V-Flyer

I fly 5-8 times to the States every year for holiday (from London). I usually pay 1700-2500 for flights. I need to go to LAS (or LAX or SFO as alternative). mid-april to mid/late may again. I was very happy when i saw the 'sale' promoting vegas for 1900+ which was supposed to be in that period. For days now i'm checking the flights but not on one of them the advertised rate is available. The cheapest one i see is 2092 but that's with a stop in Manchester which i don't want. I fly UC for a reason and having a stop-over isn't something i'd fancy on my way back.

I even see prices like 4036/3698 in tat period as a average. Since when does Virgin charge these crazy prices? Even with BA i can see prices of 2500 for the same kind of flights. However i prefer virgin and love to give them my money but this is just too much.

Does anyone reckon these will go down again to normal level for that period or is it gonna be a trend to put the cheapo's like me who 90% of time fly on Z's into flights that stop at MAN?

I don't mind waiting with booking a flight for that period if there's a reasonable chance things go down. Anyone with some insight why things are so high? Am i unreasonable to expect prices around 2000 for direct flights to vegas in may? For last 2 years (and 4 weeks ago i booked one for 1900 aswell) i always had those prices for that period...

Simply, the Z's for your return dates all appear to have been sold already, you're likely seeing I or even D fares for the return portion and that's jacking up the price. Secondly you're looking smack on half term.

Draw your own conclusions .

Also the World Series of Poker main event and subsidary events are on around that time as well.

As you'll be aware there are only 14 UC seats on the Vegas flights, and assuming, for argument's sake, only half of them are ever available as discounted J fares, once just 7 people have booked the next bucket kicks in and the prices go up.

It's your return flight that seems to be the issue - outbound it's £1074 on the direct LGW flight on Mon 15 or Tues 16. But coming back there's nothing less than £2049 in May. Giving a total of £3123 which I would say is pretty much a normal J fare for LGW-LAS - the sub-£2k fares you're hoping for are definitely sale fares.

As you say BA is about £2400 return on select dates in April/May - but then they have a lot more CW seats to fill.

So in answer to your question - no, you're not being unreasonable to hope for a sub £2k fare as we all know they're sometimes available. But they're only available when VS need to shift seats, which clearly they don't right now.

I also noticed a big fare hike from last Monday when I booked a sub £2k fare in Uppper to LAS and in the same week, on Thursday it had gone up to plus £4k. I appreciate it jumps to the next bucket if the Z fares have all gone but I thought it would jump to between £2800-£3500 which is where it usually is on a non sale fare and BA's pricing appears to be.
This was for a flight in Nov 13 so certainly quite a while away.

LAS flights are far more popular Thursday to Friday, due to the nature of the place though, earlier in the week is definitely cheaper...

Slightly off topic but I've noticed the PE seats to LAX seem to have gone through the roof too. Used to be £800-£900 now showing as £3k+ (although fare watch on the homepage seems to be broken!)

Thanks all for the replies.

Magically most of the Z's are available again so the 1922 'sale' price is at last available. Thank god i didn't book anything before with those high prices.

off to vegas on the 26 march and thought i'd check prices.upper class out and p/e back on 2nd april £1560ish.
seems a good price to me

Oh dear - I saw this and went online and found an UC in September for £1998 return.

Can i blame you all for the fact that I booked it?!

Does anyone have contacts in the Vegas area for renting a (vacation) home? Bit of a shot in the dark I know, but worth asking!

I'm off to Vegas at the start of April and I've decided to go via LAX on BA. All the direct options BA or Virgin were nearly £3K for the dates I wanted in PE / WT+ !

Via LAX got WT+ on BA for £1200 which seems much more reasonable. Not looking forward to it though as the flight is long enough without a connection.