TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Why offseason Airfare so high?

I've been looking at flights from Newark to SXM for late June into July.

I'm amazed that the fares are almost double what they were in high season.

What gives?

I found the same for flights from Toronto in August.

Usually due to families travelling during the summer with school out. Int'l fares tend to start dropping after August 15th and domestic fares in early September.

Mergers in the Airline industry have reduced the number of seats available and competition. The days of cheap flights are going the way of decent service for passangers.

You've about summed it up as well as it can be said. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" />

Airfare pricing is mostly driven by demand...and yes, less capacity creates less availability but I did a little study using BOS-SXM 2nd Saturday (one week) R/T with no overnights or excessive layovers

Cheapest "normal" fare;

May...$615
June..$545
July..$777
August$701
Sept..$425
Oct...$583
Nov...$428
Dec...$468
Jan...$427

So there are still decent fares out there depending on when you want to travel AND how early you book that travel

My wife and I had booked airfare round trip nonstop from EWR to SXM the last week of October 2015 for $423 round trip PP...Little did we know when we booked the flight with United they werent going nonstop in October..United cancelled my non stop on 10/24 and offered to book a nonstop to miami and then book my wife and i a non stop to sxm with an hour and half layover for same price with American airlines...after a months time they cancelled the flight to miami and tried to switch us to a flight that would have landed in Miami a half hour after the American flight left for SXM....So i had United book our flight out of JFK landing in plenty of time to connect with our flight to SXM ..the flight back on October 31 will be non stop with United..all and we kept the same price of $423 round trip PP so its not non stop going to SXM but im still happy about the price.. United is really the pits!!

Kish...just looked for August....for Carnival next door....more than double....also with the exchange way too much......kate <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/canada.gif" alt="" />

Kate, yes WestJet in August is around approx $150 more each than in November for their "plus" seats

Yes, it's insane. I just purchased for late July and could not BELIEVE the costs. More expensive than my early March trip. The lack of options in summer is certainly a factor. And yes, the new United is the pits.

We are going in July, and I still haven't booked the airfare.
Have the SXM place, and also 3 nights booked in AXA.....but these airfares are the worst I've seen in over 20 years for July.
This may be the end of our twice a year trips to SXM. Other locations don't cost as much. I'm sad. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Yikes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/cry.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/cry.gif" alt="" />

We booked out of Hartford a while ago and got decent....not great, airfare on Jet Blue for July. After what I've read, I'm glad we didn't wait, if that helps anyone at this point. My advice would be, if you find an airfare you can live with, grab it!

EWR to SXM July 25 9:00am non stop $829. I paid that for first class last year

We started last year looking for decent airfare out of Bradley for July. Nothing! So, we will be going to JFK for half the price! Right now Jet Blue is $863 for our dates and isn't even nonstop! Wish Bradley had worked out as we are 1/2hr from there and the rest of the family is only 5 min.

Jeez....$863.....it's never a nonstop out of Bradley, but that's steep! We booked a couple of months back and got just under $600, so I grabbed it! I don't mind paying a bit more for the convenience of BDL, I also don't like getting robbed for that convenience

Even $600 is high compared to what prices were for this past April. Friends have been paying well under $500 out of Bradley. But go figure, this July we are taking the family (13 of us) and Bradley is stupid crazy! We also don't want to deal with tight connections (too many issues in the past) so JFK was the answer this time. Cheaper, non stop and we saved enough to pay for the limo ride down. Figure we are saving $400 a ticket, Inconvenient yes but we can do a lot with that extra money! Don't get me wrong! It will be really hard that morning to pick up the limo in Windsor Locks while we watch planes landing at Bradley, knowing we have to travel to JFK.

It's not the flying out that bugs me about JFK, it's the 3 hour ride home after flying that's a pain. Airlines are making big money right now with lower fuel prices and steeper fares....hope it shows up in the way of lower fares sooner rather than later.

As always, people from the Northeast have it much easier than even here in Florida, as far as airfares. I just did a quick check on airfares from Florida for some random dates in July. The cheapest nonstop I could find from Miami was around $650 on one date. July 18 to 25 (a Saturday to Saturday) was $800 for a non stop from Miami. Connections from either Tampa or Orlando were around $750 (except for an OVERNIGHT connection---From FLORIDA?? -- which was around $500 and involved flying north and spending overnight in either Charlotte or Philly on US Air). Jet Blue prices were similar.

IMHO airline economics, supply and demand have dictated the higher pricing. Most flight as full or close to it. Years ago, we would book only a few weeks to month out waiting for prices to drop, not the case anymore. If you see a good rate grab it.

Certain dates in June can still be had for $418 round trip

JFK

Jet Blue

I haven't checked lately but a week or so ago you could go in June PDX-SXM-PDX for around $6000 and from SEA for about $150 more.

$6000. Wow. Such a bargain. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Yikes.gif" alt="" />

I meant $600 smarty.

I thought you did but I just couldn't resist it. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

Eliminating the daily nonstop from EWR during the summer has reduced seat supply and pushed prices up.

some "vacation-oriented" airlines, like Sun Country, don't fly to St Martin in the summer. As others have mentioned: less seats = higher prices.

Our September flight on USelessAir is $3 more than two years ago. AA has, unfortunately, matched that price now, which would have resulted in a ~$65 premium over last year, but thankfully, we now have a JetBlue option which saved us ~$30 compared with last year and is the cheapest option since our first trip in 2012.

This year, skipping the RDU - CLT portion of our flight would save us $16, unlike 2013 where USAir would have charged us $75/each for flying less.

I have quit trying to make sense of the flight prices. we have a range of about three weeks of dates when we can fly, from which I pick the cheapest one I can find shortly after I finish filing my taxes, then be thankful that Chloe at Club Fantastico is understanding of my situation, my wife has a somewhat flexible work schedule, that I have an understanding boss and an employer with a generous PTO program.

Thankfully, nothing else in my vacation is even as remotely frustrating as the airlines. If it were, I'd likely stay home. But thankfully, my experience this year regarding off-season airfare has not been as bad as others have reported.

I'm with you... we have talked many a time about driving from Raleigh to Charlotte, in fact we were all set to do it this summer, but the difference is only a few dollars. I've quit trying to figure it out, and just watch the prices, and when I am comfortable, I book.

For the past three years, we've made the 4 1/2 hour drive to Charlotte (we live 2 hours east of Raleigh). I've felt the nonstop flight, along with not having to get up in the middle of the night to get to the airport, wait around for two flights, and shlep carryons between planes, was worth it. My husband has always disagreed, so this year we're flying out of New Bern. The flights were a few dollars cheaper, and we'll save the cost of gas, two nights in a hotel, three restaurant meals for each of us, and nine hours of driving. With that savings, we added just a few more dollars, and are flying first class. Hopefully that will take some of the pain out of getting up at 2 AM to drive to the airport.

(Getting up at 2:00 AM + First Class) definitely better than Crunched Class.
Only problem going forward will be how to figure out First Class all the time. :-)

A few more from Raleigh, and we could just charter a plane :-)

I like your thinking! I did get a chuckle over how many NC folks posted in this one thread. I spent a few minutes yesterday looking at costs of flights from other areas and we don't have too much to complain about flying from either RDU or CLT.

Completely agree... we usually meet up down there with friends from all over the country, and we compare both prices and options. We do pretty good on both counts.

Back in November I found $300 round trip flights from JAX to SXM for end of this month. That was cheaper than ATL - SXM even though we connect through ATL.

For whatever stupid reason, that seems to be very often the case. It is almost ALWAYS cheaper for me to book Tampa-Miami-SXM on AA than it is to book just Miami-SXM. Or from Orlando, same thing, cheaper to book a connection through Miami, connecting to the exact same plane as the more expensive non stop.

Yup...those BOS-SXm fares I quoted include a $428 November R/T through Phily to SXM

If you book the same flight just from PHL-SXM-PHL it is $575

So the BOS-PHL PHL-BOS flights are free and you get $150 back

I found that if 6 days are entered, no flights available. On United's site 6 is standard unless you update. If you enter 14, for instance, more flights are available. Best from EWR RT - 8/23 (Sun.) $445; 4 different days NYE week - $440.

The god of computer driven air fares is a strange creature. I have on a number of occasions seen on the US Air web site where the SEA-CLT-SXM was $100 cheaper than the CLT-SXM fare. Go figure.

I will never forget last year when I was booking a one way return trip (x2) from SXM to BOS on JB. I saw a fare on my laptop and I went upstairs to the desktop (to print) ..logged in and the fare was $150 cheaper (x2 = $300) ...for a one way N/S (same flight)...booked it and went downstairs to my laptop and turned it back on and..duh..the fare was the same as before... $150 higher each

Never could figure that one out... <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" />

I have been told that sometimes pricing like this is due to tracking information the sites have stored on your computer.
Next time you are running quotes, run them like you normally do, then' open up a private browsing window (FireFox and Chrome both have that option). Those windows are designed to make you anonymous. Run the airfare quote again, and see if you get different results. If you do, it is likely that tracking information on your past searches may be to blame.