ACA321

I need to travel from CLT-TLV next May, and will be flying business. Right now, fares are ~$4800 on the dates I need to travel. All other carriers are much higher and route through Europe, and I'd much prefer the longer PHL-TLV flight to max out sleep. Having never done this trip before, can anyone say if the current price is good, or if prices typically come down a lot? Not sure what that market is like- if sales are common or not etc.. There are 3 of us traveling and our dates are set, so I'd like to lock in the best price possible.

Obviously nobody has a crystal ball to predict which way fares will go in the next 6 months, but if $4800 is typically a good deal I'd go ahead and lock in now...not so concerned if it goes down by a couple hundred bucks, although $1000 or dollars less would be reason enough to wait. Mostly want to avoid prices going much higher.

Thanks for any insight!

3Cforme

If you have any date/duration flexibility, have you checked the minimum stay rules and season start/end dates for the lowest published fares in Business class? You might find leaving a week earlier or staying a few extra days could have a meaningful impact on fare.

This technique sends one on a path to find the lowest fare today. It does nothing to predict fare sales or (hah hah) general fare decreases.

ACA321

I only have 1 day for flexibility- going to some conferences, not vacation. I have the choice of leaving on a Sunday (which would cost over $6000), or a Saturday for $4800. Will go a day early to save over $1200/pp, and use the extra day for sightseeing.

My thinking is $4800 is likely pretty good, as cheap business fares to Western Europe typically run in the $4000-4500 range from the US (not considering rare and unpredictable fare dumps). Just wondering if I'm correct before pulling the trigger...if someone with experience in this market were to say prices for business are typically much lower yet I'd wait.

iztok

I doubt it. This is one of the routes that sells out in C fairly often. US doesn't give out the C award availability (or upgrades) on it either. I would say go for it.

onic

Seems like a good fare. Coach fares in this market vary from 1300-2300k r/t; so on the high end of that scale you are paying just 2x the cost of a coach ticket to fly business.

It's possible that the price may fluctuate. You said it would bother you if it went down as much as $1,000 - I just don't see them selling these seats at $3,800. But should it happen you could re-ticket, pay the $450 change fee, and have the remaining in a travel credit.

ACA321

Thanks for the replies...I ended up booking, but only got two seats for the $4800 (last two Z fares). Called for availability- the third person traveling in our party is somewhat discretionary- and was told that there are very few Z fares offered on this route, at least departing on weekends. According to two agents we are lucky to have gotten those fares. Will see if fares come down a bit to book the third person, if not we will suck up the $6000 fare to get them on our same itinerary.

Consolidators are able to get fares in the $4500-$5500 range on other flights, but all those fares route through Europe which is less than ideal if you want to get a lengthy sleep on the flight. This is the only North America-TLV non-stop available on OneWorld, and outside of this the only other options I know of are UA, AC, DL and El Al. Guess they can demand quite a premium.

tacostuff

Even though you have already booked, FWIW, I think that $4800 is a pretty good fare on US to TLV. I've routinely paid around $9k for BOS-TLV flights. While these are typically refundable tickets, non-refundable isn't much cheaper. On one occasion, however, I did pay around $3300 for a Z-fare biz ticket to TLV, though this was flying out two days after x-mas and returning on new year's day so it may have been a unique price due to the timing.

phlwookie

Agree - that's a nearly 5,800 mile route in a good biz product. I've paid more than twice that on BA and US on PHL-LHR, which isn't even 3,600 miles.