roll with it. Long as it doesn't shift me to a redeye or crack of dawn flight, I'll be fine.

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17 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Hopefully there won't be another change like this, but if there is I'll just have to do my best to roll with it. Long as it doesn't shift me to a redeye or crack of dawn flight, I'll be fine.

If that does happen, I believe you have the right to a full refund.  That's what I ended up doing.  My flight times changed by more than 2 hours and they gave me a full refund.  Good luck ?

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10 minutes ago, Sabrinaklai said:

If that does happen, I believe you have the right to a full refund.  That's what I ended up doing.  My flight times changed by more than 2 hours and they gave me a full refund.  Good luck ?

Like I said, long as the flight doesn't become a redeye or dawnbreaker, I'm fine. Would actually prefer a 12 PM or 1 PM flight home, they just didn't have one at a price I was willing to pay when I booked. I probably got pushed to this 3 PM flight because it had been sitting there for weeks with an utterly ridiculous price per Economy seat (something like $700, IIRC), and now they need bodies on the plane to justify flying it.

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  • 1 month later...

I thought I would bring this thread back up because something happened this past week that shows that things don't always happen right at 90 days and that constant tracking is crucial.  Hubby and I are going on a cruise at the end of July, leaving from Miami.  We fly mainly Delta because I prefer the non-stop flights and Delta has the best times for our schedules.  I know I may be able to get cheaper prices elsewhere but we stay with Delta for those reasons above.  I've had this cruise booked a year and a half ago so I was able to check prices right from the get go.  Prices from DTW to MIA started around the $450pp mark, over time it has gone as high as $500+ and as low as $382pp.  

When fares got to $382pp, we were about 112 days out from our cruise.  At that point, I was really conflicted as to whether or not I should pull the trigger.  I'm not good with waiting or chancing things and I knew that was the lowest price yet but part of me wanted to see if the 90 day rule would hold true.  So, I did not book it and decided to wait.  The price quickly went up after that and I was starting to get nervous that I had made a mistake by waiting. 

A week ago (exactly one week before the 90 day mark), the prices went to $373pp.  Again, I hesitated, as I still had 7 days to go before 90.  However, because I am no good at taking chances, I decided to purchase the tickets at that point.  This is also why I would not be good at gambling lol.  I told Hubby that I was still going to watch the prices for a while for research purposes and to see what would happen at the 90 day mark and past that.  This past week, after I booked it, the price has gone up again.  Yesterday was the 90 day mark, and the price is now back to $400+ again. 

At this point, I am not regretting my decision.  However, I did want to add this to this thread that prices may not actually drop right at 90 days but definitely near it so it is crucial to watch and track.  I will continue to track it for a bit longer and report back if anything interesting happens.

On a side note, I have now started tracking prices for our March 2019 cruise (prices were released yesterday) to FLL.  Initial release prices are $694pp!!!  This makes me nervous in a different way...it's going to be spring break, as @JLMoran and my parents have experienced this past March, prices sky rocketed to almost $1000pp.  I am afraid of what will happen as I track this one but I am not prepared to pay $694pp at this point either.

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We regularly (2-3 times per year) fly BDL out of CT to visit daughter in Florida - Orlando or Tampa.  I have a bazillion points with SWA so we fly for $11 round trip plus the points.  I never book until a nonstop is less than $200 PP.  You have to have nerves of steel but i’ve always managed to hit that price.  We fly all different times of year & days of the week. For our cruise in October, so far we got $210 RT at perfect times.  I check every day & get the points back if the price drops.

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On 4/21/2018 at 11:41 AM, Lovetocruise2002 said:

I thought I would bring this thread back up because something happened this past week that shows that things don't always happen right at 90 days and that constant tracking is crucial.  Hubby and I are going on a cruise at the end of July, leaving from Miami.  We fly mainly Delta because I prefer the non-stop flights and Delta has the best times for our schedules.  I know I may be able to get cheaper prices elsewhere but we stay with Delta for those reasons above.  I've had this cruise booked a year and a half ago so I was able to check prices right from the get go.  Prices from DTW to MIA started around the $450pp mark, over time it has gone as high as $500+ and as low as $382pp.  

When fares got to $382pp, we were about 112 days out from our cruise.  At that point, I was really conflicted as to whether or not I should pull the trigger.  I'm not good with waiting or chancing things and I knew that was the lowest price yet but part of me wanted to see if the 90 day rule would hold true.  So, I did not book it and decided to wait.  The price quickly went up after that and I was starting to get nervous that I had made a mistake by waiting. 

A week ago (exactly one week before the 90 day mark), the prices went to $373pp.  Again, I hesitated, as I still had 7 days to go before 90.  However, because I am no good at taking chances, I decided to purchase the tickets at that point.  This is also why I would not be good at gambling lol.  I told Hubby that I was still going to watch the prices for a while for research purposes and to see what would happen at the 90 day mark and past that.  This past week, after I booked it, the price has gone up again.  Yesterday was the 90 day mark, and the price is now back to $400+ again. 

At this point, I am not regretting my decision.  However, I did want to add this to this thread that prices may not actually drop right at 90 days but definitely near it so it is crucial to watch and track.  I will continue to track it for a bit longer and report back if anything interesting happens.

On a side note, I have now started tracking prices for our March 2019 cruise (prices were released yesterday) to FLL.  Initial release prices are $694pp!!!  This makes me nervous in a different way...it's going to be spring break, as @JLMoran and my parents have experienced this past March, prices sky rocketed to almost $1000pp.  I am afraid of what will happen as I track this one but I am not prepared to pay $694pp at this point either.

I always use AC.  YYZ-FLL 10 month before the cruise is $480pp.  Today 100 days out  $720pp. We will see 90 days mark.  I noticed that flight time changed 2 times. !! 

Thank you for sharing your experience.

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I'm still 210 days out but noticed last week that my flights from JFK to SJU with Delta dropped £100 per ticket. Buying tickets for flights is all about luck, no one knows when the price will be at it's best, just got to hope we get lucky

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@Sweety, great news! And a little surprising -- From the time when I'd been tracking, SWA and the other low-cost carriers tended to either sell out or go way up in price inside the 90-day mark (if they aren't sold out well before then). Maybe I was just being too picky about the flight times, so I saw some artificially limited results.

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2 hours ago, JLMoran said:

@Sweety, great news! And a little surprising -- From the time when I'd been tracking, SWA and the other low-cost carriers tended to either sell out or go way up in price inside the 90-day mark (if they aren't sold out well before then). Maybe I was just being too picky about the flight times, so I saw some artificially limited results.

I know. I was very surprised. I am in charge of planning. Everybody is happy.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My husband and I are cruising on the Allure on Sept 30th out of Ft Lauderdale. We managed to get JetBlue round trip out of Rochester (NY) for about ~$530. I highly recommend using the Hopper app on your various devices. The app asks you where you’re traveling to/from and then tells you if the price is likely to go up/down or if now is the best price to book. It will also show you how you might reduce the price by slightly altering your flying dates. If the price is likely to change you can tell the app to notify you at its lowest price by “watching” your travel dates. Long story short, prices were closer to $1000 round trip for my husband and I. We got a notification from Hopper and acted immediately to get the $530 round trip steal from JetBlue. Good luck to all!

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We have found that we are like WAAAYTOOO and  book or flight way out as we like to have everything in order.   What we have found to be a real money saver at times is routing thru various other air ports and get 1 way tickets to each airport.    Flying out of Knoxville is somewhat of a challenge.  Especially fling overseas or far distances.  We will go to Chicago or Atlanta or Dulles or who knows where.   Our flight to Spain last year got us a huge savings as did our flights to San Juan 4 years ago.  And now we are finding a $600 plus savings for our flights to Copenhagen for our Baltic cruise in 2020. That is based on this years prices but we have  written down the cities we want to travel thru on our flights when time comes to book the flights.  Yes the flight schedules do change when you book way out but like others have said the piece of mind is worth it.  Oh that HOPPER app is great.  Then again just like cruise prices the early bird gets the worm.  On the bright side when we find lower fares we are able to get our cruise, hotel, car, or air fares re adjusted when the prices go down.      Just be persistent.   

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On 5/19/2018 at 10:35 PM, fonemanbob said:

On the bright side when we find lower fares we are able to get our cruise, hotel, car, or air fares re adjusted when the prices go down.

Do you normally buy "higher bracket" tickets that allow for re-pricing of airfare without a penalty applied? Is this a loyalty level perk with your frequent flyer program? Credit card perk?

I don't have any frequent flier level to speak of yet, or a credit card with major travel benefits, so I'm limited to what I can get with my ticket purchase. And at least on United, I'd have to pay the highest economy rate to be able to change without penalty, which would tack several hundred onto the per-ticket price (and the penalty itself is something like a few hundred per ticket, IIRC). JetBlue is worse, where I'd have to buy the highest-priced fare to be able to re-price at all; the premium isn't as much as on United, but at least when I was looking at ticket prices back in December of 2017, I was still looking at >$500 more for my family of four.

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Its all of the after mentioned.  A little luck  but mostly buy high and sell low.  Just the opposite of the stock market when you buy low and sell high. Fortunate enough not to have gotten burned yet either.  That`s where our travel agent comes in real handy.    

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On ‎4‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 3:07 AM, J. Woody said:

I always use AC.  YYZ-FLL 10 month before the cruise is $480pp.  Today 100 days out  $720pp. We will see 90 days mark.  I noticed that flight time changed 2 times. !! 

Thank you for sharing your experience.

@J. Woody.....what ended up happening at the 90 day mark?

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42 minutes ago, monctonguy said:

Interesting....so not the cheapest but about average........that's expensive our of Toronto though I find....that's more like flights out of Atlantic Canada.....

 

My cruise is in about 150 days...so going to be time to start watching for deals now....

Yes.  Nothing cheap from Toronto.... I still regrets to not get the ticket 10month in advance..  Well this is what it is!!

Hope you will get good price !!

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2 hours ago, monctonguy said:

Interesting....so not the cheapest but about average........that's expensive our of Toronto though I find....that's more like flights out of Atlantic Canada.....

 

My cruise is in about 150 days...so going to be time to start watching for deals now....

@monctonguy, I think I asked you this before, but are you able to drive a reasonable distance to a US airport?  Worth investigating??

1 hour ago, J. Woody said:

Yes.  Nothing cheap from Toronto.... I still regrets to not get the ticket 10month in advance..  Well this is what it is!!

Hope you will get good price !!

@J. Woody it sounds like you are from the GTA, have you ever considered flying out of Buffalo?  In past experience, I find that it is almost always cheaper to fly out of the US even if you have to drive a bit to an airport.  Flying from Canada is ridiculous.

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