1500 USD for June Trip

[billbill]

Last year I paid $1180 USD for my trip to Thailand in June ...this year I cant find anything less than 1660 USD...I cant depart from any of the major hubs like DC NYC or Atlanta so i have not been able to find any good prices...I bought last year's ticket with Korean Air on January 11th.. the prices had dropped steadily last year so i could buy the ticket in January...this year seems so different...any suggestions about how long should I wait before the prices for June 2011 may fall ? Or am I waiting for something that is not happening?

[Mike Asia]

Hard to say if the price will go up or down but June is the start of summer time for schools so lots of families travel to Asia.

 

 

I would wait a couple of months

[deezl]

If you create a (free) membership with one (or a couple) of the flight aggregators (sidestep, farecompare, etc) they will email you alerts when prices drop (either to a specified amount, an amount below what they're currently listed as, or a percentage drop).

 

If you can't fly out of a major hub then, yeah, that could be an issue, any reason why you couldn't fly into a major hub from where you're at and go from there? Sometimes those short haul tickets can be super cheap. Also, keep in mind that sometimes you can find a better deal by taking a multi-city itinerary (I don't mean a scheduled stopover, but rather two completely separate itineraries booked as one). some of the folks on frequent flyer boards like flyertalk are masters at pulling this kind of stuff off.

[steve1703]

Last year I paid $1180 USD for my trip to Thailand in June ...this year I cant find anything less than 1660 USD...I cant depart from any of the major hubs like DC NYC or Atlanta so i have not been able to find any good prices...I bought last year's ticket with Korean Air on January 11th.. the prices had dropped steadily last year so i could buy the ticket in January...this year seems so different...any suggestions about how long should I wait before the prices for June 2011 may fall ? Or am I waiting for something that is not happening?

It may be a good idea to register to a website like webjet or similar and key in the details for your proposed trip...they will then email you regular price updates for the carriers that leave from your destination.

 

If webjet is of no use to you do a google search and you will find many similar sites to choose from,signing up to at least two will give you a comparison on the prices offered...

 

Just an idea.. ..i use webjet and compare to travel agents and other online deals.

 

Cheers mate.

 

 

Steve.

[griz30]

I think the prices are going to stay that way...I booked a flight back in April for $1080 out of Philly and then I booked my flight for this X-mas and it was $1440 out of NYC. That was cheapest I could get..I had to drive from Maryland to NY just to get that. I read somewhere that the prices are going to steadily rise....not good.

[NorCalKid]

Had the same problem leaving SFO a couple trips back. I found that if I was able to leave the last day of May the prices were significantly cheaper. It appears June 1 if the start of the airlines high/travel season. Doesn’t seem to matter what the return date is. Not sure if you could make this work for you or not.

 

I also paid the most I have ever paid this last trip.

[wetwillie]

I had to pay $1300 for a flight out of Chicago in May. That is $400+ more than any of my previous flights to Thailand. If I wait to fly until late May or early June the prices go up to around $1600. The taxes and fees have more than tripled on international flights. I've been getting alerts and the prices seem to increase as the date get closer and the seats are filled.

[sneradog]

Unfortunately, I must echo the experience of previous posters. As you may have heard, the airlines are having less trouble filling the seats due to decreased capacity and increased demand, so unfortunately they have jaacked up the prices. I have also noticed that prices this year are significantly higher than last year. I still live in hope that they will drop as we get closer to the late spring season, but the reality is that this may not happen due to the factors described above.

[Trespass]

I am in the same situation, I live a long way from a hub. But, loading up expedia and painstakingly adjusting the dates of travel while watching a ballgame I was able to find a $1,200 flight on Korean Air going through JFK. Bottom line, expedia booked me into the hub at a price I simply could not get on my own. It took about an hour to find the price...flying out on a Thursday and departing for home on a Saturday.

 

Good luck.

[QuotaMan]

Unfortunately, I must echo the experience of previous posters. As you may have heard, the airlines are having less trouble filling the seats due to decreased capacity and increased demand, so unfortunately they have jaacked up the prices. I have also noticed that prices this year are significantly higher than last year. I still live in hope that they will drop as we get closer to the late spring season, but the reality is that this may not happen due to the factors described above.

 

Yup.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_airlines_making_money

 

Looks like they cut a lot of flights when they were losing money the past few years, so now there's less seats and they can jack up the prices. Which equals big profits. It sucks because if you want to get to LOS quick, you have to fly so we are at their mercy unless we spend hours looking for deals and prices which seem to change every day.

[lespaul5000]

I am in the same situation, I live a long way from a hub. But, loading up expedia and painstakingly adjusting the dates of travel while watching a ballgame I was able to find a $1,200 flight on Korean Air going through JFK. Bottom line, expedia booked me into the hub at a price I simply could not get on my own. It took about an hour to find the price...flying out on a Thursday and departing for home on a Saturday.

 

Good luck.

 

yeah this is the way i do it as well...it's amazing the price difference you can see just by adjusting your dates by one or two days

[iluvasians/latins]

I would still wait a few months. Never know.

[billbill]

Thanks for the feedback...Im going to try and sign up for one of the travel sites and see what happens. Im 6'3 and need to get an aisle seat to maintain sanity on the flights so ....Not going until June would like to book as soon as possible to let my mind be at rest and concentrate on the here and now until my trip...

[Fritzy]

yeah this is the way i do it as well...it's amazing the price difference you can see just by adjusting your dates by one or two days

 

Check out the ITA Matrix (matrix.itasoftware.com)... It does a month long search from your proposed date with a variable stay length. Once you find the cheapest price you can then go to Expedia or Orbitz and book.

 

Fritzy

[altec123]

I am seeing flights from IAd to LOS on Korean Air for about $1,200. Keep checking as the prices seem to change almost daily.

[G Baht]

onetravel.com

 

IAD to BKK

 

$1197 on Qatar Air

[billbill]

noticed the above prices...but u have to add about 438 USD in fees.... the prices are not as good as first viewed....they get you on the taxes...I think Im fucked for this trip and will end up paying 1500-1700 for a flight from RDU-BKK return trip from JUne14-July 14...

[rowyco]

Considering they keep predicting that oil prices will go over 100 USD a barrel again this year, I don't think the prices will come down. If anything, you'll see the prices go up. I wouldn't wait too long to get your flight.

 

I'm sure they will also use the situation in Egypt at the moment to jack the price of oil up.

[cboogs]

look after midnight...The other day I saw a flight out of JFK in June for $970, right now the cheapest is $1183..

[Freeze]

I'm on a flight through Atlanta - Korean Air for the 1,183. It was the best price I could find.

[furryman]

The best discounts are going to pop up around 90-100 days before departure. You just gotta search and adjust and search again. FWIW I usually try to depart on a Tues and return on a Tues or a Thurs. This seems to make a little difference.

 

Fare Compare has lots of good info on getting a good deal on seats.

 

I have found Vayama to have the best deals for international flights from the US West coast.

Edited February 1, 2011 by furryman

[billbill]

Gentleman...I'm still going to wait a while at least another month and then Im going to find a flight...havent seen any of the low prices people are talking about 970.USD is that the price for June?? ok thanks for all the help

[cboogs]

Gentleman...I'm still going to wait a while at least another month and then Im going to find a flight...havent seen any of the low prices people are talking about 970.USD is that the price for June?? ok thanks for all the help

 

Look after midnight....I read this some time back, but for some reason the cheapest fares pop up after midnight. No f'ing idea why, but I saw the $970 flight for June last week when I checked around 1:00 am. The next day, the same flight was nearly $1200. And like another BM said, you probably won't find the best price until you're about 90 days to the date. Another option you could look into is signing up for a credit card with a high mileage signup bonus. There's a continental card offer right now that gives you 50k miles after your first purchase. I think a trip to BKK from US is 65K miles, so you would have to acquire some more miles or purchase them....

[eclectic7]

My suprise today --- in a good way.

 

Had a price alert on kAYAK.com for trip between March 27 and April 15. --anyway, according to Kayak's price

alert, price had gone down $17

 

Anywho-- was prepared to buy my ticket and Kayak gave me the choice of three different sites, expedia, orbitz, and

somebody else -- forget -- who all had flights on myh time frame for 1380 out of Austin Texas, to Bangkok and back.

 

Just radomly chose Orbitz, and low to my suprise, Orbitz had a ticket for $1239 from Austin and Back for my

time frame. So I paid about $150 less than expected.

 

Doesn't answer your story about flying out in June, but moral of the story is that Kayak only told me part of the

story. --- yes, kayak was very helpful, but I might have passed on a good deal waiting for a better deal had I not

proceeded from Kayak to Orbitz.

 

One other good thing worth mentioning is if you have the flexibility, to punch in dates a day or two before

and after. What I seem to discovered is that price from U.S. to Bangkok was generally cheaper on Sun, Mon, and Wed,

and defilnitely more expesive on Tuesday as a rule. So its possible flight can be $100 or so cheaper by just

one day. Worth checking out.

 

Now as to long term strategy of buying earlier or buying later, my two cents worth is I would go with buying

earlier --- with middle east/Egypt concerns, oil could skyrocket for a while if the whole of the middle east

becomes unstable. And then could possibly be another iceland volcano problem -- read that the thing seems

to be flaring up again.

 

Bottom line, could be a lot fewer flights during the time you want to go, so personally, I'd grab first

deal that came along if I was you and then don't look back to see if you could have saved $100 bucks by waiting.

 

Good luck

Edited February 9, 2011 by eclectic7

[wetwillie]

You might want to check FinnAir for prices. They come back with the lowest fares from Chicago. I have no idea what their prices are for the major hubs on the east coast. The lowest fare I have seen from them is $1187all/in but that is for mid May and the layovers are brutal. Good luck.