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My husband and I will be flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Oslo, Norway in July, 2018. We will be returning from Copenhagen, Denmark to Salt Lake in August. When would be the best time to book these flights?
Also, I would imagine that there would be advantages to sticking with the same airline when booking trips that have connecting flights. Am I right about that? In other words, we might, for example, be able to fly a little cheaper if we took American Airlines to Chicago and then United from Chicago to Oslo than if we were to fly either American or United the entire way.
Set up a price alert on Kayak or Google flights; get a sense of what the flights usually cost; and then book when they have dipped to a level at which you think they are a good deal. I don't buy into the idea that there is some magic formula of the number of days prior to a flight to book, as prices swing wildly. My wife and I tend to start looking into airfare prices about 5-6 months before an international trip, and generally book sometime between 3 and 6 months in advance. For domestic more like 2-4 months, although we occasionally buy further out depending on price. I don't think it's true that you'll necessarily get a better price by using the same airline. You have to check all of your options, as sometimes it's less expensive to use different/multiple carriers.
As an aside I visited Norway this summer and LOVED it. As a second aside, my family and I are planning to fly from NY to Salt Lake next August, and look forward to our first trip to Utah.
My husband and I will be flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Oslo, Norway in July, 2018. We will be returning from Copenhagen, Denmark to Salt Lake in August. When would be the best time to book these flights?
Also, I would imagine that there would be advantages to sticking with the same airline when booking trips that have connecting flights. Am I right about that? In other words, we might, for example, be able to fly a little cheaper if we took American Airlines to Chicago and then United from Chicago to Oslo than if we were to fly either American or United the entire way.
The big problem with this is if your flight to Chicago is delayed enough that you miss your flight to Oslo, United would bear no responsibility in getting you to Norway. Wheras if you are booked on one ticket, they would.
My husband and I will be flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Oslo, Norway in July, 2018. We will be returning from Copenhagen, Denmark to Salt Lake in August. When would be the best time to book these flights?
Also, I would imagine that there would be advantages to sticking with the same airline when booking trips that have connecting flights. Am I right about that? In other words, we might, for example, be able to fly a little cheaper if we took American Airlines to Chicago and then United from Chicago to Oslo than if we were to fly either American or United the entire way.
The airline's contract of carriage says they will do their best to get you from A to C in as timely a manner as possible. Keeping the booking on a single ticket, which may involve multiple airlines in the same airline partner alliance, means they'll do your best to get you to actual C(openhagen). I've had Delta rebook me onto its partner KLM and send me through an unplanned connection in a different country when a thunderstorm forced a lengthy ground stop in Atlanta and our original flights to Scotland became impossible.
When you do multiple tickets for a single routing, it's easy to get into trouble. If your flight from A to B on the first ticket is delayed enough you'll miss your flight for B to C, then the second airline will record you as a no-show at B and cancel the rest of your second ticket. You may get lucky pleasing your case with the second airline and get the ticket reinstated and rebooked onto a subsequent flight under the unofficial 'flat tire' rule many airline have. But you're just as likely to be told that sorry, the only thing you can do is purchase new tickets for the trip at the walk-up price, which is going to be many times the cost of a typical restricted advanced purchase ticket. The question is: Do you feel lucky?
I do not feel lucky, and while I'll book a 40 minute connection time in Atlanta on a single ticket because I know I'll be protected if anything goes wrong, my decision matrix for the two ticket option instead of single ticket is somewhere around 6 hours to connect (if not more) and at least a $500 per ticket savings.
And it would not be an option at all if one of the tickets was for a Low Cost carrier that has limited service at many airports and may only have 3-4 flights a week for that destination. So no Allegiant, Norwegian, Frontier, Wow, etc. as part of a combo routing for me.
Set up a price alert on Kayak or Google flights; get a sense of what the flights usually cost; and then book when they have dipped to a level at which you think they are a good deal. I don't buy into the idea that there is some magic formula of the number of days prior to a flight to book, as prices swing wildly. My wife and I tend to start looking into airfare prices about 5-6 months before an international trip, and generally book sometime between 3 and 6 months in advance. For domestic more like 2-4 months, although we occasionally buy further out depending on price. I don't think it's true that you'll necessarily get a better price by using the same airline. You have to check all of your options, as sometimes it's less expensive to use different/multiple carriers.
As an aside I visited Norway this summer and LOVED it. As a second aside, my family and I are planning to fly from NY to Salt Lake next August, and look forward to our first trip to Utah.
Thanks for the advice! I tried one of the "magic formulas" on our last trip and it proved not to be so magic after all. I just wish I knew the level at which a price becomes a "good deal."
By the way, I have volunteered in the Utah travel industry, and would absolutely love to help you plan your trip to Utah if you'd be interested. When you start the planning process, if you'd like to contact me (I'll be around for sure), I'll bet I could give you some great ideas of places to see and things to do.
The big problem with this is if your flight to Chicago is delayed enough that you miss your flight to Oslo, United would bear no responsibility in getting you to Norway. Wheras if you are booked on one ticket, they would.
That's what I was thinking. So if you stick with just one airline (whichever one it might be), you can be more certain you'll be able to get where you want to be when you want to be there? But even the same airline doesn't hold flights so that people who are booked on them and are delayed can make the flight, do they?
The airline's contract of carriage says they will do their best to get you from A to C in as timely a manner as possible. Keeping the booking on a single ticket, which may involve multiple airlines in the same airline partner alliance, means they'll do your best to get you to actual C(openhagen). I've had Delta rebook me onto its partner KLM and send me through an unplanned connection in a different country when a thunderstorm forced a lengthy ground stop in Atlanta and our original flights to Scotland became impossible.
When you do multiple tickets for a single routing, it's easy to get into trouble. If your flight from A to B on the first ticket is delayed enough you'll miss your flight for B to C, then the second airline will record you as a no-show at B and cancel the rest of your second ticket. You may get lucky pleasing your case with the second airline and get the ticket reinstated and rebooked onto a subsequent flight under the unofficial 'flat tire' rule many airline have. But you're just as likely to be told that sorry, the only thing you can do is purchase new tickets for the trip at the walk-up price, which is going to be many times the cost of a typical restricted advanced purchase ticket. The question is: Do you feel lucky?
I do not feel lucky, and while I'll book a 40 minute connection time in Atlanta on a single ticket because I know I'll be protected if anything goes wrong, my decision matrix for the two ticket option instead of single ticket is somewhere around 6 hours to connect (if not more) and at least a $500 per ticket savings.
And it would not be an option at all if one of the tickets was for a Low Cost carrier that has limited service at many airports and may only have 3-4 flights a week for that destination. So no Allegiant, Norwegian, Frontier, Wow, etc. as part of a combo routing for me.
Thank you. That answered my question. Based on that information, I think I'll definitely stick to just a single carrier.
Copenhagen has had a TON of cheap fares lately.. I've seen roundtrip to/from LAX for less than 400.
Yeah, but we're flying home from Copenhagen. We're flying to Oslo. And we are meeting up with a cruise/land tour on the morning after we arrive, so it's imperative that we arrive at least on the day we're supposed to, even if it's much later in the day.
You do not necessarily need to stick with the same carrier. If you buy your ticket as a package from home to there and back, the airlines will be responsible if one of your flights is late. If you book separate airlines yourself for different segments of the trip, they will not be responsible. The foreign airlines all partner with US carriers so that you can fly from your home to a hub, then across the pond.
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