UK to Aruba flights
 

We would like my sister who is currently living in London, UK to join us in Aruba between Sept 18 and Oct 2, of this year. I've been researching flights and there's many options but it seems direct flights are only via thomson air and about 700pound. Does anyone know if prices will drop as summer ends? Which is the cheapest&easiest way to fly to Aruba from London? She is flexible with airports so gatwick or heathrow are fine.
I already know that KLM, virgin, continental, etc., all fly there so am not looking for a list of airline names but specific help on flight costs, airports, how to book, a travel agency perhaps in london specializing in ArubaIf you've done this trip please help. I'm in Canada so advice is appreciated. Also, should we take a chance and wait to see if prices will drop closer to departure or by in advance? Thanks.

Virgin does not fly to Aruba & KL/CO fly via AMS or JFK.

You won't find any options for direct flights except charters such as ThomsonFly and they probably the only ones.

There are travel agencies in the UK who specialise in the Caribbean such as Newmont Travel, Caribbean Connection and other agents who offer deals on flights such as Trailfinders, Flight Centre UK but don't think they have anything cheaper than KLM. CO seem the cheapest but the flight times are not great with an overnight at JFK for some dates.

I've not seen prices drop closer to departure, they usually go up.

Thomson are the cheapest carrier to fly to Aruba from the UK. They fly from Manchester and London (I think Gatwick). They have a summer schedule only (May to Oct) and drop their prices by 50% six weeks before the departure date. We flew with them from Manchester to Aruba (arrived back Friday just gone). The reduced prices are for standard 1 week or 2 week duration trips only. We paid the full fare as we wanted to travel for a much longer period. (We travelled to Aruba on a home exchange.)

Try First Choice, they probably use the same charter flights as Thomson but are clearly a different brand and do discount heavily. Last year they offloaded flight to Nassau for £188 including tax return.

Thomsonfly are not necessarily the cheapest from London. Their prices have not dropped so far but that is good advice to check within 6 weeks. If you check dates 4th Sept which is well within 6 weeks the price is £828.

Manchester is cheaper to fly from although First Choice have not discounted yet either. For example departing the 4th Sept is £829, the 11th is £798

KLM for the 17th Sept to 2nd October is £711 inc taxes etc and that is from LHR.

We initially booked for four of us to travel as my daughter had planned to go to Australia this year. We paid £675ish each return (including bags etc) travelling out at the beginning of July. My daughter's Australia trip then fell through so we looked for tickets for her (in early June) and all the flights departing in the next six weeks were half price - so her ticket was £330ish. However, we could only get flight combinations that were for a one week or two week stay (with sufficient seats for all of us to have travelled had we left it that late to book.) Someone else later told us that the cut off date for Thomson discounting was six weeks prior to departure date.

For cheap flights, generally, have you tried www.skyscanner.net?

We just booked her yesterday for 648 pounds including that ridiculous 40 pounds for baggage. We did so because the website was showing only 8 seats left for the first week we were looking at (sept 18-25) and 4 seats for the next week (sept 25-oct 2). We booked for the second week. However, looking at it today, it shows the same numbers and I wonder if we've been had? Could the prices have dropped if we'd waited and she still got a seat? Half price at 330pound would have been amazing! Especially when you factor that we are paying in Canadian dollars so this flight is about 1000 dollars for us.
There appears to be no free beverages or snacks on this flight. Is this true? Can you buy a juice or tea and how much is it? What about the inflight mea? Is there TV and/or movies? How much do they cost to purchase?
Any advice for the flight? Thanks.