What are your thoughts about travel in the time of Covid?

Is anyone finding airfare really expensive this year?

Or am I doing something wrong?

I saw that there was availability for a Rick Steves tour that I was interested in. I’d really rather go in the fall but those are seemingly booked solid. Airfare to Munich in August was $1300+.

I also looked into booking an all inclusive to Jamaica in late fall. The airfare was expensive and not many flights.

Is this just a COVID leftover with not many flights scheduled? Am I not in the loop and flights are more than I thought?

I tried booking a flight to my daughter’s in Philly and it was more than double what she paid in December.

Would getting a loyalty credit card help? Unfortunately where I live, southwest is more expensive than American usually.

I’d go. I think we might have dropped the test to return by mid April, which would limit the risk of being stranded abroad.

As far as Ukraine goes, by then we’ll likely either have 1) a thermonuclear war, 2) a stalemate or 3) a settlement. None of those seems like a good reason to cancel (in the first case you’ll have more important things to worry about than a refund).

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I have been watching airfares for a European trip. Boston to Lisbon was around $400 for most of Jan and Feb. The same trip is now more than double.

Airfares for both domestic and international flights are rising, and rising rapidly recently. It’s driven by higher fuel prices as well as fewer available flights on many routes.

No, it won’t.

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I am paying 1K for a trip to london in late april. I would assume prices will go up more due to fuel prices

I would expect fares to go up, I just hope they don’t cancel mine because I booked last year. I think hotels may get cancellations.

Yes, airfare prices are going up rapidly. I missed out on cheap HI tix because my husband was not sure of his schedule. Now it would cost us $400 more for that itinerary. Back to the drawing board…

Thanks for the encouragement. Curious for any other feedback on traveling to Vienna in mid-April.

I went to Vienna in early week of August 6 years ago, so not sure what to recommend for April.

I booked it for May for my daughter and it was $1200. I think it will only get worse with oil prices soaring.

My friend was able to get a flight HNL to UK, R/T for $400. From Portland to UK she got tickets that were $500 R/T. She bought them before Christmas, I think.

We are going to Kenya this summer. I’m trying to decide whether to lock in the flights now or wait to see whether oil prices drop resulting in a drop in flight prices. They are definitely higher than when I priced them a couple of months ago. Thoughts?

I’d book a refundable flight now and keep monitoring how airfares change. I believe there’s some software/website that would do this for you automatically. If you know you’re going to stick with one airlines, you can even just book a changeable flight. Flights from most US airlines (other than those in basic economy) are changeable these days.

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What exactly does “changeable” mean? I’m not questioning, just curious! I booked a trip recently with AA that is “changeable”. Does that mean I can change times of flight? Change to a lower fare rate?

I booked a domestic flight earlier this week because I was fearful that with gas/oil/fuel prices airfares were going to jump. A few days later that same flight is about the same - well, $14 cheaper! I don’t regret booking because also there were not a ton of seats available when I booked!

“Changeable” means you can change the flight for any reason (even to a different destination). For most airlines, you get flight credit for use in the future (1 to 3 years, depending on the airlines), if the new flight costs less.

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Our domestic flight back to the Midwest was cheaper than they’ve been in ages (for Spring travel). We booked last week, thinking airfare would skyrocket. Just checked. Still roughly the same as last week.

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What would you do @me29034 if you are infected on your travels, even if no test were required for reentry?

If I’m not feeling sick then I would never get tested. If I do feel sick, get tested and am positive, then I would quarantine as required. I would do the same at home. My issue with the travel related tests is that they are testing people who aren’t sick and false positives happen. Your trip can be completely derailed for no reason.

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Or you could be asymptomatic but traveling. So, I think you are trading off false positives for unknown negatives.

A friend/client went to the West Coast for meetings where no one was masked, got infected, and was forced to quarantine at a hotel (likely very luxurious as he is a CEO of a pretty decent-sized company) for a number of days. He wasn’t enjoying it when I spoke with him, but I took some work off his plate.

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I’ve got some pretty hefty airfares coming up. SFO-LHR, LHR-BOS, BOS-SFO, SFO-AMS, etc., mostly business class. I’m not sure if the fares are higher or lower than pre-Pandemic, but I have found the clients to be more sensitive to travel costs than they were pre-Pandemic.