Airfare Post Christmas OMG

Marcia (Mrs. Pete) · Post by **Marcia (Mrs. Pete)** » Wed May 22, 2013 6:47 pm

I travel a lot. We all travel a lot, actually, this family of ours. But this is ridiculous. To get our family of six down to the USVI on 12/28 through 1/7, is more than $1100.00/per person. I've never seen rates like that, for months on end (I keep checking). Our daughter is going to the DR for less than half of that...in fact, our daughter who went to Australia didn't pay that much. Oh, and our son who went to Argentina, less than that.

We cannot do this. We've already booked our villa of course but we had no idea the flights would be this insanely expensive. Please, please tell me they will go down. A LOT.

I appreciate that it's "high season" but, really?

Someone give me hope here.

News of St. John · Post by **News of St. John** » Wed May 22, 2013 7:01 pm

I booked my tickets for this past year's Christmas trip in March 2012. I monitored the fares daily and it was the least expensive the day they went on sale. I ended up paying around $550 a person on JetBlue and we had to travel on Christmas to keep the cost down. There were six if us and I believe it was about $600 more to fly down on December 26. It was crazy.

jimg20 · Post by **jimg20** » Wed May 22, 2013 7:23 pm

they don't call it teh High Season for no reason at all.

JIM

mnfun2bme · Post by **mnfun2bme** » Wed May 22, 2013 7:27 pm

Spirit Airlines is $604 out of ORD on those dates. Not the greatest flight times... but it might help.

MSP $731 good flight times out of MSP. I know it's a long drive, but I sense your panic.

SO SORRY

mnfun2bme · Post by **mnfun2bme** » Wed May 22, 2013 7:33 pm

also... just looked and leaving the 29th brings more options from the various surrounding airports.
In the 500's from ORD.
Goodluck... Keep us posted.

Knolmom · Post by **Knolmom** » Wed May 22, 2013 8:33 pm

Paid $591.00 pp each for travel July 6 to 13 from NYC. Have never paid that in all our travels since 1995. Only pd $279 pp RT this past February from NY. Go figure?

stjchica · Post by **stjchica** » Wed May 22, 2013 8:53 pm

We never travel for less than $1000/per person in Dec, but that's leaving from DFW.

byado18 · Post by **byado18** » Wed May 22, 2013 10:35 pm

This year is the highest in the 10 years we've been going... still putting off booking flights forf DEc. 13 - 27.Flying out of Centyrail IL, Delta is the only 1 stop option but might consider other options this year!

philbetm · Post by **philbetm** » Wed May 22, 2013 10:36 pm

I actually had to pay over $1100. for my ticket out of CLT. Thank goodness Hubby had almost enough flier miles for his. They were charging 80,000 miles roundtrip for June. Still had to buy/share some miles for him. Same time last year, booking tickets almost exact dates , paid $667 and about had a heart attack over that!

Think this may be our last time to book with USAir. Actually got an alert today on airfare to Hawaii....Just over $600...can you believe that ... and it's a lot farther away from S.C. than STT !

mnfun2bme · Post by **mnfun2bme** » Thu May 23, 2013 7:32 am

Yes, we had sticker shock for December as well. It's insane. We ended up using frequent flyer miles for 6 tickets - Delta out of MSP was over $1,000 ticket for mid December (coming back before Christmas). 360,000 flyer miles later and we're booked.

Really tough to stomach and I promise I won't whine when my hubby is away traveling all the time.

Just booked my frequent flyer seat for Grand Cayman next March and it was only 30,000 miles as opposed to 60,000 for St Thomas.

piscesgirl0314 · Post by **piscesgirl0314** » Thu May 23, 2013 8:26 am

We paid that much last year to Costa Rica. We waited too long and ended spending $3300.00 for the three of us to fly...lesson learned. We bought our tickets in January for our trip coming up in June and it was the cheapest we've paid since our first trip in 2003.

Kentuckygirl · Post by **Kentuckygirl** » Thu May 23, 2013 9:27 am

My ticket for my upcoming trip was over $900...ridiculous! It is usually "just" around $550-600 from here. I hope it doesn't stay like this or we won't be back for a long time.
Marcia, I think I'd wait a month or so. Hopefully they'll drop. Good luck!!

jmq · Post by **jmq** » Thu May 23, 2013 10:04 am

Yikes. If we lived in the Midwest, and if those prices persisted, our default tropical getaway might become Kauai. Re airfare to HI, if nonstop was too much, likely lotsa connection options thru different west coast cities via Alaska or Hawaiian Air (we paid $660 RT last year from Newark), plus really nice rentals can be had for less than STJ comparables, car rentals are half that of STJ, etc.
Of course not the same as that Caribbean water...but a VI vacation has always been expensive and just seems to be getting more so, maybe due to increased popularity?

PA Girl · Post by **PA Girl** » Thu May 23, 2013 10:34 am

A guy in my office just booked for Hawaii for $600 rt from Newark and the flight times are good, meaning he doesn't have crazy times or long layovers.

We will be booking our airfare for our PR/STJ trip over the next couple of days. Because of our schedule, we never get "good" fares but the points and miles does take some of the sting out of the price.

iowaguy · Post by **iowaguy** » Thu May 23, 2013 11:00 am

Marcia---May not make you feel any better, but we have the same issues flying from Des Moines. I think it's part of the problem of not living in a major air hub. Just yesterday, I was helping our close friends plan a trip to St. John from Des Moines for Spring Break 2014. Most tickets (Saturday to Saturday) were in the $1100 range. They did find some tickets with good connections for $900 and they booked them. I thought that was too high and said I would drive to Chicago to save $300/ticket, but they didn't want the inconvenience.

We are taking a family trip to STJ in February 2014 and are driving to O'Hare to avoid the high ticket prices out of Des Moines. For February 2014, airfare out of Chicago was $560 RT. Sounds like it is a little higher after Christmas (Saturday after Christmas is a high volume flying day), but it should be cheaper (especially Spirit Air).

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