mhc

Been saving miles and dreaming about a trip to Barbados for a couple of years now.

Booked 5 tickets with Delta FF for Sat May 17-Mon 26, 2008. When we booked last July the Delta schedule showed 4 flights per week for May.

In the past month Delta cancelled everything but Sundays in May. Now we're May 18-25.

Other than refund, one option is to fly Delta to St. Lucia and buy tickets on another carrier. Almost did that a couple of days ago. Today Air Jamaica says they will drop flights between St Lucia and Barbados on April 1. (glad I didn't do that now)

Don't want to get stuck, bird in the hand and everything, but I would like to get the 2 days back.

Do flights to Barbados typically reduce in May? Is May a bad time to visit Barbados? Any thoughts or inside info would be helpful.

Thanks.
mhc

lxrytravlr73

1) There is never a bad time to go to Barbados. It is not as affected by hurricane season because of its location.

2) American owns that market. You can fly non-stop from Miami 5 or 6 times a day (don't know where you are coming from). Tickets are in the $500 range for that time. Dates between May and July will not affect price greatly. Keep in mind you are going around 2 holidays (mothers day and memorial day) so everything will be a little more expensive and a little more crowded.

2b) Price might be b/c of the number of people you have. Try finding a flight with 5 open seats and then booking them in ones and twos. I did that with FF miles and was able to get 3 for 25K and one for 50K when my search for 4 25K seats made it seem undoable.

3) If you can use your delta miles to get into the islands do it - any island. Then use Liat air. For your dates tickets from St. Lucia to Barbados are $45 to $85 each way per person depending on the flight.
$90 to $125 per person is better than not being able to use your miles.

mhc

American definitely owns the market!

We're Nashville through Atlanta. We had our 5 seats at 30,000 miles each, but Delta cut 75% of their flights for May.

We booked last July. Delta's May 2008 schedule had flights on Thur, Sat Sun and Mon from Atlanta to Barbados. Most were at least half full) Since Jan 25, they cancelled everyone on the Thurs, Sat and Monday flights. New May schedule is only Sunday. One trip out and back. Seems odd to sell that many tickets and just suddenly cancel the flights.

Strange little glitch is that our miles are Delta. If they were in Morthwest, we could do the Barbados leg on American Eagle. (AE is only a Delta partner in California.) Delta also just recently ended partnership with Air Jamaica. Since our miles are Delta, we must go on Sundays or go somewhere close and buy on another carrier.

We chose May 17-26 to include Memorial Day and two weekends so we could get a 10 days trip with only 5 vacation days. (Great idea until Delta cancelled all their flights!)

Just looked at LIAT/St Lucia. With taxes, $90 RT looks great until you add the taxes. Total cost for 5 tickets is just short of $1000.

Probably will do it as we've rented a house with another couple. It just really irks me that our "free" tickets are going to cost almost $1000. (Even 1 at a time)

Our friends purchased their tickets with Northwest miles, so they were able to shift from the cancelled Delta flights to American Eagle.

Thanks.

bajangirl

May is out of season in the islands - high season ends on April 15 and it's too early for summer traffic. That means that hotel rates are lower and yes, some airlines do reduce the number of flights.

doug_stallings

There's no way that the tax on a $90 Round-trip on Liat is $100. Have you made a mistake on the calculation?

I posted on your other thread and I think this is an espcially inconvenient connection since it involves changing airports. I'd strongly urge you to explore some other options though it sounds to me as if you are locked in. It would probably have been easier to take Delta to Antigua and hop over to Barbados from there (Antigua is Liat's home base).

You're going to lose a full day each way now, so I don't see the upside for you other than being able to use miles.

And yes, Delta typically has seasonal service that drops drastically in the off-season.

doug_stallings

Well, I was certainly wrong about the taxes. I see how you're getting your pricing now, but this is a horrible schedule. You do need to allow at least 3 hours between flights, and that really doesn't give you any leeway if your arriving flight is late; 4 hours would be safer.

mhc

The LIAT prices do look good until you get to the total!

Delta suggested St Lucia. We didn't realize two airports/lots of time and more money was involved. Agree it just won't work.

We've kept BNA-BGI May 18-25 at this point. Delta will give us flights near Barbados May 17-26 if we find something that suits us. They'll only change it once, so we have to be sure.

The last two weeks of May is the peak travel time for families with college kids. They really need a break after finals. Ours, like most, will work from June 1 until early August when they get ready to go back to school.

Will check on Antigua. Thanks for the tip and to everyone for all the helpful information.

mhc

Checked Antigua. Works very well for May 17th.

We may do this, keep our flight on the 25th and be happy to get 1 day back.

Thanks again.
mhc