Expensive flights?

[rlskill1]

try Exito Travel Latin America discount flights Mexico flights Costa Rica flight Belize travel cheap Mexico flights guatemala tickets Ecuador

They're usually reasonable.

 

[scubamickey]

I paid $650 incl. taxes for each of our tickets from IAH-BON. Departing June 19th and returning July 5th. I always purchase my tickets many months in advance for this reason. These tickers were bought back at the end of November. I saw a price increase sometime around February.

 

[helimvee]

I've flown the Continental Redeye from Newark 5 times and booking tickets is always an adventure. The prices do fluctuate a great deal day to day. Weeks with a US holiday are usually more expensive.

Also, check to make sure that the system did not change your request to First Class. It mysteriously did this to me a couple of times.

 

[scubamickey]

Forgot to mention. Yapta.com
Great tool for tracking when fares drop or increase. They send you an email alert.

 

[parachute]

You could also look into a stopover in Aruba and then use Tiara for AUA<>BON...

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

. . . 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!

I'll suggest Curacao as an alternative with great shore diving, and the Curacao NOW promotion program, for you to consider. The $200 per person air fare rebate, up to $400 per room booked, helps take some sting out of the travel cost. We'll be there June 20 - July 4. Hre's a couple of recent threads.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/abc-islands/284777-curacao-now-promotion.html

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/abc-islands/285057-curacao-shore-diving.html

 

[DandyDon]

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.

Were you search Continental.com? I have caught that site bumping fares on me while I searched - until I cleared my Continental cookies, or use a proxy search site.

Forgot to mention. Yapta.com
Great tool for tracking when fares drop or increase. They send you an email alert.

I use Sidestep.com for most of my searching as they search several other sites and will search many more by checking boxes. Yapta is one of the boxes, but I haven't been impressed with their finds when I have helped others on many trips lately. Not bad, but never the best? Try Sidestep too.

I think maybe you just need to search more and better, Tracydr...

I'm guessing you'd really like to leave Friday afternoon and arrive Saturday morning for a week? I poked around a bit, and the first 6 here are from one search with boxes checked. Priceline did really good. (Right click and Open in New Tab to avoid losing this page)...

​

Checking another date, Sidestep could not find any fares for Continental so I went to Continental.com to investigate - yep, sold out, but looks what's available on the next day! $699 including taxes....!!

​

And I just started. There are many more options if you check Nearby Airports sometimes, or Flexible Dates, and keep looking at other ideas.

Did you phone Continental? If you don't have time and patience to check all possibilities, the phone agents can do it for $15 ticketing fee.

 

[Gtoph]

If you can leave on a Friday afternoon, this one isn't too bad for $710:

 

[melg]

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.

Hello,

Have you flied Divi Divi? I am about to make a booking and I am quite concerned...the picture of the "plane" at their website is not that reassuring!! I do not want to end up being the next wreck dive...

 

[DeputyDan]

I have flown the divi divi - - see linky

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/abc-islands/245635-flying-divi-divi-airlines.html