Found a cruise I can afford but not a flight!
R/T from NO to Honolulu is $600+ pp which makes the whole trip out of our budget. (Oh, for money to be no object!)

I'm just wondering if I just get the cruise (for late November) now and hold off on buying the tickets for the flight, will I be sorry? Is it likely to go down, up or stay the same? I guess it sounds like I'm looking for someone with a crystal ball but hopefully, someone out there has had some experience with this itinerary.

Thanks! All advice/ideas would be greatly appreciated!

It's way too early to pin down a price. Keep checking the various airlines daily and watch the newspaper for specials, but the good fall fares don't come out until late in the summer. 6-8 weeks ahead of your travel date is a good time frame.

You might check to see if the cruise line can provide discounted airfare. $600 is very good from where I live, Boston.

Yes, I checked the cruiseline and theirs was $680 pp and I found $613. I am for just booking the cruise and checking periodically for a cheaper fare but my husband is the pessimist in our family and he says, "NO WAY" and "WHAT IF....?". I have resorted to doing a hulu dance to show him what he will be missing but to no avail. Wish me luck!!

Where is NO? If you mean New Orleans, then I think $600 is a good fare to HNL. I wouldn't expect much cheaper.

Unfortunately, Hawaii always seems to be more expensive than going to Europe. From NO, I wouldn't think that you'd be able to do much better than $613 even if you waited. I've seen it anywhere from $600 to $1200 from Houston depending on the time of year.

Hawaii is an odd market plain and simple. Airlines usually don't make money flying there (it keeps the frequent flyers happy). Essentially, flying to Hawaii either costs you an arm of a leg, or very little and there is nothing in between.

Look at ATA/Southwest for tickets to Hawaii, they usually undercut American, United etc... to Hawaii and have some pretty amazing deals if you do a bit of searching.

Also if you can scrounge up some frequent flyer miles, you might be able to get a midweek ticket to Hawaii.