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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.
Thanks so much Katzpur! Really appreciate it. I had actually started a thread about this recently, and we're going to focus on planning the trip this winter. We're visiting a good friend in the Ogden area so we're certainly planning to spend 3-4 days in and around Salt Lake City, and trying to figure out how to spend another 3-5 days in the area. Leaning toward Moab and Arches/Canyonlands, but also open to spending time in southern Idaho or driving down to Zion. Really appreciate the offer and will follow up with you when we start seriously planning.
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.
Oh, I see what you mean. I never book the different segments myself, so I guess I'd be okay. I do know that the only time my luggage ever went missing, though, was on a trip where our final destination was Tel Aviv. We used two different airlines on that trip and we didn't get our luggage until a third of our trip was over. I want to avoid that problem at all costs.
Also- remember to search out the ticket as a multi-city or open jaw routing as well as two different one ways. Even with the competition from the low cost carriers that sell one ways cheaply, some carriers will often still make you pay a significant premium for one way tickets.
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.
If cost is a major factor for you, have you also looked into the cost of just flying round trip to/from one of your destination cities and then looking for one way travel between Oslo and Copenhagen? Travel within Europe, is much cheaper than what we are used to in the US. It could even open you up to flying to another city that may offer much cheaper rates to the US (Amsterdam or Brussels for example) but offer many low cost carriers to Oslo or Copenhagen.
If you do decide to look into using low cost carriers in Europe, be sure to look to see if the flight has a codeshare with another carrier. Sometimes you may be flying on a major airline's plane but could save some money booking through them and can avoid some of the low cost carrier's fees or you could book through the low cost carrier and save money but still get the same services of the major carrier.
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.
I would agree with this. We flew to Ireland , this past Spring, & the domestic flight was on Delta & then we changed planes & got on Aer Lingus, our first flight on Delta was delayed, but they had a golf cart ready to swiftly move us to the next flight,( we requested it) we would not have made it on foot, as it was a different terminal. We booked the tickets on one of those travel websites, cheaper to fly different airlines, but all on the same ticket.
Enjoy your cruise, I would recommend arriving more than one day before hand, so you can get over the jet lag, before the cruise. Are the cruise ship air fares too high? We did a river cruise a few years ago & some people missed the departure, due to delayed flights, so don't cut it too short.
If cost is a major factor for you, have you also looked into the cost of just flying round trip to/from one of your destination cities and then looking for one way travel between Oslo and Copenhagen? Travel within Europe, is much cheaper than what we are used to in the US. It could even open you up to flying to another city that may offer much cheaper rates to the US (Amsterdam or Brussels for example) but offer many low cost carriers to Oslo or Copenhagen.
The thing is, Delta flies non-stop from Amsterdam to Salt Lake City, and so when I specified (on several different cheap airfares websites) that I wanted to fly from Salt Lake to Oslo and then back from Copenhagen to Salt Lake, one of the options was to fly Delta/KLM all the way. When I checked the cost for just SLC-AMS or AMS-SLC and then adding an Amsterdam to Oslo flight and a Copenhagen to Amsterdam flight on other European carriers, it the difference in cost was really negligible. Cost is a big factor, but so is convenience.
Just realize when comparing prices on-line or getting price alerts, the fares they list usually do not include the extras like baggage. It's hard to compare apples to apples among the various airlines on-line because they all charge for different things. Some, like Frontier and Spirit, have the lowest fares, but they charge for EVERYTHING, so by the time you add on your carry-on luggage, etc. the fare is not necessarily the cheapest.
Just realize when comparing prices on-line or getting price alerts, the fares they list usually do not include the extras like baggage. It's hard to compare apples to apples among the various airlines on-line because they all charge for different things. Some, like Frontier and Spirit, have the lowest fares, but they charge for EVERYTHING, so by the time you add on your carry-on luggage, etc. the fare is not necessarily the cheapest.
Yes, excellent point. We flew British Airways from NYC to Norway in June and chose it over Norwegian Airlines, which had lower advertised flight prices. But by the time you factored in charges for luggage, seat assignment and even food, it was basically the same price and we decided to go with the more reputable British Airways. Had a great flight experience and the food was surprisingly good for airline food.
Coming back to "when is the best time to buy?" the answer is "nobody knows."
The airlines use very sophisticated (and very secret) "yield management" programs to determine the price of seats. These algorithms continually monitor seat sales v. historical demand, how many seats the competition is offering, the price of fuel, and on and on. Fares (or more precisely, "fare buckets") are adjusted hour-by-hour, and your chances of timing the availability of the cheapest fares is just like trying to time the stock market. Good luck with that.
As a general rule, however (and there are LOTS of exceptions) when airfares first become available (typically eleven months preflight) they're set somewhat higher than they'll be a few months later. This is because the airlines need to hedge against things like the cost of fuel spiking in the meantime, so they'll set fares high enough to cover that possibility. As the flight date gets closer, those uncertainties diminish so that the fares can track downward. Eventually they'll reach bottom, then turn around as fare "buckets" sell out, until at the last minute they're at their highest.
So if you're traveling in July, personally I'd counsel waiting a couple of months before buying tickets. Sometimes there are mid-winter "fare sales" that can push prices down. You can't count on it, but the odds are you're not going to lose anything by being patient. I like to say that with airfares early birds don't always get worms, sometimes they get cats.
The other thing I'll mention is that mid-summer is the most expensive time for transatlantic travel in economy class, but ironically it's usually the cheapest in business class. Ordinary "business" travel falls off in the summer, so the airlines sell those flat-bed seats more cheaply than at other times of the year. Round trips (or easy open-jaws like yours) are usually three times more expensive in business class than economy for most of the year, but in the summer those ratios get closer to 2:1 or even less. Right now an itinerary like SLC-xAMS-OSL//CPH-xAMS-SLC on Delta/KLM for next July is running something like $1450 in coach. I'd only be guessing of course, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the same itinerary in business class (or something comparable on other carriers) becomes available for $2500 or less by sometime in the March-April time frame.
Coming back to "when is the best time to buy?" the answer is "nobody knows."
The airlines use very sophisticated (and very secret) "yield management" programs to determine the price of seats. These algorithms continually monitor seat sales v. historical demand, how many seats the competition is offering, the price of fuel, and on and on. Fares (or more precisely, "fare buckets") are adjusted hour-by-hour, and your chances of timing the availability of the cheapest fares is just like trying to time the stock market. Good luck with that.
As a general rule, however (and there are LOTS of exceptions) when airfares first become available (typically eleven months preflight) they're set somewhat higher than they'll be a few months later. This is because the airlines need to hedge against things like the cost of fuel spiking in the meantime, so they'll set fares high enough to cover that possibility. As the flight date gets closer, those uncertainties diminish so that the fares can track downward. Eventually they'll reach bottom, then turn around as fare "buckets" sell out, until at the last minute they're at their highest.
So if you're traveling in July, personally I'd counsel waiting a couple of months before buying tickets. Sometimes there are mid-winter "fare sales" that can push prices down. You can't count on it, but the odds are you're not going to lose anything by being patient. I like to say that with airfares early birds don't always get worms, sometimes they get cats.
The other thing I'll mention is that mid-summer is the most expensive time for transatlantic travel in economy class, but ironically it's usually the cheapest in business class. Ordinary "business" travel falls off in the summer, so the airlines sell those flat-bed seats more cheaply than at other times of the year. Round trips (or easy open-jaws like yours) are usually three times more expensive in business class than economy for most of the year, but in the summer those ratios get closer to 2:1 or even less. Right now an itinerary like SLC-xAMS-OSL//CPH-xAMS-SLC on Delta/KLM for next July is running something like $1450 in coach. I'd only be guessing of course, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the same itinerary in business class (or something comparable on other carriers) becomes available for $2500 or less by sometime in the March-April time frame.
I'd LOVE to fly business class, but I'm afraid it's just out of the question. But I will take your advice and hold off a while longer. I feel like I'm in a casino and trying to pick out the slot machine that's going to pay! It's just so hit and miss (which is why I'm not a gambler.)
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