Too Early To book flights for May

I have been watching daily for flights in mid May direct from EWR on UA. The lowest it was was $499 but now has risen to $580. Does anyone have experience if this will go down as the weeks go on? A few years ago we went around the same time and booked in late Feb for $350 each non stop from EWR.

Don't want to pull the trigger and find out we wasted our money that could have been spent on beer.

Thanks all.

Unless the airlines pass on the money they are saving on lower fuel, I would say that a $500 return is a pretty darn good deal.

I was paying $500. 20 years ago to get down here.

Thanks. I am looking and it seems as if some of the flights later in the month they haven't released anything but first class tickets for sale yet ($1000 +) so maybe it is too early, but I will use $500 as my measuring stick. Thanks.

As indicated by an earlier posting, airlines are not enjoying the savings that we car drivers are having with lower prices at the pump. I believe that they purchased fuel for a specific time frame and have to renegotiate new prices before we will see savings on airfare. I sure hope that they haven't committed to several years. I would like to see savings this year for sure as airfare for November is way high too.

Airlines are currently negotiating their next round of futures for fuel so things should drop bu don't expect much since the hedge is these prices are short lived. This s really a geopolical price drop that wil not last once certain things fall into place,

Nice thing is it is finally revealing how china s a propped up economy that really has no bearing on reality.

Yesterday Delta had a non stop flight roundtrip, from JFK for $429 departing on a Wednesday in late October.

I would buy 3 flights a year for the next 2 years out for $580

SXM??? Wendell

Wow, I had no idea that $500 was a steal. At this point its now a toss up between SXM and STT and taking the ferry to VIJ. Two awesome places about the same price. Hoping I am wrong and the prices drop

Just bought tickets for November at $420/ person RT from Boston. $182 going down, thru Miami on AA. $238 coming back, thru Newark, on UA.

Wow, I'm jealous. We pay almost $1,000 for round trip Xmas time on American or Jet Blue from NY.

I may be wrong, but all I am seeing is on United out of EWR for May is no flights! We always travel in May and November but I was surprised no flights in May except Sunday 5/3/15. Please correct me if I am wrong or if you see something I don't. Unreal!!! As a matter of fact, there are hardly any flights out of EWR until November. Where is Continental????? <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" />

From what I know starting in May UA only flies on Sat 2 flights a day non stop form EWR to SXM. And yes sadly these are still UA flights (Airbus) and not Continental flights.

On our last trip our Airbus broke in EWR and they had to switch us to a CO plane and we got a whole new CO crew. Still operating as 2 airlines under 1 name, so much fun.

When you regularly fly from the large cities on the East coast, you usually don't have a perception as to what others pay.

Many people face $700-$1000 airfare with at least one connection and sometimes two. The general rule of thumb, when air gets to a price you can live with, buy it and don't look back.

Wow! did you book it? We haven't decided yet....

I would wait since there are quite a few seats left on those Saturday flights with most of the "Economy Plus" seats empty.

I have gotten into the habit of checking one way fares since a lot of the time one leg is the culprit. If the price is low I grab one leg. I then just have half to worry about.

For example I checked May 16th/23rd for fares and it was $583 for the n/s r/t..but..it was $207 for the EWR-SXM leg. I would grab that in a heartbeat and cut my needs in half.

I did the same for my SXM trip starting this Sunday...booked the return n/s 1st when it was cheap...and then booked the SJU connection down when the fare dropped a tad.

I should also add that the n/s flights "disappeared" when I returned for a 3rd time in 10 minutes to check seats...so not seeing a flight doesn't mean it's not there...restart your computer or clear your cache/history and they will magically reappear.

I bought tickets several months ago for May, United EWR/SXM RT, $422.50 p/p. However when I purchased, it was for flying down on Monday the 4th, returning Thursday the 14th. A few weeks later the Thursday return was cancelled, as usual with NO notice from them. I managed to get us on the Saturday the 16th later flight, which was listed as a lot more expensive with no additional fare on my part. As Boucharda says, the flights are pretty wide open, so I'd imagine fares my come down. But it's always a crapshoot.

That's the ONLY good thing when an airline cancels or does a major change...you can usually get any available flight in exchange.

Do you research first and get the flight number you want and after they suggest routing you through Botswana say "How about flight #333?

I've done this a few times and it worked every time...

It depends on where you're flying from. The NY area is by far the cheapest place to fly to SXM from.

I booked our May flights last June for $442.50/each. We leave on Saturday May 9th and return on the 16th. I keep checking them thru different trackers and haven't seen the price get any lower than that. We paid $480 (?) last year (2013)for a Friday to Friday and I booked around the same # of months ahead. I would keep checking Kayak or the other sites and when you get a price you like; buy it. They have 2 Saturday flights on United now. I actually booked the later flight back in June (10 am) and they switched me to the 9 am flight, which was more expensive back in June. I'm still on the later flight out of SXM at 2:20 pm as there is a 1:15 flight also scheduled. When I look at the seats available on both flights; it doesn't appear that there are a whole lot of them open.

I think this is a very good tip, I started doing the same 2 years ago since there is little or no RT discount when flying to SXM. It has saved me some nice money that last several trips. The other trick I do, I look FF ticket legs separately, if I find one of the legs cheap, I use FF miles for one leg, purchase the others.

Booked Delta for late Feb JFK-SXM NS RT $376

Sign up for alerts from Kayak & the other fare watchers

I've done the same mdldgl. However now that I'm a Chase United card holder, paying with their card gets me bags free each way, and priority boarding for $95 bucks a year. So that option is gone for me. And I'm gather I'm not really losing all that much, as I understand milage benefits are becoming less and less valuable.

Same thing here with UA being the airline of choice for FF program reasons. Oddly enough the price has changed every day since I posted this question for my desired trip. Was $500, then $525 then $580, back down to $521 today. I wish there was a way to understand this madness!

Prices for air, hotels, and rental cars can change by the minute, not just the day. There is no way to understand it but it does pay to check often.

Like I said, when it gets to a price you can live with, BOOK IT!

Booked our trip from May 1 to May 30 First class in June on United for $910.00. each for 2 it is now $1215.00 <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/circle.gif" alt="" />

People actually buy first class tickets???

always, not necessarily cash,sometimes mileage but always fly first or business <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/toast.gif" alt="" />

Exactly...I thought they were ALL bought with FF miles

Yes. We have bought the when price is very low and used low miles other times.

We bought our late February tickets last night for $530 Dulles/Reagan to SXM. The prices started to move all over the place the last few days so we grabbed them. From Virginia is this a decent price this time of year??

Yes, you did well. I would say the average price on those flights is maybe $600.

Is that average for all times of the year? We can sometimes find STT flights for high 300 in summer,but usually pay in low to mid 400,

SXM is much more expensive than STT. For one thing, there are approximately $100 in taxes on a SXM ticket. And for the DC area, the only nonstop is that United flight, so especially for that United flight, they can get a big price for it.

3 Rods in spine and 4 Disks replaced. Have to fly 1st because of the extra seat room.

Plus includes free booze for killing pain. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

I've always thought that booking two one-way fares was *always* more expensive than one round trip but, based on this thread, I just got converted.

I couldn't find the combination of legs that I wanted for my trip from BOS to SXM coming up in June. I could get a R/T down via MIA and back through CLT, or vice versa but I could not get a flight via CLT both ways. I still don't understand why but I ended up booking two one-ways via CLT and saved about $50 in total for the two of us to boot.

Thanks for giving me the kick to do this!

Booking a return(both going and returning) fare always used to be less expensive, but now they break the fare down into two different segments, so this is no longer the case. For some reason the fare to return home always seems to be more expensive. I guess they figure since you eventually have to get back home, you have no choice but to pay what they ask! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

Actually, I THINK the reason why the return is more is that you have the SXM departure tax in there.

We just bought a pair of first class tickets on American for next November, TPA to SXM for $732.11 each.

Paid more for economy tix when we took our entire family for Thanksgiving last November.

I sucked it up and pulled the trigger today for $521 coach and so far half upgraded with miles. Can't wait to get back.

That is probably true Carol, but it is sometimes about $100 more which seems a lot more than just the departure tax.

The actual taxes combined between SXM and the USA for leaving the country are $92.90, where as they are 34 for going to STT. Unless you read the fine print you miss all the little things they get you for. If you go to STT you just pay the two US International Arrival and Departure taxes. So the difference is more like $60.

US International Departure Tax (US)
$17.70
US International Arrival Tax (US)
$17.70
St. Maarten Airport Improvement Fee (IW)
$5.00
St. Maarten Airport Departure Tax (FH)
$36.00
St. Maarten Passenger Screening Fee (FG)
$10.91
US Customs Fee (YC)
$5.50
US Immigration Fee (XY)
$7.00

The taxes for flights originating in Canada are different so those figures don't apply to us.

You are right in the taxes being a bit different, however I ran a flight from Toronto to SXM and the part that stays the same for sure is the $50 of SXM airport fees. Those don't exist on a STT ticket.

problem is that its not non stop

I purchased round trip tickets to St.Martin from Newark NJ for $423 ...Leaving the last week of October 2015..Non Stop

My BOS-NEW-SXM and back tixs for the last Saturday in Oct going down and return 2 weeks later were only 402....