I am looking for a reasonable airfare to St. Thomas in early June next year. Any Suggestions out there? Thanks

I'd keep my eye out for specials offered by the various airlines around that time of year. That is low season so they will have discounted fares. If you are flexible, you should wait and buy tickets no more than a month ahead. I find I get the best prices when I can be a bit flexible regarding timing. Lodgings will be similarly discounted at that time and many airfare/accomodation packages will come up then too.

I read that Spirit Airlines will be flying into STT starting this month (November). This will undoubtedly bring the rates down for the five other major airlines that go in there (competition). I would wait until January (slow time for travel) when lots of airlines offer sale fares. This, coupled with Spirit moving in, should work to your benefit. I've recommended to my friends in San Fran to do the same, as my family has used my frequent flier miles to get down there. We too are going in June (18th-27th).

paulajean,
I hope you are right and the fares come down. I have to reschedule my STJ trip due to a serious family illness. I was looking at February and the fares are high!! We are flying Detroit to STT and Spirit had the best fare at $952. Of the other carriers, the next lowest fare was US Airways at $1217. Yikes. My original air for Nov 26-Dec 3rd was only $507, so that was a bit of a shock. Any of you experts have any ideas for me?

Tux - I found EWT to STT for mid May '06 at $446 round trip. Do you think it's worth waiting to see if it comes down or book now and get done?

We'll be on island 5/13-27 any chance you'll be there then? Trish

That'd be EWR to STT... shoulda previewed.

I was on Delta's website today and fares from Atlanta have dropped drastically for next spring. Not sure how long the rates are good for or where you will be flying in from. You may want to check. If anyone knows how long the fares are good, I would appreciate any information.

brenandg,

When in February are you planning on going? I just did a search on sidestep and got fares from $476 on up from Detroit to STT. I used Feb. 7 -14 as sample dates. Spirit was $553. I changed the dates to 18 - 25 (around Presidents Day) and Spirit's fare jumped up to $800 and the other carriers were around $1000 - $1200.

-Bill

Bill,
Thanks alot for your response,and sorry to momentarily highjack the thread. You hit the nail on the head. The dates that I was looking at were Feb 18th-25th. Presidents Day, week, whatever it is, I wasn't aware that of this when I was looking. My TA looked at some other dates for me and was finding air around $600 which I can definitely live with.

My original plan was to rebook the trip instead of having to file another claim with Travel Guard (just had to for hurricane Emily). Because our situation is uncertain, I have since decided to just cancel, file a claim and rebook when the time is appropriate. FIL is very recently in Hospice care and at this stage, quite ill.

Trish: There is a possibility that we'll be down there at that time because I think that's the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park's "Beach to Beach" swimming race which I want to enter. (They let you wear snorkel, mask and fins. Heck, I could swim 8 hours straight with those conditions)But our business prevents us from knowing when we're able to go anywhere until the last minute, hence, my familiarity with last minute deals. If you found a deal for $446 roundtrip, nonstop, includes all taxes and fees, I think that is terrific. The rest is really just a balancing of pro's and con's. If you wait, you may save as much as a $100 per ticket. I don't think tickets would drop any more than that. So to save potentially $200, you'd have to gamble on availability. It may not be that big of a discount either. Weighed against the fact that the price you'd pay now is pretty good already, and it would force you to stick with your plans to go to St. John It just depends on how flexible you are in your planning. Some folks like to plan well in advance, others decide they're going to go next week.

We booked a villa on STJ for May in mid sept-the pickin's were getting slim-Airfare on Delta, at that time, from ATL to STT (nonstop) was 1040! in mid-oct, that fare dropped to 740, so we snatched it up. Checked a couple days ago and the same flight was 580.If you have set dates you neeed to travel, how do you know when is the best time to purchase?