We usually travel in the summer and I am wondering when is the best time to purchase tickets for the Caribbean for travel in December? Right now the flight from Raleigh to Nevis is around $875 and from Richmond it is $1100. Also, is it safe to book tickets through a website like this, or is it wiser to go through the airline directly? When we booked a flight through a site like this for the Sugar Bowl, we couldn't get seat assignments and ran the risk of getting bumped on every flight, which is a major bummer, IMO. Any airlines that travel to Nevis more than others? Thanks for any help that you can give.

I just did a very quick search of American Airlines web site. There are very reasonable tickets to St. Kitts the early part of December. From Raleigh, before taxes, there are tickets starting about $400.00. That's with only one stop in Miami, getting you into St. Kitts about 3pm. That would certainly get you time to get to Nevis, I would think. Also, the return flight leaves in the afternoon so you wouldn't have a problem on that end either. I didn't look at fares for holiday travel. Flights directly into Nevis were a couple hundred dollars more expensive. We're making our first trip there in January, the fares from here in the midwest are very high, we're using FF miles, flying into St. Kitts and home out of Nevis.

American is really your only option into Nevis. Sometimes going to St Kitts is cheaper and then you can take the ferry over. Most of the time, the fares are just about equal. UsAir flies to St Kitts. I really think American is the best choice. I always book directly through their website as I always find the best rates there.

I would keep checking on rates. You can always get a refund if rates go down a lot (although they will charge a $100 change fee) To me $875 is not a lot as I have to pay more than that normally from where I live.

GL!

MIM04...I sent you an e-mail to your office earlier this morning. Did you receive it? Thanks for the info. I didn't think 875 sounded too bad.

As MIM pointed out there are no direct flights from the Continental US to Nevis. Short of chartering your own plane, your only options for flights to Nevis are via Amrican Eagle from San Juan, via Winair or Liat from St. Martin or American Eagle or LIAT from Antigua.

American has limited non-stop flights from Miami to St. Kitts and USAir also has flights from the US to St. Kitts. It's about a 45 minute ferry ride from St. Kitts to Nevis.

Nevis has always been a little difficult to get to and airfares are usually pricey.

Ok, how difficult is it to get a ferry from St. Kitts to Nevis? Is there a set schedule? In June, we flew from St. Martin to Nevis via Liat. Thanks for all of the info, everyone.

The ferries are quite easy. There is a set schedule and there are many that run everyday. I will email you a link for the schedule. I just responded to your previous email also.

jw, assuming you are not going over the Christmas holidays, try this:

Go to AA.com and do a "multi-segment" search. Then put in Raleigh to SJU (San Juan), SJU to NEV, returning the same, NEV to SJU, SJU to Raleigh. By doing it this way, I got flights for $431 from American, arriving in Nevis at a fabulous 1:21 PM!!! My dates were in October, but I *think* it will work up til Dec 11th also...

For some reason, just doing a roundtrip search (Tampa to Nevis in my case) would not reveal the single connection flights, it kept showing two connections, with awful times. Also check Travelocity, because in the fine print for my tickets, it says "fare only available on Travelocity or aa.com".

Good Luck!