Do fares ever go down?

In a bit of a dilema.
Looking for UC flights to MCO normal time we go May 2009.
Usually i can find at least one reward seat going out if i am lucky 2 but they never have any coming back. I can live with that though i book economy with immediate upgrade and Z back.
This year however i can see no UC G class seats for the whole of 2009 not just May and the fare right now is 1850 pp WOW!
BA are coming in slightly cheaper at 1700.
My question is do fares EVER go down? Specifically on this route?
I think i prob know the answer but having never paid over 1500pp for UC to MCO i have sticker shock right now!

[Nottingham Nick]

Fares come down when the airline has a sale. [;)]

I wouldn't know from experience, but an circa £300 increase is probably to be expected given the fuel prices and associated surcharges etc.

[Neil]

Your flights have only recently been released so there is a chance that they haven't released any reward flights yet or even any Z fares. What fare code is the flights at £1700 showing as?

Prices do go up and go, and that depends on many factors but it is impossible to predict what is going to happen. You have to make a personal decision on the fare/dates etc and how important everything is to you.

Neil

The £1700 fare was with BA.
The £1850 is a Z fare.
I was seriously hoping that the introduction of 'R' fare would mean a lower fare coming out but i'm not holding out hope.
From my own experience its very rare Virgin include Orlando in any Upper Class sales.
It must be purely the fuel problems surcharges etc.
So annoying that if i leave on the 30th of April and return any time in May the fare drops right down to £1500.
Unfortunately hubbys boss is away 1st 2 weeks in May so no luck, plus we wanted to be out there for our anni on May 30th.

[Neil]

Originally posted by Nemmie
Unfortunately hubbys boss is away 1st 2 weeks in May so no luck, plus we wanted to be out there for our anni on May 30th.

Surely if you want to be away for the 30th May then your return flight won't even be available yet[?]

It is on BA but no i am actually baseing my dates a little earlier right now with Virgin so not 100% sure. I am looking at 14th May - 24th May for a guide.
I really like that BA release a whole year beforehand.

[Neil]

Ah I see...

It is still very early after the flights been released, so there is a chance that there could be some G's become available. We managed to pick some up for March recently so with a bit of flexibility and planning you could still be in look.

The only downside for your dates is that it is May school holidays from 31st May next year and VS (well actually all airlines) are very clever at putting prices up for a 2/3 week period around any school holidays, especially to a main B&S destination like MCO.

Neil

Ahhh yes i had totally forgotten about the kids holidays. Not having them myself its never much of a consideration but you are totally right they do normally go up around that time.
Interestingly i just spoke to Virgin UC to a wonderful guy who tells me that they recently did a kind of ''refresh'' to the reward seats and are in the process of loading them back in which would explain why the LGW-MCO route is showing no G class what-so-ever for the whole of 2009.
He also advised me to hang on for 6-8 weeks monitoring the website daily for releases of G class.
Thanks everyone keeping my fingers crossed.

If you can, hold off booking for a while.

When I started looking for flights at Easter next year Z fares were starting at 1840, which was more than we had paid in the past and with 2 adult and 3 children tickets to buy, just a little more than we wanted to spend.

I kept checking every week and when the prices shot up to 3700 resigned myself to no UC flight at all. BUT...last weekend when i was checking the Z fares had gone down to 1540 so I booked and we are off to Orlando, all be it a week earlier than we wanted but i'm not going to complain at an extra weeks holiday [:D]

Originally posted by Nemmie
From my own experience its very rare Virgin include Orlando in any Upper Class sales.

Are you sure? I am sure that I have seen it...

Certainly BA often have Orlando on sale for £1200/£1300 per person in Club World.

Personally I would hang on and chance your luck at reward seats or, failing that, a sale that include your prefered travel dates.... We don't tend to book too far ahead (4 to 6 months), but always get good sale prices...

Of course, nothing in life is certain: there are certainly a lot of scares about, at the moment, re fuel charges and the supposedly rising cost of air travel....

So any decision to buy or not to buy is yours.

Good luck [:)]
Boo

Fares do come down and they also go up!

MCO on VS in non school holiday/US public holidays etc is often pretty much high partly because VS are now well aware that families take children out of school etc (I was shocked by the number of school children flying off on holiday last week at LGW).

A good example for you but only in Y, last year I kept checking for VS flights in September to MCO, price was around £550 return. I waited and waited, looking on expertflyer told me the plane to be wide open. Bobs your uncle, three weeks before I went the price tumbled to £330.

May is always a popular time to fly. Those without children like it as the summer destinations are hot enough, so places like Florida, California and the Carribean become high demand routes. You also have two bank holidays which encourages people to go away as they have a monday off but don't loose a days holiday at work. Then its half term for the last week of May so pretty much the last two weeks of May and the first week of June could be classed as school holiday time.

In my experience if you are brave enough to hold out then you could get a deal. Obviously it is slightly different with J as there are less seats etc. Personally if you were looking at September rather than May I would say hold on.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and experiences.
I am def going to hold on and see what comes up.
I think if they drop to around £1500 i would snap them up.
Thanks again.

Wierdly enough Korean Air taxes are dropping by about £90 from 1st of July on indirect flights.
They were not competative with OZ as OZ fuel surcharge per trip and KE charged per leg so completely different.

Not really any help to you but prices can go down!