dbuckho

End of last November my work gave us a number of extra days off over the holiday break. So I had to plan a trip for the week between Christmas and New Years with only a few weeks notice. We wanted to do Central America (Costa Rica or Belize) - so that meant watching AA and TACA pretty closely for several weeks.

Dec 25th - Jan 1 never became that affordable, but there was fluctuation as the dates got closer. AA fares were $700 something when I started looking Thanksgiving weekend. I kept putting reservations on hold (you get 2-3 days at a time), and eventually was able to book Costa Rica for around $475 from LAX. The AA flights to most central america destinations were very full for that time period.

TACA's planes were wide open (empty from row 20 back on their A320s) when I started looking, but the fares were in the mid-$500s. Around December 14th, however, they had a great sale to many destinations -- including $275 RTs for December 23rd - 30th for Costa Rica. For that little notice and the holiday period, I thought it was a great deal.

The fares to Belize seemed to fluctuate in the same way, but were always a little more expensive than Costa Rica from LAX.

We were set on being away for the long New Year's weekend and wanted to upgrade on the overnight flight, so we held out for AA. But my guess is TACA will have an excellent sale at some point much closer to departure. Same for AA.

For FF tickets, I have always found Dec 16-24, 26-30, and Jan 2-4 blacked out and/or unavailable.