This is intolerable!

[Exterous]

I was keeping an eye on airfare for a spring trip we want to take and my wife just accepted a new job. Of course the same day there's an airfare sale but her new school hasn't decided on a school schedule yet due to contract negotiations so I don't know what days she'll have off. Meanwhile, despite this crisis, she's all 'waah waah I'm going to miss my friends and the kids' and 'No I'm not giving you my new principal's cell phone number so you can harass him about days off'. Like way to not focus on the important things here. Ugh this is bad guys. I don't know if I can live like this - the summer airline schedules are not that far from being released and I don't know when I'll know when her summer vacation starts

 

[snoopy7548]

Spring ended like last week.

 

[NuclearNed]

I'm walking on eggshells today - I have a backpacking trip in Idaho in less than a month, then climbing Grand Teton 1st wk of August. Yesterday I got dragged into a "drop everything else" project here at work... I'm not sure if or how this project is going to affect me, but based on previous experience with this company I fear the worst.

Just in case, I've dusted off my resume & polished it until it practically glows.

 

[SKORPI0]

Spring ended like last week.

Nope, 4 more days.. June 21st.

 

[Exterous]

Spring ended like last week.

Spring next year duh. I plan vacations pretty far out. There are a ton of additional benefits to doing that these days with the price of hotels, airBnBs, rental cars, and airline schedule changes

I'm walking on eggshells today - I have a backpacking trip in Idaho in less than a month, then climbing Grand Teton 1st wk of August. Yesterday I got dragged into a "drop everything else" project here at work... I'm not sure if or how this project is going to affect me, but based on previous experience with this company I fear the worst.

Just in case, I've dusted off my resume & polished it until it practically glows.

Good luck!

 

[dullard]

Spring next year duh. I plan vacations pretty far out. There are a ton of additional benefits to doing that these days with the price of hotels, airBnBs, rental cars, and airline schedule changes

Most of my big vacations are planned 3 weeks out. I've started planning a trip to South Africa 10 days before I left and Vietnam/Cambodia 6 days before. That last one was a nail biter since I had to overnight passports to Washington, get the visa sticker, and provide them with overnight return mailings hoping to get it back in time (this wasn't helped by a national holiday in the middle of that). But it all worked out quite well. Great prices last minute can be found--like really really cheap hotel prices at nice locations. And historically the airline prices bottom about 3 weeks out. I couldn't imagine being in your position. I never know my schedule with more than a few weeks notice let alone almost a full year.

But, I'm pretty sure you are correct. Right now planning long term does seem to be needed.

 

[Exterous]

Most of my big vacations are planned 3 weeks out. I've started planning a trip to South Africa 10 days before I left and Vietnam/Cambodia 6 days before. That last one was a nail biter since I had to overnight passports to Washington, get the visa sticker, and provide them with overnight return mailings hoping to get it back in time (this wasn't helped by a national holiday in the middle of that). But it all worked out quite well. Great prices last minute can be found--like really really cheap hotel prices at nice locations. And historically the airline prices bottom about 3 weeks out. I couldn't imagine being in your position. I never know my schedule with more than a few weeks notice let alone almost a full year.

But, I'm pretty sure you are correct. Right now planning long term does seem to be needed.

If you're flexible on destination and timing the really deep sales for airfare are usually in the 3-8 month out timeframe. All my sub $400 RT to Europe tickets (including a few sub $350) have fallen in that window. Outside of deep sales you are correct that airfare dips compared to normal prices a couple of weeks out.

I haven't kept track of close in airline ticket pricing this summer but I suspect that is no longer the case this year. I do know that last minute award seat availability is basically just gone and not a thing this year and those are usually linked to the those discounted $ fare buckets. Car rentals are a complete mess. I looked at maybe changing a car rental and it wasn't that it was expensive - there were literally no options from any rental place. A second trip we have a reservation for $250 in 2 weeks and the current price is $875. For another location we're at $700 and now half the rental places are sold out while the few remaining ones are charging $1200. AirBnB's at popular places are being snatched up incredibly quickly with huge decreases in options week by week. We are headed to the Canary Islands in Dec and we created a list of favorites in April. By early March 1/2 our list was booked up. Granted there were still other options but I was surprised by the speed. We ended up looking at the Canary Islands because places in the Caribbean were already quite full in April and commanding a 2x-3x premium over previous years (at least for places we've stayed before and quite liked)

While I don't know what I'll be working on in advance my employer is always flexible around already planned vacations. So I book early (which is very important when looking for award space) and then its no big deal

 

[MrSquished]

My friend is going to a Greek island for two weeks. His mom is at their house there for two months so he'll meet her there. she got her ticket a few months ago, 3k for business class. He bought his a few weeks ago, it was then close to 10k, so he's going economy