Roatan Airfares

[mwmerrill]

When I booked our flights back in Dec 2010, I thought our tickets at $1100ea ($800 + fees) were outrageous. But looking at Continental's website, now they are $1450ea.

Next time, we will book even further out. Or, find a different destination.

MwM

 

[bkpix]

Well, this has certainly generated some interesting replies. It looks like there just won't be anything that looks like a "good" airfare in the near future.

We bit the bullet and got the Continental flight; Las Vegas-Houston-Roatan, for just over $900 round trip per ticket. Looking at some of the other posts, that doesn't seem so out of line any more. At least the travel times are fairly good and no red-eyes!

 

[DandyDon]

We drove over 2,000 miles this week buying gas at $3.359 to $3.659 a gallon which is a bit high by Texas standards, then 30 miles back into Texas went thru Muleshoe where it was $3.179/gallon. We didn't have room to buy then, then the rest of the towns were back up. On one hand, it's sad for a Texan to get excited over $3.179/gallon but it shows that they have a lot more leeway than they want to admit.

Has anyone seen any real reports of a reduction in oil flow? What I've seen is the Saudis increasing production to offset other reductions. Most of the fuel costs have gone up because of speculation I think, and as far in advance as airlines contract - all of their increases are artificial, mostly because they can. When fuel comes back down tho, they don't like to.

 

[Sloeber]

Just for reference...

I flew into Roatan mid-Janurary this year. I purchased my ticket perhaps 4 weeks in advance (holiday season). As I said in a post to this thread earlier, I paid $580 total - all fees and taxes included. Looking at the same exact flight from Continental, for six weeks from today, the flight is $847. That is a substantial difference

 

[lionfish-eater]

Dandy
The price of gasoline is set on wall street by futures traders, not by the oil producers, although their sovereign wealth funds are the fodder of the traders. The price of gas is also unconnected to the price of oil. When oil was 145 a barrel, gas was under 2.75 a gal. Now oil is around 100 a barrel and gas is over 3.50. It is not even related to consumption, as consumption is way down by historical levels worldwide. There is still a problem with contango(more oil than they know what to do with). Prices are set by what people are willing to pay. If we the public stopped buying airfares at these high prices, then the airlines would lower the price. As you already pointed out, the gas surcharge is more than the cost of the gas used. There is no competition between airlines, and the bigger ones can set predatory pricing to hurt competition. Here, Northwest air would match the price of lower cost carriers like ATA and Suncountry. As soon as those planes filled up, Northwest would jack up their rates. We no longer have choices, as the big just get bigger. And besides, if it were affordable everyone would want to go. How much would it cost to charter a plane from Houston to RTB? Perhaps we SBers could pool our resources and have our own charter?

 

[jjach]

I bought 2 round trip tickets from Chicago to Roatan on Continental about 6 weeks ago. I paid $867 each. This was for travel in April. Today I had to change our reservations for medical reasons. I called continental to change our dates and found out the same flight, just 3 weeks later is about $200 cheaper per person. So I saved about $400, now I have to send continental paper work from a doctor stating we had to change our plans due to surgery. Hopefully we will get reimbursed the $300 they charge to change your flight.

 

[DandyDon]

A lot of it is up to how good your shopping is, and I do not trust airline sites as they have sinister programs for tracking your searches and jerking you around on fares. Again...

I really like KAYAK - Cheap Flights, Hotels, Airline Tickets, Cheap Tickets, Cheap Travel Deals - Compare Hundreds of Travel Sites At Once for general shopping, but also try Matrix - ITA Software which seems to have a lot of good tools.

 

[hdtran]

We drove over 2,000 miles this week buying gas at $3.359 to $3.659 a gallon which is a bit high by Texas standards, then 30 miles back into Texas went thru Muleshoe where it was $3.179/gallon. We didn't have room to buy then, then the rest of the towns were back up. On one hand, it's sad for a Texan to get excited over $3.179/gallon but it shows that they have a lot more leeway than they want to admit.

Has anyone seen any real reports of a reduction in oil flow? What I've seen is the Saudis increasing production to offset other reductions. Most of the fuel costs have gone up because of speculation I think, and as far in advance as airlines contract - all of their increases are artificial, mostly because they can. When fuel comes back down tho, they don't like to.

Wait! You should have turned left at Albuquerque! That's not Miami Beach!

 

[jlevine]

Wow...fares have gone through the roof. Some weeks are showing $1200 from Los Angeles.

 

[DandyDon]

Wow...fares have gone through the roof. Some weeks are showing $1200 from Los Angeles.

I stalled in planning my usual birthday trip to Cozumel in August while I checked with my home bud, even tho I knew that he never gets onboard with a plan early - then the fares started jumping. Now I am waiting for them to get real, but the $200 package discount I want to use ends in a week - so I'm probly just going to buy & lose on price. I'm never good at gambling.