Travelling during X'mas

We are looking to go to south America during X'mas and the New Year
for 2 weeks. Our schedule is somewhat flexible. The target
destination is still up in the air. It deppends on how cheap we can
get the ticket. We prefer Lima, Rio, Buenos Aires, in that order.
But the air fare as we search now seems to be ridiculous. It is in
the range of $1,500 and up. There are five of us. I am not ready to
shell out $7,500 just for plane ticket alone.

In 2003 we flew to Rio for $427 RT each person. I know that was just
a little over a year after 9/11 when no one was traveling. But even
last X'mas we went to Spain for $500 each round trip. What is going
on here? Should I expect the price to drop in the coming weeks? Or
should we just stay home in New Jersey.

yaofeng wrote:

We are looking to go to south America during X'mas and the New Year
for 2 weeks. Our schedule is somewhat flexible. The target
destination is still up in the air. It deppends on how cheap we can
get the ticket. We prefer Lima, Rio, Buenos Aires, in that order.
But the air fare as we search now seems to be ridiculous. It is in
the range of $1,500 and up. There are five of us. I am not ready to
shell out $7,500 just for plane ticket alone.

In 2003 we flew to Rio for $427 RT each person. I know that was just
a little over a year after 9/11 when no one was traveling. But even
last X'mas we went to Spain for $500 each round trip. What is going
on here? Should I expect the price to drop in the coming weeks? Or
should we just stay home in New Jersey.

Stay home in New Jersey or buy tickets or go to NYC and watch the ball drop.
Why would you expect the fares to drop? Are there many seats available
on the flights you want to take? If you separate the tickets, you might
find that it is cheaper to buy 1 or 2, as there might not be 5 tickets
available in the cheapest fare classes, for the same flight. The longer
you wait, the more likely this will be. In the future, I would suggest
not waiting until after Thanksgiving to book a trip for around Christmas.

That said, I found tickets on Kayak.com for 12/20 to 1/3 from LGA to LIM
for $1196.
Note: I only searched for one passenger, for the reason I indicated above.

On Nov 24, 12:11 am, Larry in AZ
wrote:
Waiving the right to remain silent, yaofeng said:

We are looking to go to south America during X'mas and the New Year
for 2 weeks. Our schedule is somewhat flexible. The target
destination is still up in the air. It deppends on how cheap we can
get the ticket. We prefer Lima, Rio, Buenos Aires, in that order.
But the air fare as we search now seems to be ridiculous. It is in
the range of $1,500 and up. There are five of us. I am not ready to
shell out $7,500 just for plane ticket alone.

Flights to SA tend to be expensive.

In 2003 we flew to Rio for $427 RT each person. I know that was just
a little over a year after 9/11 when no one was traveling. But even
last X'mas we went to Spain for $500 each round trip. What is going
on here? Should I expect the price to drop in the coming weeks? Or
should we just stay home in New Jersey.

Did you purchase those less expensive fares well in advance, or wait until
the last month as you're doing now..?

--
Larry J. - Remove spamtrap in ALLCAPS to e-mail

"A lack of common sense is now considered a disability,
with all the privileges that this entails."

The 2003 trip cannot be a yard stick as every carrier was trying to
stay afloat wooing people to fly. Last year I used my frequent flyer
miles with CO for the five of us to go to Spain. I did about this
time I think.