TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Flight prices! Advice on waiting or pull the trigger?

Just booked our villa for Dec 26th-Jan 5th and looking at our usual flight route. We fly NYC to STT non-stop and these prices are beyond belief! The flight I usually take (Delta for the miles) is over $1200 and there is literally an option for $2500 on another carrier! In the past I have found the prices are the best the farther out but i am not as seasoned a traveler as some of you. I paid $1200/ticket last year but figured that was COVID. Are these prices reflecting gas prices and would you think they are likely to keep rising or possibly go down? I know there is no crystal ball but if they go much higher for a family of 4 it almost becomes cost prohibitive to even go.

Ouch! I recently booked SFO-SJU for around $250/pp 1-way for April. In my experience the NYC/STT route is always pricey, but what you are seeing sounds way out of line. You might want to just monitor and wait. For example, Delta is quoting your route for a week day in late April 2021 at $145pp 1-way. The same flight on Saturday is almost double that. We usually buy tickets 4 to 8 weeks out and avoid travelling on Friday-Sun. The downside risk of waiting is that you may not get the flight you want. However, your NYC/STT is a popular route with lots of flights.
Hope that helps.

Husker--You have to take into account that Christmas/New Years week is literally the HIGHEST priced flights there are, so it's not really relevant what the prices are for April.

Quite right, Carol, my mistake. That is uber high season. Especially with lots of pent up post-covid travel. It wasn't clear in the OP if $1200 was RT or 1-way. I was assuming the latter. $600 1-way at that time of year doesn't sound too far out of the norm.

We're also looking. Have you checked out Tortola? Flights are cheaper early in December, so you could also come for a month!

I'm seeing $801 rt on Jet Blue/Silver for your dates, JFK to Beef.

I almost always book as far in advance as possible because I feel like that is when you get the best price. With the new no change fees you could book what looks good now and if it goes down you can cancel and book the cheaper flight. You won't get a cash refund but will get credit on the airline you booked with. I've done this a bit lately and since we fly a lot it works out great for us.

The prices are DEFINITELY way up compared to last year (and previous years). We recently booked IAH - EIS roundtrip for mid June and it was $1400. Never anywhere near that price.

All advice points to booking sooner rather than latter. I have access to actual loads and I am seeing vacation flights fully booked 6 days out. That’s not the norm.

To echo what George said, we flew back Wednesday and, except Cape Air, every single seat was filled, with long stand-by lists. Between recovering from Covid and high fuel prices, the airlines are probably happy to be generating revenue. Not much incentive to add flights to bring prices down. We're looking at December flights to BVI in business being about 50% higher than this past year.

Don't forget to look at the total price, including baggage fees. And remember that separate tickets may not end up being cheaper.

Yes, those were round trip but coming back Jan 5th (a Thursday) which I thought would help offset Dec 26th. I WISH I could come early Dec and just stay but with kids in school that isn't possible.
I have always booked far out as well but this time I was just having doubts. Kayak is saying "monitoring routes". If gas prices come down I am wondering if they will adjust?

It’s not really fuel prices it’s demand that’s driving the fares up. The airlines can’t staff for what they want to fly. They have the equipment they just don’t have the people. STT is also a somewhat unique market. The 757 is the only aircraft with the performance needed to get out of there and go nonstop to most US destinations while carrying almost 200 people. It’s rapidly being retired and the replacement options are the A319 or 737-700. That’s a drop of 60 seats a flight and with the gate and terminal situation it’s hard to add more flights. American has had a big drop in overall seats available.
Delta could go nonstop from ATL with the A220-100 from Tortola to Atlanta but has shown little interest.I am surprised the BVI government has not offered to subsidize the flights for 2 or 3 years.

Coach fare using AA from CTL to STT or CLT to SJU to EIS in May is as much as I paid for first class last November. We are planning to be on Anegada in May. But not looking good right now.

Any word on the Anegada's airport opening up soon?

I just pulled the trigger on a direct flight from ATL to STT on Delta. Since they no longer have cancellation fees on main cabin, I can always rebook if the price drops and get a credit. $700 per passenger and I had to cut our trip one day short. We still have 10 days on a boat with 2 teenagers so that should be just fine .

Dang... why didn't I think about driving. I feel like such an idiot now. Thanks for the tip. HeleonDomnus!!