Is $1,000 for United to Bonaire in June going to drop??

[jorgie6]

Stop looking at the price, but don't stop looking at your seat assignments! I caught a change last week. I had booked last Oct for this May. My 2 seats together row 15 had turned into 1 row 36 center and 1 row 37 center!!! Row 37 being the very last row in front of the bathrooms... There was another seat in row 37 next to the other available otherwise upgrade to economy plus. I called them and he wanted to put me in the the other row 37 seat. I figured given the events of last week that they might actually be trying to make folks happy so I pushed it a bit. Somehow he managed to get us 2 together much further up. My apologies in advance to whomever he bumped from my fight

Sorry for the hijack... Back on topic, I use my chase united card points for the flight. 70k for the 2 of us.

United is Notorious for changing seat assignments! I check my reservations frequently to see if they have changed them.

 

[Scuba_Shoe]

you can try the Hopper app. I have used it with great results

 

[jjach]

I just arrived on Bonaire today. We booked our flights on United out of Chicago in February. Paid about $1900.00 for my wife and I. I kept on watching the prices, some days it went up other days it dropped. I found that Wednesdays had the cheapest fares. I finally figured the price dropped enough and called United. Same flights, dropped to about $1400.00 for the 2 of us. We got vouchers for the difference in price, minus $50.00 each ticket for processing. It takes some arguing, but they will honor the lower price.

 

[wgw04024]

We generally pay $700 out of Portland, ME or Boston.

 

[bula2]

Good for you to get the vouchers! We usually pay around 600.00 out of Newark.

 

[lunula]

I've tried to follow fares for the last few years to see when prices rise and fall, it seems to really be hit-or-miss. A few years back, I saw some United (CLT-BON) tickets for $480, I think around April/May, and I decided to pass thinking they would drop. To my dismay, prices just kept rising even though we were looking at flights for December. I think we ended up purchasing in mid-summer because prices spiked to around $1k, but dropped back to around $800 and in looking at the seating charts, the flight was already getting full.

I continued following the fares and I think it dropped again, maybe to the $650 range, in early fall, but then spiked back up to $800+ right up until the time we left.

United then canceled our flight to NJ and put us on an earlier flight to Chicago, then to Houston, then to Bonaire but getting in on their 2nd flight of the day - which was hours later than we had planned. They did this to us about 3 weeks before we were meant to leave and refused to do anything to help us. We ended up flying to NJ the night before and leaving on their early flight, and flying out a day later - so we paid a lot more due to 2 more nights in hotels.

The next year, United again canceled a flight, last minute and rerouted us some crazy flights - so we canceled and luckily were able to book a last minute Delta flight for a couple hundred more. We will never fly United again & I don't even check their fares anymore. I now track Delta and just got tickets for $570 (CLT-ATL-BON). Honestly, it's the lowest I've ever seen the Delta flight from CLT-BON. Last year when we bought them last minute, we paid over $800.

 

[Nikole]

Form my experience on booking flights of ANY kind, prices tend to increase the longer you wait. They never go down.

I haven't been to Bonaire for about 8 years and have a trip planned for 3 weeks, leaving the middle of June. I plan to fly United out of Milwaukee with layover in Houston as I did many years ago, but I am shocked that the prices are still so high. I check daily and it has come down some, but right now less than 2 months out, tickets are still over $1,000 each.

Since I haven't bought tickets to Bonaire in over eight years, I am wondering if I should just lock in and get my tickets at this price or wait for them to drop.

Does anybody have any idea of prices usually get much lower? I don't really want to wait too much longer. I already have my accommodations booked.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

 

[Lorenzoid]

Form my experience on booking flights of ANY kind, prices tend to increase the longer you wait. They never go down.

I wouldn't say never--they do sometimes. There used to be some travel industry thinking that there's a sweet spot about, I think it was, 3 months out from an international trip. But that's a uselessly broad generalization. A quick Googling reveals something on this:

The best time to buy plane tickets is 3 to 7 weeks before departure

 

[DustyC]

Form my experience on booking flights of ANY kind, prices tend to increase the longer you wait. They never go down.

they very often go down. I've seen swings from 2700 down to 1100.

 

[Reidkon]

Google Flights is your friend. Here is my itinerary which I have set as one of my home page tabs in Chrome, and it opens whenever I open the browser. So far the price has varied by one dollar since I started tracking a couple of weeks ago. YYC-EWR-BON
I will not be in a panic to book for a few months yet.