If you haven't yet purchased your plane tickets for holiday travel....

[Dave M]

...take a look at this USA Today article.

Thanksgiving, year-end holiday and next spring vacation travel is likely to be off the map in price compared to what we have been used to.

As the article suggests, the high prices currently available for such air travel will likely seem like bargains compared to what those tickets will cost if you wait.

[Autoeng]

Already have my tics to Florida for XMAS. $225 each nonstops. $25 more each than when I purchased May tics in January.

[Talent312]

We were spoiled by cheap gas and became complacent about the cost of energy in our lives. Sorry, but the era of $125 - 150 barrel of oil is here to stay and we may as well adjust our travel budgets accordingly.

Some will sensibly opt for stay-cations, but many of us will simply make a few less trips to the mall to compensate, and the travel industry will survive.

[bnoble]

I booked my February Florida flights back in April: about 20% more than the 2008 flights for the same week/destination, and since then they've been consistently higher. Shockingly, they were sigificantly lower than I bought them at yesterday. I think that might have been an inventory/pricing glitch, though, because they are back above my purchase price today.

Normally, I wait things out a bit more. This year, with oil doing its dance, that didn't seem wise. We're planning drive-to trips for summer '09 to see how things shake out.

[LLW]

I would like to buy air tickets for April-May for travel to 2 or 3 Hawaiian islands, but am concerned about maybe Hawaiian Airlines going under. Should I be?

[Kenrabs]

I purchased our President's week flight to Cancun back in March and payed $850 for non stop rt from Boston. The same flight now is $1825.

[iconnections]

Boy, this must start hurting the tourist/timeshare industry big time for the locations where you have to fly to no matter what. How about a cruise and then jumping ship? Cruises are still reasonable but can't be for much longer either and you still have to go home by airplane.

I wouldn't want to buy a timeshare in this economy as I see prices plunge from here and the same for rentals but you are on the hook for maintenance fees if you can afford going or not. Don't you agree? We have had these cycles before but will it end if fuel prices won't come down anymore?

[iconnections]

Originally Posted by LLW

I would like to buy air tickets for April-May for travel to 2 or 3 Hawaiian islands, but am concerned about maybe Hawaiian Airlines going under. Should I be?

I doubt if this airline will go under. They are the best for the inter-island flights, especially if you came by HA from the mainland and didn't have to transfer luggage. We got our tickets already but they were much more expensive than they used to be.

Island hopping is now becoming a luxury. We used to visit three islands before but not anymore.

[mpizza]

I purchased our XMAS Jacksonville/Orlando tickets a while back - $344 - higher than normal, but not the $500+ that my BIL is finding now. I hope there's a sale coming-up so they can join us. Otherwise, the drive from NJ isn't too bad.

I've got FF tickets for my trip to Tuscon to visit friends over President's Day weekend.

I've started looking for tickets to Paris in May and I'm coming up with $1700 (yes, coach), which is about $1000 more than I budgeted for!

Maria

[mecllap]

I booked our Cayman tickets the day they became available for Christmas/New Year's to be sure we got the flight (and airport) we wanted. Hated the price then, but with the gas increases, the prices have gone up since then. Now I'm just hoping we don't get hit with some outrageous gas surcharge add-on -- or cancelled flights -- altho last time I checked it looked like the flight was filling up, so hopefully it's okay. Fortunately we are flexible and won't need to panic about schedule changes (well, a day or two anyway).

[mdurette]

Every year we go from Providence to Orlando via Southwest. Don't ever remember spending anymore than $225 round trip per person. This year FOR THE SAME FLIGHTS they are pricing out at $481 per person. That is HUGE (part of the problem is the TS we got runs from Sun to Sun) but I checked even the other days are still very high. I have been waiting hoping SW will bring them down - but I'm getting worried now. Just found one way on Delta from Boston to Orlando for $115 per person. Think I might grab that even though I hate dealing with the commute to this Airport.

[luv2vacation]

I've been waiting, to book my MLK weekend tickets, for SW to offer fares for those dates. Anyone know when that will happen? They are still only booking up through Jan 9.

[Twinkstarr]

Originally Posted by luv2vacation

I've been waiting, to book my MLK weekend tickets, for SW to offer fares for those dates. Anyone know when that will happen? They are still only booking up through Jan 9.

According to the SW website they will release dates through March 6, 2009 on August 21st.

[Born2Travel]

We purchased our tickets to Jacksonville for Christmas in May and I'm very glad we did. Luckily we purchased FFand coach fare tickets to Maui in April at the same time. We bought one coach fare and used one FF ticket. The airline was so stingy with the lower cost (miles) FF ticket we could only get one at the lower miles rate so we purchased one coach fare also figuring at least it ony cost us half as much that way. The total was about what we'd been used to paying when we didn't use FF miles. Next purchase will be to Orange County in June so I guess I should start thinking about those now too.