Airfare: Hold 'Em or Fold 'Em?
 

As I posted before, we're planning to go to Manchester in early March. The best fare I've found so far from Texas is $515.00 (but it would require staying a day longer than planned which is a little difficult with work and would require an extra night's hotel) or $594.00 on British Airways (for the length of time we'd planned).

I was initially hoping to spend $400 something on each ticket, but I'm getting a little nervous watching the fares jump around. A British friend said I should jump on the $515.00 fare but I'm not sure.

Do the airlines ever do good deals during Xmas week because they figure people aren't ticket-shopping then? Is British Airways a lot better experience than Continental? Should I hold 'em or fold 'em? (I swear this could be a game show).

I took Continental to Manchester last summer and had the best flying experience in my recent memory. Staff that's really eager to please, pristine planes, etc.

Personally, the fare sounds good to me. $400 sounds unlikely. I'd go for it. But I already have my tix for next June, so maybe I'm not the one to ask.

JulieG - I don't know where in Texas you would be flying out of (DFW or Houston?), but right now AA has their NetsAAver fare going on for London (I know you're going to Manchester). You might want to hop on over to their site to see what kind of deal you can get. I input a departure date of March 7th (Wed) with return on March 14th (Wed) and before taxes and all that, the fare is $305. ADDING all the taxes would give you a final total of $451.70. You'd probably want to take a train to Manchester. I'm sure someone on here could provide details about train journeys either from London (or from Gatwick or Heathrow, depending on which option over at AA you choose).

Take it. $400 fares are a thing of the past.

CO flies 757-200 solely from Newark to Manchester these days. The 757 is a single-aisle aircraft with no personal video screens in coach. It's barely okay to get to the UK; any longer and it'll get quite uncomfortable. But in March, you can hope that it's not packed.

If you fly BA out of Houston or Dallas, the non-stops go to Gatwick. BA does operate LGW-MAN few times a day. You get a more comfortable plane (777) and actually some time to sleep, plus personal entertainment. For $80 more and the dates you want, I'll take BA over CO unless you care for the FF miles on CO. [And I am one of the biggest fan of CO on these forums.]

However, do not use the train from London to Manchester. You'll need to ride train from Gatwick to London, switch to the tube, and then another train. No way!

[BA also has a IAH-ORD-LHR flight that goes to Heathrow, but it adds a stop and really doens't offer much of an improvement over Gatwick.]

Anyways, $600 may not be the best price, but not too bad. It may be too late for you to do so, but if you apply for the BA/Chase credit card, you can get 15,000 BA miles, and will enroll you in their Executive Club FF program, for $75 a year. You can use BA miles on AA or other partners. Your cheap fares will only earn 25% miles on their program, but at least that's better than nothing. Otherwise, BA won't even let you join their FF program.

The $515 fare saves you $79 and then you need to stay an extra day so the $595 fare costs you less

You don't say where in Texas, but looking on kayak.com I see lots of fares of around $550 including taxes checking from both Dallas and Houston.

There is much less competition to/from Manchester than there is to London. I don't know about the price/logistics of getting b/w London and Manchester to know whether the savings are worth it but prices are even cheaper to London and many more airlines to chose from.

I should have added, if it were me, I'd wait til Jan. to book but wouldn't want the responsibility of telling you what to do should fares go up.

Thanks for all the helpful responses so far! I really appreciate everyone's expertise. Please keep the great tips coming.

Flying into London would not be very practical for us. The cost of the train would cancel any savings on the plane, and since we're actually staying outside of Manchester, it would be quite a long train journey.

I'm mainly trying to guage from more frequent international travelers whether fares might go down more in the next few weeks. The last time we went to England it was $300 round trip so it's hard to look at these $500 and $600 dollar fares.

Gas was probably cheaper last time you went. Both fuel charges and security fees have driven airfare up.

wow that sounds good to me! We've paid that much to fly from Cleveland to California. I usually always found airfares to Scotland for around $800. Looks like this year we will be having to pay $1000. It almost makes me want to find a flight to Manchester for this price and then another way up to Scotland.

Looks great to me too. I'm looking at $900. + including taxes for NY to London and Edinburgh back to NY in June! (I'm using FF miles to get from the mid-south to NY.)

Hi crazy4Hawaii, I think the main reason for the price difference there is that you're traveling during the high season and I'm going in the off-season, when fares can be about half as much.