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Post by Adelard of Bath on Mar 3, 2023 10:57:07 GMT -5
Google Flights alerted me this morning (Friday 3/3) that a flight I was watching that was around $1100 is $858. This is on Delta; I am not aware of Delta ever doing "sales" or anything the way I hear about smaller airlines like Southwest etc doing. Poked around on the web and I'm not seeing amazing headlines like "airfare plummets amid oil share glut" or anything like that, but there are articles about rumors that the United Arab Emirates are thinking about pulling out of OPEC, and an article in Wall Street Journal mentioned these rumors and now oil prices this morning are down like 0.8%. And gasoline prices at my local stations are down a little bit this week. But this seems awful fast for the computers at Delta.com to drop the prices on my flights by 20%.
Don't know if anyone else saw anything on their favorite airlines. Now I have to decide if I should get it, or wait to see if they will go down more - in which case they could very easily go back up and be higher than ever.
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Post by Adelard of Bath on Mar 4, 2023 1:08:39 GMT -5
Well on the advice of my wife, I caved and bought the tickets. Makes the trip one step closer I guess!
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Post by zulaya on Mar 4, 2023 8:25:51 GMT -5
What dates are you watching? I love Google Flights for this reason. I got a notice that my May trip dropped a small amount. December is still ridiculous, but neither SW or SC have schedules out that far yet.
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Post by Adelard of Bath on Mar 4, 2023 21:09:54 GMT -5
December. Pretty shocked at the prices, but everything is expensive lately.
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Post by annamaria on Mar 5, 2023 7:38:16 GMT -5
I have been checking flights with JetBlue and United for months - Our trip is less than two weeks. Prices out of Newark for two, w/no luggage, always in the $800-$900 range. Add one luggage, car service r/t to Newark airport, Mears at MCO and we thought it was crazy. We were set on driving - we drive half the time. We do stop overnight each way, gas, food, - we actually don't drive so much for the savings - I hate to fly (but do fly) and if we are staying more than a week, makes it worth it to us. Still a significant difference in $ flying vs. driving. About a week ago, checking again. Finally saw airfare (not sure if a flight was added) $600 range. I added one luggage r/t - - total $658. I jumped on it. Still high.......but doubt we will see it any lower. Happy to get there within hours - hate it? Yes - but I also get stressed out with the long drive. No happy medium here.  |
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Post by zulaya on Mar 5, 2023 10:56:43 GMT -5
December. Pretty shocked at the prices, but everything is expensive lately. What dates are you watching? |
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Post by Adelard of Bath on Mar 21, 2023 20:53:16 GMT -5
Well shucks my flight went down from 858 to 808.
See that is because I bought them...had I NOT bought them (hoping that they would go down more), the price would have gone back up.
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Post by zulaya on Mar 22, 2023 7:40:18 GMT -5
Sun Country released their schedule through mid-December. That's likely why there was a small drop in price. I'm watching Dec 2-9 MSP-MCO.
I think the bigger drop will come after Southwest extends its schedule on May 4. But still have the Google Flights watcher on...
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Post by Adelard of Bath on Mar 22, 2023 12:23:49 GMT -5
Ah that's right, I got that Sun Country email. I didn't connect the two.
Wife and I used to fly Sun Country all the time, but we like to splurge and go in the front of the plane, and when Sun Country changed owners a couple years ago and got rid of their first class, I stopped looking (mostly)
My mom still flies them to Arizona.
and Sun Country has those weird times sometimes, like I was pricing them recently and the flight down was a good price, let's say 125, and the flight back was a good price, let's say again 125...but the flight down was only a single flight during the day, and the flight home was landing at 11:30pm or something. They did have a flight in the middle of the day, when normal people wanted to fly, but it was seriously $200 more. Bringing the total ticket price up to over $400.
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Post by Adelard of Bath on Apr 8, 2023 15:43:54 GMT -5
Well yesterday that same Google Flights email now shows a price drop, making it $708. I paid $858. That's a lot! For the two of us, that's $300.
Looks like I can cancel and rebook and get a credit, but looks like the credit would expire one year from my original purchase date, so March 2024. I did a bunch of looking and it APPEARS as though the flight would have to occur by that date. It's unlikely I will be flying again by then.
So check a box in the "reasons not to buy early" column.
I haven't done anything. There are plenty of people on reddit claiming that if you cancel a flight to get a credit, then book another flight and cancel, the date moves out another year each time, but it doesn't look that way when I play with it on Delta. It showed me one year from my purchase, and I see evidence of it retaining that original date through all successive operations.
I do have the option of biding my time and hoping that as the months roll by, they will change my time enough such that I am owed a refund. They claim it is >120 minutes, I have used this rule in the past and got a refund no questions asked. Right now they have changed my time by 85 minutes...so it's possible.
Oh well
I was extra confused when I got the email that prices went down, at least for that flight, because gas prices had just gone up in our town and the news was that OPEC was cutting production for the rest of 2023 and some are predicting $5/gal gas prices come the end of the year. Who knows. But that seems like an odd time to drop airfare.
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ratfan
Waiting on ROFR
Posts: 68
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Post by ratfan on Apr 8, 2023 16:00:46 GMT -5
Beware: we are a hot mess at the moment, as are most US airlines. We used to go days without a single cancellation but now we are cancelling nearly 100 flights per day. Just like last summer, the airlines are all selling tickets even though none of them (including Delta) has the required amount of crews to support the operation. It will continue until people start writing their Congress people or booking away from a given airline. You've been warned.
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Post by Adelard of Bath on May 1, 2023 13:42:09 GMT -5
So, fast forward another month:
I never did do anything re: rebooking my flight for eCredit or whatever. I remember tell my wife, we could bide our time and they could very well change our times enough that we could cancel for a refund.
Well, what email did I get this morning from Delta? "Your flight schedule has changed" and now it's way over the 90-minute mark so I could totally cancel and get an actual cash refund, then rebook later.
I dunno, haven't done anything yet. But, nice to have options dropped into my lap.
I looked at my archives from last year, they list all these flights but then over time they get dropped and all that remains (at least for out flights, anyways) is a 7am departure, one at noon, and one at 6pm. That is what they are showing right now, too. One year they dropped the noon one, too, and just ran the early and late flights.
I don't necessarily want to land at 8:30 in Minneapolis and then it is two hours in the car to get home. But I also don't want to fly out of Tampa at 7am which would mean leaving our resort at like 4am or something.
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mcd
One Bedroom
Our heart Is At The Polynesian!
Posts: 458
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Post by mcd on May 1, 2023 19:18:25 GMT -5
I checked two flights I currently have booked with Delta, and they are higher than when I booked them. I guess it varies or I checked too late.
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Post by Adelard of Bath on May 2, 2023 10:02:43 GMT -5
I checked two flights I currently have booked with Delta, and they are higher than when I booked them. I guess it varies or I checked too late. Well since you bought them when they were cheaper, that's a win! |
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