I agree with Chilly. I'd wait till after New Year's Day. Also, if you book on United/Continental, pay close attention to the middle part of the booking process. The web site will usually say (assuming you are booking coach class) that it will cost $X more upgrade to first class. When I flew out of LAX, the upgrade fee was only like $200 more. For that you could take three bags and get club access. When you figure the cost of checked bag charges, it's not a bad deal.
What's with the airfare from Houston to Roatan?
- Thread starter etexdiver
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KevinG58
Contributor
I'd just check frequently. The fares can sometimes vary hour to hour, although day to day and weekly is more typical. Also, don't log into airline sites for your searches and clear your tmp files / cache before doing another search on their sites. I'm pretty they set a cookie that says "this guy or gal really wants to go to X, when they come back don't show them the low ball fare". Not that they don't have your travel history with them on hand anyway.
Roatan does tend to run a little higher than other destinations though. Limited competition, a somewhat longer flight.
Roatan does tend to run a little higher than other destinations though. Limited competition, a somewhat longer flight.
OP
etexdiver
Contributor
Well, went ahead and booked a Coz trip for April, so I'll check flights after the first of the year, as many of you have suggested. Got to keep planning those trips, because if we aren't diving, we're thinking about it.
So many people think that more fights means better prices and thinks the limited competition is what causes prices to be so high, Were these people not interested in Roatan When the ONLY Direct flight was TACA from Miami that could be had regularly for around $200-$250 all included, Then Continental came and people danced around with joythinking prices would go down, BUT They went up, The Delta came in and those same folks danced again but guess what, Prices went up again, Then the competition forced the cheapest of the direct flights, TACA, to abandon ship. So please people, Do not keep posting about more competition having anything at all to do with pricing
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Matrix can make that easy in that it remembers recent searches so you can bookmark the site, click the recent search, and see what the new day offers. And you can set up daily emails at Kayak.com for date pairs of your choosing, as many as you want.
The airlines used to watch your shopping of their sites with cookies, and I can remember finding cheaper flights after clearing the airline's cookies - but that did not last long after I discovered it. Now they have more sinister ways to identify your computer, browser, ISP, extensions, etc. - and the info is so well suppressed that now I can find a good article that explains it. If you want to buy on the airline site to make sure you get your FF# in, get the FC-UG offers, dealing with the source provider, fine - but double check the fares for your chosen flights on Matrix, etc.
Mike
Contributor
Yep, the airlines are cutting the legs out from under the 3rd party internet sites, offering guarantees that the airlines website offers the cheapest fare and holding FF miles hostage just to name a few things.
Funny how things cycle back around. If you recall way back to just when the internet was getting started, those 3rd party sites were revolutionary and the airlines were falling over themselves to make deals with them, now the airlines look at them as competition and are cutting them off. It's a wild, wacky world.
Funny how things cycle back around. If you recall way back to just when the internet was getting started, those 3rd party sites were revolutionary and the airlines were falling over themselves to make deals with them, now the airlines look at them as competition and are cutting them off. It's a wild, wacky world.
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Good points, Mike. Still, double check your fare before you pay it - or within the grace period if one is offered.
I got a flight the other way around from San Pedro Sula to Las Vegas for DEMA for just $580 it always seems cheaper going from here to there, sorry not much help.
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Maybe true sometimes. For April, I compared IAH-RTB to RTB-IAH on Matrix. It gives results in local currency so I just converted the lowest fare, and it was higher departing Roatan for Houston.
There are some $678 fares IAH-RTB in April, but they all require 2 plane changes each way I think, which sucks - but the airlines know you'd rather fly non-stop and get there faster, with bags not getting lost on plane changes in various countries at times. They are also on weekdays, when the airlines find it challenging to sell as many seats as on weekend.
IAH-SAP is often cheaper than RTB, but even that often involves a plane change just to get to San Pedro - and be careful that you book San Pedro Honduras (SAP), not San Pedro Belize (SPR), not San Pedro Cape Verde (isn't that Africa?!), and not SPS which is Wichita Falls TX - and then how do you get from San Pedro to Roatan?
Ok, I know that some people do it thru San Pedro on the Honduran mainland, and you can get to Roatan various ways - but taking 2 flights to get that far for around $630 RT plus getting to the island vs $810 RT for non-stop flights? SAP is more appealing for a way to get to Utilla perhaps, but not to Roatan.
Sometimes, sometimes not - it varies a lot for various reasons. Color of socks at time of booking might even matter?
Some have suggested waiting for the fares to go down, and many people will agree with that. Studies show that the cheapest time to book tickets is less than a month before flights. The problem is that you have to go with the cheap flights are available. If you want to go on your preferred dates, then booking in advance is your only hope and really - $200 more to do it your way is worth it.
