I need advice on getting the best airline price during Thanksgiving week!

[buzzy]

I am trying to find a good price to Aruba during Thanksgiving week and to St. John in January. I am getting an okay non stop price to st. Thomas and $418 but want to wait until it goes down a little through US Air. My problem is the Thanksgiving week. It is super expensive and if we can't get better airfare we are not going. We live in PA and have only seen non stop out of Philly but it is almost $800 pp. Can someone give me some tricks of the trade with getting good prices. Does it happen right before travel or are we stuck! Also, what do the fare codes mean when I see them? Thanks so much!

[cluemeister]

"My problem is Thanksgiving week."

Anyway to change your return flight to the Tuesday after Thanksgiving? That might help.

[Dave M]

Originally Posted by buzzy

I am getting an okay non stop price to st. Thomas and $418 but want to wait until it goes down a little through US Air.

It's extremely unlikely that prices for your itinerary will go down. In today's crazy airline world of rapidly increasing fuel costs, high demand by travelers for seats and reduced flights by the airlines, fares have been rapidly escalating. Because the airlines have very few empty seats, they don't have the need to offer sale prices very often, especially during peak holiday travel periods.

It's most likely that the lowest fares available are the ones you can see now.

[buzzy]

Originally Posted by cluemeister

"My problem is Thanksgiving week."

Anyway to change your return flight to the Tuesday after Thanksgiving? That might help.

The dates become a problem when dealing with timeshare weeks. Friday to Friday or Saturday to Saturday. We could cut it a day of 2 short but Tuesday would be cutting it 3 and 4 days short unfortunetely.

[elaine]

I would try longer stay and pay a few 100 for a hotel.

[elaine]

contact charter travel group GO GO, etc. and see if you can do a 3 day package but fly earlier---some might do this. So you fly Nov 18, stay in TS, then stay in hotel on package Nov. 25-28 and then fly back, for ex.

Some times, the package is the same or less than the flight alone.

[Spence]

One of the advantages of RCI points or other points systems, you can book Wed-Wed when even frequent flyer fares were available .

[bogey21]

If you are stuck with your dates and you were flying domestically (I know your not), I would buy now for Thanksgiving Week. The airlines have cut domestic capacity back so much that they will sell out the days around Thanksgiving (except Thanksgiving day) shortly.

GEORGE

[davef]

as possible, start looking before you even plan your trip. I was not even planning to go to Cancun but by looking early and often I found a fare that was so low that I could NOT not go.

Flexibility will also be a key thing as well

My wife and I were looking for someplace to go this upcoming Thanksgiving and had an open mind, we started looking in January at prices and decided that we would go to either Mexico or Hawaii. Tickets for both from Seattle in were in the 500-600 dollar range, but low and behold there were tickets for mexico for 209 round trip to Cancun for Thanksgiving week in March and we jumped all over it after checking out the price. Originally, we were planning a Friday to Sunday leave/return (with a week in between) but it ended up being a Wednesday to Saturday due to the fare.