Help Me Decide if the travel expense is worth it.

[Dan]

If Tubbataha is definitely where you want to go, have you check Eva Air? I’ll be there in June 2024 on Infiniti liveaboard. My air fare is about $3000 with Eva Air premium economy.

The travel time is 18 hours on the outbound and 16 hours on the inbound. From Houston to Manila, Eva Air has only 1 stop over in Taipei.

I am a Premier Platinum for United Airlines, which is in the same Star Alliance with Eva Air. So, I got all the business class perks for flying with Eva Aur too.

 

[Doc Harry]

For seeing big animals, have you been to Galapagos? It’s a much shorter (hence, cheaper) fly from USA.

True, but there is a huge difference in water temperatures, LOL!

I'm usually cold tolerant and dive in shorts and rash guard. But I froze and shivered in a 7mm wetsuit in March the Galapagos. It was not fun. That's a drysuit destination.

 

[ReefHound]

In business class I have so much leg room that I can lie down, LOL.

I also fly business class for domestic flights. By the time you pay for round-trip luggage fees and "extra leg room," you've almost paid the price of a business class ticket but you don't get any of the perks. LOL

I'd like to know where you get such deals because I've found Business class to be triple the fare, often $4000 or more on international flights. For about $200 in perks.

 

[DreadnoughtNH]

IMO, business class is totally worth the expense, particularly on legs >6h. Much of the rationale has already been explained, but for me the flight comfort is part of the dive vacation. However, you also shouldn't necessarily put yourself in a poorhouse just to fly in travel in comfort. If you haven't done so already, get a credit card that has good travel benefits, and use it to auto-pay your daily life expenses (utilities, food, gas, etc.). I'm always amazed how quickly the points add up. Then, get strategic in using those points.

 

[DreadnoughtNH]

I'd like to know where you get such deals because I've found Business class to be triple the fare, often $4000 or more on international flights. For about $200 in perks.

Rarely do I pay full bore for business class on international. Usually a status upgrade for flying so much for work, or CC points-usage.
Also, some people are willing to put a price on comfort. I certainly do. The $200 in perks don't interest me. Being able to lie flat for a 19h flight to Singapore interests me greatly.

 

[Landau]

Tubbataha was amazing, I saw something new on every dive. Worth whatever you can afford.

I was on the Infiniti which was a great boat and crew. Highly recommended.

 

[Dan]

True, but there is a huge difference in water temperatures, LOL!

I'm usually cold tolerant and dive in shorts and rash guard. But I froze and shivered in a 7mm wetsuit in March the Galapagos. It was not fun. That's a drysuit destination.

7mm in Galapagos is fine for me and I’m from Indonesia. LOL

 

[scrane]

Business Class? What's that? Is it better than Premium Economy?

 

[tridacna]

Business Class? What's that? Is it better than Premium Economy?

First class? What’s that? Is it better than Business?

 

[outofofficebrb]

I am seriously considering a liveaboard trip in Tubbataha in March. We are finding the airfare to be almost as mucy, if not more than the week long trip on the boat. We can fly out of anywhere on the west coast. We need to fly to PPS. I cannot travel for 28+ hours in economy. Premium economy if you can find it is $3500. Business is $5K +++ Given there are other places to go and other places to dive I need help deciding if it is worth it. I have dove most of the great places in the world, with my desire being large animals. Anyone have an opinion?

March may be the official season but it is risky. You can sometimes get rough weather. I suggest mid April to mid May as the ideal time since the actual season is March to mid June. We were there in mid April and we had a day or two of really rough water and people were puking. You may be able to find cheaper airfare then as well. We consistently saw whale sharks while we were in Tubbataha and there were a lot of sharks. We some a couple mantas from very far away. If you can swing it, I'd suggest going longer than just the week if you are going to travel all that way, especially given the price for tickets. If you use ITA matrix with flexible dates and just let it know how many days you want (it can be a range) so you can optimize your booking for price and then see if a liveaboard you like will line up with it. On ITA Matrix, you can hover your mouse over the prospective departure dates on the calendar and it will pop up with pricing in the cabin of your choice based on the number of days you want to stay so you can immediately and easily compare, with filters if needed.

You mentioned you can fly from anywhere on the west coast. You can also try pricing out tickets from gateway cities over the Pacific such as LAX or SFO. You can even try Seattle, Vancouver, etc. depending on the carrier. Be creative. It may be cheaper to do it that way and you get a separate ticket to get to SFO/LAX/SEA/YVR. We usually get really competitively priced tickets because of all the carrier options we have going that way that are US based or foreign based.

I recently purchased a premium economy Singapore Airlines ticket for $1600 for SFO - CGK (Jakarta) then returning DPS (Bali) - SFO for early April and mid May 2024, respectively. My partner was able to pick up premium economy flying SFO to CGK round trip for mid April $1100 returning mid May. Track some flight prices, use Google flights/ITA matrix. Some options with free 24 hour cancellation might also be an option for you. I fly over the Pacific very often and have purchased economy tickets with United a few times and have upgraded into premium economy directly for as little at $350-$400 over the economy fare. You could always buy the ticket, check what the instant upgrade price to premium economy is, then cancel if it's not to your liking but those prices are dynamic and will change even daily based on their revenue algorithms. The most expensive premium economy ticket I've purchased is about $1900-$2000 during the April time period.

In the past 1-1.5 years, I've found the sweet spot to book a trip is about 4-5 months out if going over the Pacific from SFO. I am a compulsive price checker, even after I've booked!

I like the flexibility of no change fees on United so I will often book a ticket and then keep tracking prices then rebook if prices fall (then get a credit) or will change my booking to another cabin if the price is compelling. Sometimes, premium economy ends up being the exact same price as economy. I fly in April-May every year over the Pacific (and usually again in the fall) so I've had a lot of data sets over the years.

Another option is to consider award travel if you have a travel credit card or any frequent flyer points. If you don't have one, I highly suggest one. All that spending adds up, including booking dive trips. (I get 3X points for each $1 spent plus there are a ton of other possible bonus categories.) Anecdotally, I just booked a flight to Dubai from San Francisco with my points. I was able to get a long haul in business class (SFO to Germany) then economy into Dubai for not that many points. On the return, I wasn't able to get anything as good with a low point trade in so I decided to keep to economy and see what my upgrade options were. I popped into my reservation and saw that an upgrade from economy to business (so, a 2 "cabin" jump skipping premium economy altogether) from Dubai to Newark which is published as a 15.5 hour flight was only $1100. Last year, also had a cash price economy ticket and was able to upgrade to business class for only $1,000 flying to Singapore (16 hours from SFO!)

All this to say, don't get discouraged from your initial flight price research. But with that said, Tubbataha was good, but it is not so good that I would return and I have returned to a lot of dive destinations.