Yeah. I don’t go out of my way to visit Manhattan when I go to New York.
Was married to an Ecuadorian and visited several times in the early 2000s. A very beautiful place. Troubled, when I was there, but I think a lot has changed. Guayaquil was known for being pretty dangerous (some of her friends had family bodyguards, etc) … but my understanding is that it is very different now.
Same with Colombia. That was definitely a no-go tourist spot in the 90s but then things changed.
Heading to Puerto Rico Monday morning with my gf. Escaping NY winter. … we’re going to the same place we went last year, which will be an interesting experience and comparison.
I’m thinking about going to Japan this summer and may hit a few other places in Asia
I was looking at flights. Anyone have experience with ZipAir or Scoot. Never heard of either airline until today. They seem really cheap.
@Ikoi, any experience with ZipAir?
I haven’t, but I have friends (a family of four) who recently used ZipAir for a trip home from Japan to the west coast and said it was a good experience.
1 Like
Does knowing it’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of JAL give you a lot of confidence in it without having used it?
I knew that before I asked about it and definitely increased confidence for me.
I didn’t know it was a JAL subsidiary until just now, but I’ve flown JAL countless times and have had only good experiences.
I think the airlines update fares on Tuesdays? Otherwise keep checking for when they go down.
Totally random for how long. It’s when the algorithm says they aren’t selling enough seats. Better than even you’d save more than 20% that way.
1 Like
Yeah I am running into that problem when trying to book some international flights. I haven’t flown international in forever, so my problem was compounded by the fact that I really have no idea what a “normal” price for a flight to Tokyo is.
The ideal time to buy international tickets is Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Travel Tuesday.
Good to hear that you have had first hand experiences. I figured that if it’s a Japanese airline, then it must be good.
I think JAL is somehow going to end up being my cheapest option by a significant amount. I guess they have some kind of deal if you’re doing a stopover in Japan. So I’m going to structure the trip around that.
Also interesting to me is that some of these international carriers have cheaper tickets for kids. For some reason 10 year old is cheaper than adult.
I’m going back to Paris this summer. Flights seem to be up 30-40% across the board from last year. I thought about waiting for them to get cheaper. But I checked flights 2,3,4 months ahead and nothing looked cheaper.
Where you’re coming from is equally as important as where you’re going to. There are vast differences between originating cities across the US based on competitive situations.
Set up a Google flights price alert (with parameters, like one-stop maximum or whatever) for a few different sample dates.
I will say, if you’re targeting a nonstop flight on a legacy airline, as a general rule the price isn’t going to go down from whatever it’s quoted at right now. And if it did, you can just cancel and rebook with the fare credit. So, you should probably book it now.
I shouldn’t be worried about cancellation fees?
What I mean is, if you’re trying to fly ORD-HND for example, go to Google Flights and filter to show nonstop flights or even the exact airline’s flights over a complete calendar of dates. Results should look like this:
If you book one of the $1,400 itineraries (which happen to be United) and then United comes along and discounts the flight to $1,000 after you buy it (they probably won’t, but if they did) you can trade your ticket in for a United Airlines credit and immediately buy the cheaper one, and end up with $400 left over on United (for each passenger) for future use.
With few exceptions, when you’re something like 3-4 months out, you should just book the trip. If you’re flying a desirable route/time of year, prices aren’t suddenly going to come crashing down.
If you’re secret flying or chasing deals very deliberately, this advice doesn’t really apply. Instead, sign up for some emails that show specific city pairs that are on discount, but you will not be calling the shots of where/when you go and using a good routing.
But definitely, definitely set up a Google flights price alert. In this case, a general HND-ORD over whatever date range you want to travel. You’ll get an email update the moment fares change. You should do this from the moment you’re first thinking about the trip.
2 Likes
Anybody know websites similar to Scott’s Cheap Flights only for people based in Europe?
Doesn’t this depend on the fare class, etc. I’ve only tried it once in the past and when I did the credit I got was less than the fare I paid.
The exception is Southwest. I’ve done it with them a few times and always received the full amount.
Thanks for the google flights tip. I’ve done it once or twice in the past and it never seemed to help (probably because I did it too late), but I think I’m going to start doing it every time now.
I did go ahead and book some flights on JAL, but the combo I got didn’t pop up on google flights or kayak for the price that I got. I only got it when I plugged the itinerary into the JAL website.