Airfare...WTF?

[Dennis]

So, this past weekend we started to have a conversation about our Xmas travel plans and we discussed how much we missed St. Barths (It's been 4 years).

So Lisa found a great deal for xmas week.on a villa/bungalow with a private pool for a steal on AIRBNB.

I checked airfare yesterday and the cheapest I could find was slightly over $2000/per person on AA.

So, $4000.00 just to get to SXM. Another $500 for the final 15 minutes.

When the airfare is more than the accommodations, count me out.

YMMV.

And no, Tradewind is not an option.

 

[Jim Kelly-Evans]

Almost as bad as flying to Europe main cabin extra. Expensive fun.

 

[krand1]

Totally agree. We are traveling to St Barths this July, our first trip during the summer "off peak" months. Our airfare was about the same, $4,000 roundtrip for 2 people. Our villa is priced at $4,500 (1 bedroom weekly rate). We were floored that the airfare was about as much as our accommodations and this is during summer for goodness sake.

 

[cassidain]

And TW now close to $900 each way for popular times of day. !

 

[Saline Man]

Mr Dennis:

You need to stay in St B for two weeks or longer. That will change to villa to airfare cost ratio.

 

[Dennis]

Mr Dennis:

You need to stay in St B for two weeks or longer. That will change to villa to airfare cost ratio.

Occam's Razor I like the way you think.

 

[marybeth]

Last year over Thanksgiving our flights to SXM were about $1200 pp. Friends who joined us for the first week booked later than we did and the same flights were $1500 pp.

This trip our flights were about $800 pp. Randy had to fly home during this trip and his last minute flights were less than $600. Go figure….

I like the 2 week stay idea!

 

[davesmom]

Sometimes you can get some "deals" on Delta. With the Delta Reserve card, starting this year upon your renewal, they are giving you the opportunity to use your "companion ticket", which is generally useless, to arrange flights to the Caribbean, Mexico, and some other places! And I think you can book first class, too! (If you are not coming from afar, that is probably NBD, but it is really far for us, and must fly overnight, so a necessity.) Better than just using the ticket for domestic flights, which we don't use much. (Next time, I'm going to SJU and will probably spend the night, in order to fly TW..might be worth it to miss the kind of mess SXM is still dealing with at the moment.)

Also, if you are Delta Platinum or Delta Diamond Frequent Flyers, you have the option of getting your "choice benefit" as 4 regional upgrades as Platinum which can be used to go to the Caribbean, etc. You pay for one class of service and you get the next highest class. But the last 2 times, they gave us First Class for the price of Main cabin! (We had the Delta rep work on it...it was a small miracle as there are intervening classes now, such as Comfort + which would cost us more but the Delta rep got it for Main Class.) Even better, you can use Frequent Flyer miles to pay for it! Tickets for 2 were $10,500 in First, so that was a savings, which we blew on our hotel. (Some day, I swear I will try the villa for A & P!..I did not know we could do that Air BNB thing for such a good price, so thanks to all who shared that!)