POLL: Airfare purchasing

[JLMoran]

Given all the discussion recently around timing of airfare purchase, watching airfares daily, sweating about getting the best deal, I have to ask -- is it just the control freaks among us, or does pretty much everyone buy their own airfare? Does anyone actually have their TA take care of airfare as well as cruise purchase, and if you do are you still in the driver's seat as far as what airline, what day, and when to purchase? Sound off, and feel free to comment below!

[tiny260]

I like having the control but I have also booked through, RCCL's Air2Sea, which still booked the same flights I would have booked and was tied to my frequent flyer number so I could view under the airlines web page.

With that said I wonder if the airlines will start something similar to what some hotel chains are doing, guaranteeing the cheapest price if booked directly through their web site? I know Marriott and IHG are doing this.

I checked the 2nd bullet above, but I'm actually between 2 and 3, I don't check daily, but I do check monthly then weekly, I start out at the 11 month time frame when ticket pricing first appears, and then lock into the peak time frame for the ticket I'm buying, domestic is 90 days, Caribbean is 140 days, Europe is 270 days.

[RestingBird]

I'm considering having our TA take care of air fare if we ever have to fly again, just to see how it works out.

[Lovetocruise2002]

Control freak to the max!  I won't deny it.  Oldest child, perfectionist, teacher, use to and need to be in control 

I've let go of control with travel only a handful of times:

1) First cruise ever to S.Caribbean out of San Juan.  Booked air/cruise with TA but was at her desk quite often after work.  

2) Did Air2Sea for my Mediterranean cruise because I did not want to risk missing the cruise.

and I'm trying to think of more but I think that's it.

[melski94]

I do my own flights.  

I'm not in your poll as I don't think anything applies to me. I typically book as soon as airlines release flights if at all possible and here's why: live in Nashville with limited direct flights (typically Southwest), I need 6 tickets, we typically travel during peak times like Spring Break and we aren't flexible with days to fly in or out.  

Your 90 day pricing didn't work in my case. I missed the Southwest release and when I looked in October (7 months out) all the "wanna get away" flights were gone from both flights. I saw that Jet Blue flew direct and was $358 pp (which I think it fairly cheap for a spring break fare). After all the 90 day talk, I did look at flight again at 92 days and Jet Blue was $100 more pp...I didn't look right at 90 as it was Christmas day...not sure if it would have been similar to what I bought if I did look at 90 days. Other airlines weren't direct and Southwest was about $700 pp at the 92 days.

To me the bottom line is that I feel like I got a decent price for a direct flight with times that worked for us. The stress of not worrying about tickets outweighs the few (if any) potential savings.  

[craig403]

It depends.  I normally will keep control of ticket purchase if we fly the day before the cruise.  If we fly the day of the cruise I like to purchase through RCI because if flights get changed RCI will (sometimes) take care of getting me to the ship.  At least they did the last time we had flight problems.   I will only do "day of" if this is for West coast cruises because we have a built in 2 hour cushion from Texas.

Then we have to decide on AA economy, preferred seating, main cabin extra, or business.  If the flight is over 4 to 4 1/2 hours it's going to be business class but only if the difference between main cabin extra and business is within $300 or so for two tickets.  Nonstop.  

Of course that all changes if I purchase tickets using AA miles which then it doesn't matter when I buy the air.  :-)  

[monctonguy]

Wow....Business class must be a lot cheaper in the US than Canada...for my flights down..it would cost about an extra $900/PERSON...and you only get it for about half the flight(as the first leg is a small plane with 74 seats and no business/first class)

 

As it would cost almost $4000 MORE to the flights to fly business class for us..I have never done that. I have upgraded at the airport once or twice years ago as it was about $300 more(WestJet before they jacked the prices) and actually scored it once just by asking nicely(I guess) at the check in counter.

 

I could never afford to travel if it was business class or nothing. I only wish we had as many options and as cheap as all the options like you have in the US. I would be travelling ALOT more if that was the case!

[Traveler]

I always organize the flight by myself unless I able to squeeze a cruise  before or after business travel which in that case the Company TA will take care , but even then I will watch them very carefully to make sure they are booking the right airline or airline  alliance so I can collect miles , have access to the lounge or pray to be upgraded 

My philosophy is to stick to one airline/alliance even if sometime I can find cheaper flight in other airlines , at the long run I am getting my money back by waving the checked bag fees (at least two of them), using rewards tickets and getting free premium economy seats.

Same for hotels , but with hotels its much harder to stick to one chain.  

By the way , after I am booking the tickets I still keep checking to get better seat , calculate upgrade chances  or even checking for better flights. 

 

[WAAAYTOOO]

1 hour ago, Traveler said:

My philosophy is to stick to one airline/alliance even if sometime I can find cheaper flight in other airlines , at the long run I am getting my money back by waving the checked bag fees (at least two of them), using rewards tickets and getting free premium economy seats.

Same for hotels , but with hotels its much harder to stick to one chain.  

By the way , after I am booking the tickets I still keep checking to get better seat , calculate upgrade chances  or even checking for better flights. 

 

We also stick with one airline when at all possible.  Same with the hotels.

Since we both fly a lot for business we have settled on American Airlines.  It seems that, since they merged with US Air, most of the east coast itins are covered best by AA.  So even though there are cheaper flights from Washington (DCA) to Fort Lauderdale on Jet Blue (which is an airline I like a lot, BTW), we will usually choose to pay a little more and stick with American BUT American does not fly nonstop from DCA to FLL.  So our options are to do a connection (which I HATE and rarely do) or fly nonstop into MIA. 

My one exception is when I fly overseas.  I am Premier Gold with United so I will usually stick with United for my overseas trips so that I retain my Premier Gold status.  Overall it saves the government money b/c I don't pay for luggage....but United just doesn't cover the east coast the way that AA does so we rarely, if ever, fly United to FL.

Regarding the survey.  I went ahead and checked #1 but it really doesn't fit exactly.  I do not keep any spreadsheets or really compare prices that closely once I book.  I book as early as I can and then I forget about it, usually.  I will often check to make sure that the itin hasn't changed (sometimes I get notifications about itin changes from the airlines and sometimes I don't).  Like Tiny, we usually fly First Class so there are fewer seats to choose from and I like to get it taken care of and then forget about it.

[Traveler]

20 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

My one exception is when I fly overseas.  I am Premier Gold with United so I will usually stick with United for my overseas trips so that I retain my Premier Gold status.  Overall it saves the government money b/c I don't pay for luggage....but United just doesn't cover the east coast the way that AA does so we rarely, if ever, fly United to FL.

I always try to fly United or  any star alliance member , as you said for the transatlantic flights no issues (untied has many options for me traveling to the US  and when I need to go to South America or Asia I can always use Lufthansa/Swiss or even Turkish) United also gives the 6 upgrade vouchers for transatlantic which I use often and I love the fact that you can use it on Lufthansa and when you use it on united it is good for all the legs (even if you have two long legs plus domestic as long as the stopover is less than 12 hours).
Sometime I even agree to travel to South America via the US if the tickets are much cheaper. 

In the US , most of the times I am flying from EWR (my entry point to the US) or from Huston , so I can find United flights easy  , issues starts when I want to fly from FLL to somewhere else than EWR/ORD/IAH  then I need to compromise on a stop over (mainly if I using rewards miles for the tickets).

[Lovetocruise2002]

3 hours ago, monctonguy said:

it would cost about an extra $900/PERSON...and you only get it for about half the flight(as the first leg is a small plane with 74 seats and no business/first class)

@monctonguy not sure how far you are from a border city but this is why we never fly out of Canada even though we live in Canada.  To get anywhere, we would have to take a tiny little plane to Toronto first and then go from there.  Then there's the layover, way higher cost because it's an international flight.  Not worth it for us.  There have been times we have flown out of DTW to go to somewhere else in Canada because, surprisingly, it's still cheaper than flights from Canada!  

[Ray]

i organise everything myself, dont really worry about who i fly with, best has been Philippines airlines followed by iceland air,  worst trip i had to organise was 20th wedding anniversary, took my wife 2 paris for 2 days on way back flight stopped at heathrow for connection home so planned it so instead of heading home we headed to singapore for 2 days, manila for 2 days then a spa resort in mactan ( Philippines ) for 5 days. had 12 flights in 14 days which was a nightmare trying to schedule, flight from paris to london got cancelled on day we were travelling there, luckily i had wedding certificate to show it was anniversary and airline company got us out of paris on time to catch singapore flight,  wife didnt have a clue and was happy to stay in paris an extra night, lets just say she wasnt to happy that i was begging airline to get me home lol 

[monctonguy]

2 hours ago, Sabrinaklai said:

@monctonguy not sure how far you are from a border city but this is why we never fly out of Canada even though we live in Canada.  To get anywhere, we would have to take a tiny little plane to Toronto first and then go from there.  Then there's the layover, way higher cost because it's an international flight.  Not worth it for us.  There have been times we have flown out of DTW to go to somewhere else in Canada because, surprisingly, it's still cheaper than flights from Canada!  

Its about a 4 hr drive to the closest US city...Bangor....but to be honest its not cheaper once you add in exchange and gas and hotel at least one way if not both ways depending on flight times.

 

They do have a charter there..Air Allegiant and have used them before but even those aren't much savings for the more inconvenient times and certain days they fly.

 

I am really hoping that the new ULC airlines that are promising to start flying this year in Canada to the US as well will provide some cheaper options but that remains to be seen. Fingers crossed!

[tiny260]

6 hours ago, monctonguy said:

Wow....Business class must be a lot cheaper in the US than Canada...for my flights down..it would cost about an extra $900/PERSON...and you only get it for about half the flight(as the first leg is a small plane with 74 seats and no business/first class)

Doesn't really answer your question, but buying in advance I can get business/first class on AA from Tulsa, OK to FLL for around $900-1000/PP, just flew this way in October, you have to be a little more flexible on your flight times and flight days. I'm looking at $1000/PP for Tulsa to San Juan in October 2018 on AA, haven't bought yet, still tracking pricing.

[monctonguy]

Yeah...its about $1200 or more here ONE way for me....to Florida for example..and I only get that on  4hrs out of the 6.5 hrs it takes of flying time.

[Lovetocruise2002]

53 minutes ago, monctonguy said:

Its about a 4 hr drive to the closest US city...Bangor....but to be honest its not cheaper once you add in exchange and gas and hotel at least one way if not both ways depending on flight times.

 

They do have a charter there..Air Allegiant and have used them before but even those aren't much savings for the more inconvenient times and certain days they fly.

 

I am really hoping that the new ULC airlines that are promising to start flying this year in Canada to the US as well will provide some cheaper options but that remains to be seen. Fingers crossed!

Oh, 4hrs, yea...not really worth it then. We are fortunate it's less than an hour for us door to parking lot and $6 for crossing the border. 

[bcarney]

4 hours ago, Sabrinaklai said:

@monctonguy not sure how far you are from a border city but this is why we never fly out of Canada even though we live in Canada.  To get anywhere, we would have to take a tiny little plane to Toronto first and then go from there.  Then there's the layover, way higher cost because it's an international flight.  Not worth it for us.  There have been times we have flown out of DTW to go to somewhere else in Canada because, surprisingly, it's still cheaper than flights from Canada!  

As a Michigan resident, I offer my apologies for DTW.  It's a third-world airport, at best.  I hope you're never stuck at the old terminal.

My place is about 1 3/4 hours from DTW, and exactly 3 1/2 from both Cleveland and Chicago.  I'm finding I'm saving several hundred per person (there's 4 of us) by driving to the other airports over DTW. 

I have to say that if I lived within a 12-14 hour drive from a port, I'd rather drive.  By the time you monkey around with parking and security, baggage fees, getting to the airport hours early and multi-hour layovers, I'd rather be in my car with my family talking about the fun we'll have on the upcoming cruise.  

And binge-listening to the Royal Caribbean Blog podcast, of course.

[rjac]

1 minute ago, bcarney said:

And binge-listening to the Royal Caribbean Blog podcast, of course.

Man, talk about a suck up!

[Lovetocruise2002]

1 hour ago, bcarney said:

As a Michigan resident, I offer my apologies for DTW.  It's a third-world airport, at best.  I hope you're never stuck at the old terminal.

I have to say that if I lived within a 12-14 hour drive from a port, I'd rather drive.  By the time you monkey around with parking and security, baggage fees, getting to the airport hours early and multi-hour layovers, I'd rather be in my car with my family talking about the fun we'll have on the upcoming cruise.  

Nope. We fly Delta so we're at the newer terminal.  I don't mind it. 

Funny you mention the drive because for Anthem this March I asked my husband if he wanted to drive (it would take us about 10hrs) and without hesitation he said no way.

[JLMoran]

I live 40 minutes from EWR, so that's my home base. Won't even consider JFK or LGA since they are a lot harder to get to and don't save me any money.

I envy those of you with the disposable income (or rewards points) to regularly fly Business/First Class. The only time I tried to get an upgrade to First was my honeymoon flight to Oahu with my new bride. Asked at the counter while getting our boarding passes. They wanted over $20,000 more! In 1998!! 

And I hear the comments about readily driving 10-12 hours to a port if that were an option. I do have Bayonne / NYC ports as VERY local options, along with Baltimore and Boston. But would love to be further south with ready access by car to the Florida ports.