Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie

[Jbo]

Hey cmyden,

First off...love the thread and website. Follow you on here, as well as YYCdeals.

I'm looking to head to Spain for end of Aug for a couple of weeks. Open to Madrid or Barcelona.

I'm looking for advice to get there. Do you think flights around that time will be outrageous? Would you recommend flying to maybe Londonor France first? Ideally, I would like to spend around 1000-1500 round trip with taxes. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by J-bo09

Hey cmyden,

First off...love the thread and website. Follow you on here, as well as YYCdeals.

I'm looking to head to Spain for end of Aug for a couple of weeks. Open to Madrid or Barcelona.

I'm looking for advice to get there. Do you think flights around that time will be outrageous? Would you recommend flying to maybe Londonor France first? Ideally, I would like to spend around 1000-1500 round trip with taxes. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Thanks J-bo,

There's no reason I can think of that flights to Barcelona or Madrid *wouldn't* remain expensive for summer travel, but there's never any guarantee.

The only 2 airlines that have budged in terms of Europe prices are Air Transat and Condor. Air Transat doesn't fly to Spain from Calgary, and Condor's flights to Spain don't look that attractive at the moment, but you could keep on eye on them at Condor.com

A cheap flight into London/Glasgow/Frankfurt would definitely be worth watching for. If something comes up for around $700 (RT after tax) or less, it could be worth it. London to Barcelona can be had on EasyJet for around $200 roundtrip.

At the moment, your best bet looks to be around $1385-$1500 after tax on KLM or Air Canada into Madrid (Aug 17 to 31 for example). There's one that has a 15 hour layover in Amsterdam...

http://www.kayak.com/flights/#YYC-MA...08-31-flexible

Air Transat seems to just be getting into their early July cuts now, will be interesting to see if they keep that up for the rest of summer. Last year there wasn't much of anything in the way of discounts to Europe.

[bizaro86]

Some snippets from an article in this morning's National Post suggest that there might be price cuts coming from Air Transat. Obviously, no guarantees.

Mr. Gentiletti admitted Transat was surprised by the amount of extra capacity in the transatlantic market this summer, and that Transat's 15% capacity increase on those routes may have been excessive in hindsight.

Transat's primary rival in the winter down south, Sunwing Travel Group, is making its first salvo into the summer European market, and scheduled airlines are also moving excess capacity into the Atlantic market in the aftermath of the Japanese disaster and the political unrest in the Middle East. Air Canada has increased its capacity on transatlantic routes by nearly 11% in the first five months of the year compared with 2010.

http://www.financialpost.com/news/Tr...020/story.html

[Knalus]

Hey Chris. Been following your thread for awhile now. Always interested.

I have from the 1st to the 10th of July off work. We were thinking of going to London, but couldn't find an inexpensive flight for that time. So now we are going to wing it, and take whatever cheap flights we can find. Any leads coming up? That Scotland fare is exactly the kind of thing I would love to find, but anywhere in North America will do fine as well.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Some snippets from an article in this morning's National Post suggest that there might be price cuts coming from Air Transat. Obviously, no guarantees.

http://www.financialpost.com/news/Tr...020/story.html

Gotta love what competition can do for prices. There's definitely been an impact out East from what I've seen, thanks to Sunwing's flights to Europe. Those are only from Eastern Canadian cities though.

Out West there's the new competition from Condor, and it would be interesting to see what happens if Air Canada could actually get a low cost carrier off the ground.

Even the Winnipeg market has had some competition to Europe, with IcelandExpress offering flights for under $450 roundtrip this year (after tax). Hopefully they can stick around this time.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Knalus

Hey Chris. Been following your thread for awhile now. Always interested.

I have from the 1st to the 10th of July off work. We were thinking of going to London, but couldn't find an inexpensive flight for that time. So now we are going to wing it, and take whatever cheap flights we can find. Any leads coming up? That Scotland fare is exactly the kind of thing I would love to find, but anywhere in North America will do fine as well.

I would definitely keep an eye on flights to Amsterdam, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Munich, and Frankfurt from Air Transat. They've been significantly dropping prices on those routes like clockwork, 2-3 weeks before departure.

Just do a flexible date search on Airtransat.com

Their early July flights to Amsterdam just dropped to $598 roundtrip after tax from Vancouver, which was the first major July price drop I've seen so far.

[likwid888]

Are you aware of any flight deals to California for the beginning of July?

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by likwid888

Are you aware of any flight deals to California for the beginning of July?

Can't say I've seen anything overly interesting.

http://www.kayak.com/flights/#YYC-LA...07-13-flexible

^^ $414 roundtrip after tax to Anaheim.

Direct each way for $437 on Westjet is worth the extra 20 bucks though


http://www.kayak.com/flights/#YYC-SF...07-13-flexible

^^^ $416 to San Fran and back on United.


http://www.kayak.com/flights/#YYC-SA...07-13-flexible
^^^ $391 to San Diego and back on Delta


$400ish after tax to California and back has been about the bottom for a while.

[drewboy12]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

As far as predicting flight prices go - have you thought of setting up a system where you can select two cities (Calgary and Las Vegas on May Long Weekend for example) and it will show you what the prices were at various times over the past so many years? Trend-mapping I guess. It would probably take a lot to set up and might not be worth it, just a cool idea!

Malcolm

http://ca.skyscanner.com/

Just found this site today, and honestly is the best thing I could possibly ask for, with my no itinerary, sporadic, style of travel. Find the cheapest country to fly to from a city, country or airport. Or refine your search to cities, airlines, date of travel...

Wow its just amazing!

Huge money saver.

[heardman]

I am looking for a flight to Denver any time this summer. What time frame has the best deals?

Thanks!

[Traditional_Ale]

Hey there! Looking to get from Calgary to Ninoy Aquino International Airport in The Philippines. I can't find much for under $1500. Any leads I might check out?

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

Hey there! Looking to get from Calgary to Ninoy Aquino International Airport in The Philippines. I can't find much for under $1500. Any leads I might check out?

There's been some around $1200 roundtrip after tax lately using a combo of a Canadian carrier + an Asian carrier via Vancouver.

http://www.kayak.com/flights/YYC-MNL...10ac0e82fc2286

Ones like this one using Air Canada + ANA.

That's pretty close to the bottom price that Manila gets from YYC. Have seen the odd dip to $1050-$1100.

[Knalus]

Thanks to your advice, I found a flight on air transit to Frankfurt for only $650 each after tax ($130 before tax), between the 3rd and the 10th. Thanks for the tip!


That does bring up another question. Looking to travel from there to Paris. So, was looking at TGV fares from frankfurt to Paris online. But we aren't sure about timing. Could we expect to get the same kind of fares on that train line at the station? Would really help with flexibility.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Knalus

Thanks to your advice, I found a flight on air transit to Frankfurt for only $650 each after tax ($130 before tax), between the 3rd and the 10th. Thanks for the tip!


That does bring up another question. Looking to travel from there to Paris. So, was looking at TGV fares from frankfurt to Paris online. But we aren't sure about timing. Could we expect to get the same kind of fares on that train line at the station? Would really help with flexibility.

Cool, how much is the train from Frankfurt to Paris? Looks like it costs around $85 each way on Air France to fly.

A Google search for 'TGV train purchase ahead'....

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&b...aqi=&aql=f&oq=

Reveals...

http://parisbytrain.com/buying-tgv-tickets/

Which claims...

Buy as early as possible as the prices of TGV tickets increase as the number of remaining seats drops. Purchasing same day tickets for a TGV train at the station will likely cost double that of a ticket purchased a month ahead. For example a one way Eurostar ticket from London to Paris purchased at last minute on a Wednesday: €231.75. A Eurostar ticket for a Wednesday one month in advance: €97.

and

http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowTo...de_France.html

Chances are you will be able to buy the tickets but you will pay a LOT more than if you buy them 90 days ahead! If you can... buy early.
Use http://tgv-europe.com and choose GB as your country... otherwise you get redirected to a more expensive site.
If you get the lowest priced tickets called PREMS you can print them out. Ditto for idTGV tickets. If not, elect to pick up in France. The tickets can be picked up at any SNCF station or boutique (branch ticket office) using the exact credit card you used online.

[Traditional_Ale]

How cmyden doesn't have custom user title is beyond me.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

How cmyden doesn't have custom user title is beyond me.

YYC Deals Junkie is my pick if any mods are watching!

[wpgflamesfan]

Originally Posted by Knalus

Thanks to your advice, I found a flight on air transit to Frankfurt for only $650 each after tax ($130 before tax), between the 3rd and the 10th. Thanks for the tip!


That does bring up another question. Looking to travel from there to Paris. So, was looking at TGV fares from frankfurt to Paris online. But we aren't sure about timing. Could we expect to get the same kind of fares on that train line at the station? Would really help with flexibility.

Having just spent the last 6 months in France, buy your TGV tickets asap. It's insane how much they can jump. Also check out idtgv.com, they often have cheaper fairs (all bookings done online so less overhead) and the service is exactly the same.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by cmyden

YYC Deals Junkie is my pick if any mods are watching!

YYC Deals Junkie is a great choice. Thanks for your awesome thread, btw.

On the off chance that you also like dinosaurs, I'd recommend Travelociraptor.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

YYC Deals Junkie is a great choice. Thanks for your awesome thread, btw.

On the off chance that you also like dinosaurs, I'd recommend Travelociraptor.

I recommend 'Velocitraveller'.

[Jiggy]

West Jet has some pretty good seat sales going on right now. I just booked a round trip to Toronto for $494, taxes included.