Experience with airfare pricing during COVID times

Hi everyone!
I’m currently about 6 months away from our next WDW vacation! Historically, the advice has been I book your flight about 75 days in advance for the best price. I’m an over planner so I have been checking flight pricing for our dates for a while now. There are tickets available at a really great price right now and I’m torn about weather I should pull the trigger and buy now or wait it out. My concern is that people are suddenly going to book for vacation last minute this spring and if I wait, the low pricing will be gone. What has your experience been with airfare during this strange time? How far out did you buy?

I have not booked anything that far out yet, but look at your airlines’ Covid cancellation policies. Some are being more flexible with flight changes or cancellations right now which can be useful if you want to book early. For instance Frontier is waiving change/cancel fees for bookings made through the end of February.

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Here is a table with recent info on airline’s policies

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I’ve purchased several tickets during this time, and you are right that they are very reasonable right now. The cancellation/rebooking policies are very generous, which we have also used.

It’s a little mind-blowing to know my 1-year rescheduling time limit is about to expire on United for a flight DS22 was going to take- one we cancelled due to the pandemic. Wow.

Anyway, look at the airline policies. I think there is very little risk in booking right now, but you need to know their rules. Also, flights are not necessarily uncrowded- they’ve cut a lot of routes & flights to keep the remaining flights fairly full.

If you would like to upgrade, I really have never seen first class fares this low, either. Now might be the time to splurge! :clinking_glasses:

You might want to check with your airline on those flights you have cancelled in the past. Delta, which is the only airline we fly, extended two flight cancelations for one year but because of the virus Delta now extended them indefinitely. Thought I would let you know and maybe American did the same.

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I was looking at Delta Flights for this coming June and July and maybe even October. I found the flights to be very reasonable right now but am not going to book until a month before. They also say that is a good time as they are trying to fill seats. Here the problems become getting the times you want. With covid still out there and we have not gotten our vaccinations yet and don’t know when that will happen I am not sure if we will have to cancel our trip to Universal or not. If I book the flight with previous vouchers I may just lose them if we once again have to cancel.

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Thanks! We might yet use it but that is worth a try if we don’t. Although, I typically hav3 great luck with Delta, but not United! But United’s policies have actually gotten more flexible, I think. That flight was cancelled really before we knew how bad this was going to get.

Me too. I no longer fly American cause we fly out of Fargo ND. Flying American or United we would have to fly into Ohare in Chacago and I hate Ohare airport. Very rude people there. I do not like United either as they have been terrible on booked flights and rude for flight changes. Out of them all we now fly only Delta as they have always been good to us when we needed them. Besides they fly into MPLS and then to MCO.

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We also love flying through MSP- but those were some of the flights Delta trimmed. Now DD26 has to fly United and take three flights home where it used to be only 2. Can’t wait to get back to the usual route! Much prefer Delta over United, and taking American is just going too far south. It’s a long way from Montana (and Fargo!) to Dallas just to connect to the east coast!

Yes I never could understand that. There are flights out of Fargo that go to Denver or Texas first before heading to MCO. I can understand Chacago then going to Atlanta and then MCO but it’s not for me. Guess we will stick with Delta. They have canceled flights and reimbursed us with vouchers and also were very understanding about our situations. We found because to the virus we could not use our four vouchers during the time period allowed. Not to worry Delta told us because of the pandemic those vouchers were good and would not expire :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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