Expensive flights?

[tracydr]

Just went online to check flights to Bonaire and about had a stroke. Whats with the flight prices? The last time we went in 07 I think we paid about $650 apiece. Now, I can't find anything less than $1300. My dive budget just broke!!
Any ideas on a cheaper alternative to the Houston Continental hop or another great shore diving alternative with cheaper flights? We'll be leaving from Phoenix, have a Saturday to Saturday off in July.
I think I'll have to bite the bullet and buy the tickets because when I figure in boat diving somewhere else (and the fact that we don't really like being tied to boat schedules) it will be a wash in the end. But, geez I hate paying that much for the dang flight!

 

[El Orans]

Lucky you.

I'd need 1200-1300 Euro (1500-1700 USD) for July.

 

[DiveMaven]

Our flight in late June was running about $750 until about a week ago when they went up to $1400 recently through Houston. I'm thinking this is because the Bonaire flight looks full, so they must be booking their hold-back seats. You might look and see what kind of seat availability the flight you want has, which may shed some light on the reason for the price.

 

[diversteve]

Can you leave Friday night? The Continental red-eye direct to Bonaire leaves Houston at 11:50 and arrives early Saturday morning. Or is that the $1400 flight?

Another option is Continental to Curacao and then Dutch Antilles Express or Insel Air or Divi Air over to Bonaire. That should be a 5AM Sat departure from PHX with a connection in Houston. We arrived on Curacao about 1PM which is plenty of time to catch a connection over to Bonaire. Not sure about the return though - it might require flying back and overnighting on Curacao on Friday as our flight left around 7AM in order to get all the way home by Sat. evening,

Or just stay/dive in Curacao. It's the same reef as Bonaire just a little farther swim out in some places. Much more to do topside as it's a much bigger island - casinos, better beaches, downtown. Bonaire was a little nicer and cleaner (no oil refinery on Bonaire) but the diving was equally good either place. There's a little more travel time between divesites on Curacao so doing 4 dives/day isn't always possible unless you repeat sites. Several are worth doing both ways, Playa Kalki was one example - it was quite a bit different in either direction. Most of the divesites to the west have some sort of on-site operator also.

We stayed a couple days in the Playa Lagun area and did some of the west end dives before moving closer to town for the rest of the week to dive to the east. Both are good. They also have the Dive Bus if you want to do some escorted shore dives.

 

[dvrliz1]

Hi Tracy,

Ok, I found you a trip that is very reasonable. $700 pp RT, but you have to overnight in Newark (Ed and I have done this and it works great. We recommend the Marriott at the airport, the shuttle picks you up quickly and they bring you back to the airport. We just bring enough in our overnight bag for the night so we don't even touch our luggage. The hotel is about $100 for the night, so it is good. The flight actually gets you into Curacao, but we can get you over here on one of the island hoppers for about $50. each This is 17/18-25/26 July.

Same flights available the weekend before.

 

[DeputyDan]

Tracy are you a Doctor at one of the in/out clinics in Scottsdale - off Tatum?

I was there several years ago with a bug/flu I picked up in Roatan and you told me it was an allergy and to see a specialist.

You were right.

We spoke mostly about Bonaire!

 

[Gtoph]

Nothing wrong with curacao if you can find it for cheaper (which you probably can). It's got excellent boat & shore diving. You can see some pictures of it in my signature link below.

As for airfare I assume you went to all the popular sites like: farecompare.com, sidestep.com, farecast.com. One maybe lesser known one that I really really like now is itasoftware.com... there's nothing to actually install, just click the 'search airfares using qpx' button; enter you dates and such and then use the graphical view.

 

[stortecky]

I just checked and I can fly from Chicago to Bonaire through huston for 495 for most of the weeks in July. I would just wait on booking your flights something doesn't seem right.

 

[stortecky]

I would check again, I fist got like 1300 when I ran it and then I got 634 from phx in on July 11th

 

[driftwood]

Hi Tracy,

We saw the same thing from Continental a few years back. Out of the blue the cost went from $650 to $1150 and the flight was months out. As if any thing dealing with the cost of air travel makes sense, the only reasonable reason I could come up with is that a group booked and based on some arcane formula they thought that there was great demand.

Give it some time and the price will probably fall. You can also check rates from other departure points. It is less expensive for us to fly out of Austin to get to Bonaire than direct flight through Houston.