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Best time to book flight? - 6/13/2012 5:31:10 PM
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Dr. Jimbo
Posts: 5
Joined: 8/5/2008
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My wife and I are heading to the Yucatan in mid-December 2012. I was wondering, based on others experiences, when the best time to book the flight is for the lowest fare. I checked flights out of LAX and there seems to be plenty of seats left in the main cabin. Right now, Virgin has flights for $536 nonstop r/t from LAX to CUN. The last time we went about 5 years ago, it was $336 but we flew out at the end of October.
Just wondering if I should hold out a little or book it now. I realize that it's like the stock market and hard to predict, but any advice would be appreciated.
Gracias,
Jimbo
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 6/13/2012 6:16:46 PM
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Cabin Boy
Posts: 1992
Joined: 11/6/2008
From: A place that GPS does not work
Status: online
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Well the word on the "news" today is that gas prices are going down. Does this mean airfares will go down also???? Who knows what will happen but I would wait till you think the price is right than buy.
CB
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We do the best we can with what we have,
and the rest we just wing.
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 6/14/2012 11:21:44 PM
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Dr. Jimbo
Posts: 5
Joined: 8/5/2008
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Thanks for all of your info. Maybe I'll try the Tuesday thing. And gal, is that 4am Eastern time? I'm in California, so i'm Pacific time. Spanky, that's one of the reasons we're going. I figure that if the world does end on that day, what better way than to be sitting on a white sand beach under a palm tree with my honey, looking at the turquoise waters with a cold Pacifico in my hand.
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 6/15/2012 2:57:35 PM
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Dr. Jimbo
Posts: 5
Joined: 8/5/2008
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Yeah, I've been watching for my time frame, and it seems to be pretty steady the past few months in terms of price. No big ups or downs.
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 6/17/2012 4:48:42 AM
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TeriA
Posts: 906
Joined: 9/17/2010
From: Salem, Utah
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From what I understand, the airlines pre purchase their fuel and sell tickets based on the cost of the fuel that exists for those flights. Even if the price of fuel goes down, they will continue to sell tickets at the price that pays for the fuel that was stocked for that flight time frame. Any lowering of ticket fares based on fuel prices is iffy at best, because other factors can also affect a rise or fall in airfare, including strikes, demand, available aircraft types (larger planes use more fuel etc), and time of year ie holidays etc. As airline employees pay and benefits increase with the cost of living the airlines will have to charge more to maintain their profit margin. International factors affect ticket prices due to a lowering or increasing of demand and the potential loss or gain of revenue formerly expected from tourist and business travel to international destinations and connections. It's all very subjective.
I do what some of the experts have suggested. I keep an eye on the flight or flights I am considering, with or without combining the hotel, starting three months out from my travel dates. Periodically I go all the way through booking til I get to the seat assignment section, and if there are lots of seats left I know the airline has no incentive to lower the price just yet and I still have time to wait it out before the flight fills up. Once I see the flight filling up I know I have to make a choice, and usually will just book it. I haven't regretted doing it that way yet, never see the price come down from then.
Also, I don't just search the travel websites like expedia etc. I booked our latest air fares on the Frontier website. They had their premium seats for the same price as the other sites had the exact same flight on Frontier in the sardine seats. You can only book the premium seats for Frontier on their website, and two free checked bags per passenger are included in those fares along with priority boarding and by booking the classic or classic plus premium seats we get free tv and movies. Pretty good deal I think.
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 6/19/2012 10:32:50 AM
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heatlw
Posts: 422
Joined: 12/8/2010
From: GTA - Ontario, Canada
Status: offline
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I read on the boards here somewhere that the last day of the month is the best day to buy....and it's turned out to be true for the past two trips I booked.
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 6/22/2012 7:41:39 PM
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Dr. Jimbo
Posts: 5
Joined: 8/5/2008
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I'll try the end of the month thing and see what it looks like and if it doesn't change much, I'll just book it. Thanks for all of your replies.
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 6/23/2012 11:38:15 PM
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Read!
Posts: 1981
Joined: 4/20/2006
From: Western North Carolina
Status: offline
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Our usual vacation window was early to mid June. Read!(Gail,DW) would shop the various vacation purveyors, select the best option, starting just after Christmas, catching the tag end of the late spring low rate. Then she would track the price as it went down. Around Easter the price would start back up, the first increase was $5.00 for the room. Just as soon as that first increase hit, she would reserve the vacation, we could afford the $5. From our neck of the woods Tuesday was the least expensive day to fly, still is. For a while it was less expensive to fly from the state capitol to the major in-state hub, then direct to CUN. It was during that era we discovered "Park and Fly," Be packed and ready Sunday night, work Monday, get home, shower, drive two and a half hours to the capitol, free breakfast at the motel, they transport you to the airport, watch your car while you're gone, pick you up when you get back, all for less than long term parking at the hub, just an hour and a quarter from the house. Momma didn't raise no fool, Daddy might have, but he don't get credit for me. Last time that was an option, we flew the last leg at a mean altitude of six feet. They cancelled the 9:00 flight, luggage flew on the overbooked 10:00 flight, the midnight flight was booked, too; the airline chartered a bus, we beat our luggage by twenty minutes and got to watch "Snow Dogs" en route, Home at 1:00 AM instead of midnight. Last time we actually made the reservations was three years ago, Locogringo wasn't doing packages then. It will be interesting to see how things develop over the next few years.
Hope this helps.
¡Mas aventuras, y'all!!
Richard, Mr. Read!
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 7/7/2012 3:02:57 PM
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Dr. Jimbo
Posts: 5
Joined: 8/5/2008
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I bought my tickets on 7/4 from LAX to CUN r/t for $425 each on Volaris leaving on 12/11 and coming back on 12/23. I would have liked to fly non-stop on Virgin but just the return flight was more than my entire fare with Volaris. Plus Virgin would have gotten me there in the early evening, essentially wasting an entire beach day. I am taking a red eye, but I'll just sleep and get into CUN at 10:30 in the morning. The flight out does have a 6 hour layover in GDL which I thought would suck, but I think we'll take a taxi into El Centro and go to the street markets for a couple of hours. Kinda like a mini vacation on the way home. I was going to fly Spirit into Miami, but once you start the booking process, you have to pay for everything ala carte (seats, carry-ons, checked bags). I had to pay $4 - 5 for each seat on Volaris, but Spirit was something like $25 - 45 per seat per each leg of the flight. I did pay a little extra to get the 50 lb. allowance on my checked bag and $2 for priority boarding (yeah, we'll see how that works). On all legs of my flight, we're either in the 2nd or 3rd row. I've read some great reviews about Volaris and some not so great. I'm sure I'd find the same with most other airlines too.
Thanks for all of your input. I found that Bing travel was also good because it has a fare predictor which tells you to buy because fares are going up or to wait because fares are dropping.
Can't wait to be in QR for the end of the Mayan calendar, it should be magical.
Jim
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 7/7/2012 10:42:36 PM
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vikingfan7
Posts: 734
Joined: 7/30/2009
From: Pima County, AZ
Status: offline
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3-4 years ago, I got $288/rt from Milwaukee to Cancun, via Funjet....they were giving it away for some reason....I miss those days, as it looks like Feb 2013 from here is going to be between $440 and $700.....just depends on the day and airline....argh!!!!!!
As Doug said, book it when you can pay for it......
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RE: Best time to book flight? - 8/21/2012 1:02:46 PM
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DungSR
Posts: 14973
Joined: 8/22/2007
From: Fort Worth, TX
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I was one of those that flew from Austin to Cancun on Viva Aerobus for $9.99 each way back in 2008. Crazy!
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