Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by dubc80

CMyden, you rock.
Thanks to this post, my two brothers and I booked June 15-19.

Cubs vs Red Sox and Cubs vs White Sox. Noice!

Awesome, have fun!

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Arsenal14

I ended up doing the Palmer House Hilton by Grant Park for $159 + tax. Not cheap but it's a good central location. Now I just have to figure out how to get to Wrigley from there (and what time the Sunday game is going to end up being - currently TBD).

I stayed at the Palmer House when I was in Chicago a few years ago. There's an L stop right outside the hotel. Hop on the Red Line and it should take you right to Wrigley.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

@ CMyden or whoever can answer:

Did Air Canada cancel their direct flight to Phoenix? The route map still shows it, but I can't find a flight (~September)

[FlamesAddiction]

Question:

Is there really any point to playing airline ticket poker anymore?

I am planning a trip to Hungary and Croatia this summer. I originally was going to buy tickets back in January when they were like $800. My wife convinced me to hold off thinking I could get them cheaper if I waited. It went against my better judgment, but it seemed like it would be better than getting in an argument.

Anyhow, I checked last night at the same seats are now ~$1,600. I am thinking that I missed the boat. I looked again just now, and they are even a little higher than that. She is still adament that I should wait and get a deal at the last minute, but I don't know about that. I understand her reasoning. Back in 2009, we got really good deals at the last minute, but looking at the cost of flights in the next week, it doesn't look like there are any "last minute" deals.

I'm just really wondering if I should just book'em and get it over with. Is there a realistic chance for a last minute deal, or is that just dumb luck?

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Definitely should have bought at $800. I don't understand the risk/reward line of thinking there. How much cheaper was it going to get? I don't think I've ever seen it less than $800 to that part of the world, in fact.

Most last minute flights these days are charters on popular routes so really your only hope is if something comes up to, say, England on Air Transat or something along those lines for super cheap then you can book a separate flight from there to Hungary or Croatia.

[Notorious Honey Badger]

I'm such an airport nerd. I went ape crap in the car this morning when I saw a truck with the plate YYC-### right next to a car on deerfoot that had the plate YEG-###.

My friend thinks I'm ######ed. They're likely correct.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Question:

Is there really any point to playing airline ticket poker anymore?

I am planning a trip to Hungary and Croatia this summer. I originally was going to buy tickets back in January when they were like $800. My wife convinced me to hold off thinking I could get them cheaper if I waited. It went against my better judgment, but it seemed like it would be better than getting in an argument.

Anyhow, I checked last night at the same seats are now ~$1,600. I am thinking that I missed the boat. I looked again just now, and they are even a little higher than that. She is still adament that I should wait and get a deal at the last minute, but I don't know about that. I understand her reasoning. Back in 2009, we got really good deals at the last minute, but looking at the cost of flights in the next week, it doesn't look like there are any "last minute" deals.

I'm just really wondering if I should just book'em and get it over with. Is there a realistic chance for a last minute deal, or is that just dumb luck?

$800 roundtrip after taxes? To Croatia or Hungary in the summer?

Just wanted to clarify that you know for sure you are comparing apples to apples, and were looking at the after-tax price both times. $800 after taxes to either destination would be an extremely good deal.

Some airfare search engines show the after-tax price on an initial search, others are sneaky and make fares look a whole lot better than they are before getting a few steps into the booking process.

A last minute flight to Eastern Europe for a cheap price is extremely unlikely, but the best chance would probably be on Condor. They had some good prices to Zagreb, Croatia last year, and they're a charter airline so there's at least a chance of a significant last minute price drop. On the major airlines, the chance is just above zero.

The Condor flights to Croatia for $771 roundtrip after taxes (cheapest I've ever seen) came out around mid April last year. Even then, that was for late August. Peak summer travel to Europe for a good deal is pretty rare. Eastern Europe even more so.

http://www.yycdeals.com/calgary-to-c...trip-after-tax

[Bill Bumface]

It looks like flights to Sydney are down to $2200-2300 after Christmas. Is this getting fairly close to the "usual" range? They were over $3K not long ago.

[Tron_fdc]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

It looks like flights to Sydney are down to $2200-2300 after Christmas. Is this getting fairly close to the "usual" range? They were over $3K not long ago.

Have you tried Air New Zealand?

"Normal" ranges for flights to Australia are around $1500 from Calgary. Unless you're looking at business class, which is usually $2500 (premium economy with ANZ) to $6k (first class with Qantas)

You should be able to find something return to Sydney (likely out of LAX) for $1200 per person.

Try Virgin as well, they fly direct LAX-Sydney

[Bill Bumface]

New Zealand is $2500 + (and you have to get to Vancouver) and Virgin is over $4K (and you have to get to LAX) but I'll keep an eye on those.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by cmyden

$800 roundtrip after taxes? To Croatia or Hungary in the summer?

Just wanted to clarify that you know for sure you are comparing apples to apples, and were looking at the after-tax price both times. $800 after taxes to either destination would be an extremely good deal.

Some airfare search engines show the after-tax price on an initial search, others are sneaky and make fares look a whole lot better than they are before getting a few steps into the booking process.

A last minute flight to Eastern Europe for a cheap price is extremely unlikely, but the best chance would probably be on Condor. They had some good prices to Zagreb, Croatia last year, and they're a charter airline so there's at least a chance of a significant last minute price drop. On the major airlines, the chance is just above zero.

The Condor flights to Croatia for $771 roundtrip after taxes (cheapest I've ever seen) came out around mid April last year. Even then, that was for late August. Peak summer travel to Europe for a good deal is pretty rare. Eastern Europe even more so.

http://www.yycdeals.com/calgary-to-c...trip-after-tax

This is what I feared. Finnair had some crazy rates at the beginning of the year. At the time I was looking at June, not July/August... so that might have been why. Unless they have changed the way the taxes show up on their site now, they really were going for $800 then.

The last time I went, it was September and for some reason prices were lower than what booking in September is at the moment. Every other time I went, I never had to pay, so I didn't pay attention.

Is there any truth that booking on a weekday is better than on the weekend? When I checked on Saturday, the price at Air Canada was ~$1,600, and then it was ~$2,000 on Sunday for the exact same window. I'm not sure what the reason is for it to change by $400 in less than 24 hours. Even as I check now, it's back down to $1,500/$1,600.

(All these are the lowest coach seats of course)

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

This is what I feared. Finnair had some crazy rates at the beginning of the year. At the time I was looking at June, not July/August... so that might have been why. Unless they have changed the way the taxes show up on their site now, they really were going for $800 then.

The last time I went, it was September and for some reason prices were lower than what booking in September is at the moment. Every other time I went, I never had to pay, so I didn't pay attention.

Is there any truth that booking on a weekday is better than on the weekend? When I checked on Saturday, the price at Air Canada was ~$1,600, and then it was ~$2,000 on Sunday for the exact same window. I'm not sure what the reason is for it to change by $400 in less than 24 hours. Even as I check now, it's back down to $1,500/$1,600.

(All these are the lowest coach seats of course)

Here's a recap of post #2398 regarding buying flights on different days of the week....

Originally Posted by rubecube

Good article. Is there any truth to the whole buying flights on Monday or Tuesday evening idea?

It almost seems like an urban legend, but I have seen plenty of claims from people that have access to large amounts of airfare data who suggest that it's true (although it could be one of those things where one person claims it and the rest of the media world just latches on to it without doing any real research).

Rick Seaney from FareCompare for example....

http://traveltips.usatoday.com/times...hts-35464.html

The time of day can make a significant impact on the price of your plane ticket. In general, airlines offer their cheapest flights during business hours, when value-minded business travelers are booking flights.

The best single time and day to book a flight is 3 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, according to Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.

Value-minded business travelers? Really? The ones who pay 10X as much to be on the same plane as the rest of us slobs for a few extra inches of legroom? I think we have different definitions of value.

He goes into greater detail here....

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/best-da...7#.T3Sfo4LDyVo

If you've been reading my column for any length of time, you probably already know the answer to this, but if not, I won't keep you dangling: the best day to shop for airfare is Tuesday. And let me get even more specific: shop on Tuesday at about 3 p.m.



Here's why: usually, when an airline wants to launch a sale, it will do so late Monday. When the other airlines see this, they immediately go into competitive mode, and begin lowering their own prices to match the first one's sale.
All the airlines that plan to join in on this "matching" will have completed the process by early Tuesday afternoon, so by 3 p.m., shoppers will have the most "good prices" to choose from.

That theory makes a little more sense to me.

Personally from what I've seen, I haven't noticed anything significant in regards to fares dropping on a Tuesday or any other specific day of the week or even specific time of day. I find it to be a pretty random event, although maybe I should go back through all my blog posts and see if there's a day of the week that stands out.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by cmyden

Value-minded business travelers? Really? The ones who pay 10X as much to be on the same plane as the rest of us slobs for a few extra inches of legroom? I think we have different definitions of value.

There's a difference between business travelers and business class travelers.

Where I work, they've really clamped down on business travel over the last few years, and I'm sure a lot of other companies have as well. I think a single leg of a trip has to exceed 10 hours before you can book a business class seat on that leg under our current travel policy, where it used to be any travel outside of North America.

We used to have an in-house travel agent who booked everyone's business travel, so, I'm sure he knew exactly how much the flights should have cost and would have balked at paying too much. It's probably not the traveler who is value-minded, but the person who is booking the travel on behalf of the traveler (who is paid by the company to keep travel costs down).

On the other side of the coin, you'd have leisure travelers who walk into the travel agency at the mall on Saturday afternoon to price out their annual vacation. They likely don't have a clue as to what the best price is, and unless it's a common destination, the agent likely doesn't have a great grasp on the best price either.


Now, people don't need travel agents to book their vacations, and can check prices on their computers any time of the day or week, so the weekend price bump isn't likely as big of a deal as it once was.



From personal experience, I've paid a lot more for flights that were being paid for by my employer than I ever would if it was coming out of my own pocket. For me, though, most business travel is booked within 2 weeks of the actual trip and I don't have a lot of notice; where vacations are booked at least 2 months in advance, and I can wait for a good seat sale, or choose a different destination if I can find a better fare.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by getbak

From personal experience, I've paid a lot more for flights that were being paid for by my employer than I ever would if it was coming out of my own pocket. For me, though, most business travel is booked within 2 weeks of the actual trip and I don't have a lot of notice; where vacations are booked at least 2 months in advance, and I can wait for a good seat sale, or choose a different destination if I can find a better fare.

Definitely some great points there! I know the missus regularly has her employer (typical Calgary oil company) pay for economy class flights to Houston that cost about as much as I would expect to pay to get to Johannesburg.

Mainly because, like you say, they're being booked a week or two before departure. And they really are the cheapest available, because I've had to check myself when I couldn't believe there wasn't anything cheaper than $1400 to Houston!

[Notorious Honey Badger]

www.hipmunk.com

really great travel site. i love how the visuals work and the pricing seems just as competitive as anything ive seen

[Notorious Honey Badger]

There are some really great flights to Southern California right now. San Diego, LA, Anaheim all mid to low 300's for June. If you want to go to Disneyland, a flight to John Wayne airport (Orange county) is 293 dollars right now for the June 15th weekend. Ridiculous.

www.kayak.com

[Otsy]

First trip to San Francisco is now 2 days away. Work is going by so slow, I'm sure tomorrow will be even worse.

[brocoli]

Originally Posted by Notorious Honey Badger

There are some really great flights to Southern California right now. San Diego, LA, Anaheim all mid to low 300's for June. If you want to go to Disneyland, a flight to John Wayne airport (Orange county) is 293 dollars right now for the June 15th weekend. Ridiculous.

www.kayak.com

Damnit! I just booked a couple of weeks ago for that same price to fly out of Great Falls at the end of September. Calgary would have been so much easier.

[cmyden]

Today's Westjet Blue Tag Thursday deal is bringing flights to California down to $279 roundtrip after taxes. Various flights up to the end of June. Look for the ones that are $79 each way before taxes.

http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/flig...Number=JL7O6QD

[Notorious Honey Badger]

woop woop.