Can I expect a summer fare sale?
 

Planning for summer cross-country family travel, would like to know if AS summer fare sales are likely. JNU-SEA-ORD or vicinity (DTW, GRR, TVC, etc).

Hate to buy now and have a sale announced next week. If I did that, does AS honor any low fare deals?

Thanks!

Sue

Even if you do buy now and a sale pops up next week - you can get a refund of the difference in fare in your "My Wallet" by going to this page. It's one of the many things I like about AS!

As long as the crisis continues in the Middle East/Africa we will see airfares (and gasoline for your car) go UP, UP, UP. Buy now for summer/fall travel.

buy now! If the fares drop you can always reticket and get a credit. Like Philemer said, expecting any good sales right now.....I wouldnt count on it. There will be surely some sales although they'll play the up the price the day before the sale begins gimmick

How does this work out if you buy with a companion pass?

If not for AS's friendly policy, I don't agree with the "buy it now for summer and fall." I'm looking at a few legs where they've sold no seats and the price is $300+ one way transcon. They can try and raise that more, but no one is going to buy it.

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's PWP wonderous device: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.304 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

You'd still get a refund, but only one for two people... (As there was one fare paid)

well somebody obviously buys those seats for more than $300 one way because those routes are usually rather full

I would not complain about the transcons, I'm seeing $250 roundtrips from SF to Las Vegas. That used to be the highest fare, not the lowest one.

I just don't buy the oil argument when Alaska doesn't use that for pricing.

Case in point, my retired inlaws (who thus are happy with connections), are flying SEA - MDT. Alaska wouldn't even give the SEA-ORD-MDT option (last leg on AA). Instead, Alaska sold them SEA-PDX-ORD-MDT for $165 total each way this summer. That fare is around $100 less than Alaska wants SEA-ORD or even the PDX-ORD leg on the exact same flight.

In my case, I just went with Jetblue for $100 less and no checked bag fee and am sitting on my companion pass.

It's just one factor in pricing. Competition, airport fees, and many other factors go into determining the price of a ticket. Regardless, rising oil prices will increase cost for the airlines, and therefore prices have to go up.

how does that make a case exactly for saying the price of oil doesnt affect fares? Look up the AA flight and see what that would cost by itself. In some instances Ive looked them up particularly between ORD/MKE and that AA purchased by itself is some times more expensive than ANC-ORD-MKE bought as an AS fare. There are contracts involved with those partners for certain prices and fare classes. Primarily to entice the other airline passengers to book on their metal. When the price of oil goes up those partner fares do go up as well. And are you sure the fare class being sold was the same when booked to MDT as opposed to just the AS segment quote you looked up? Often times that AA segment can knock the whole one way down a fare class or two. It can also on the reverse cause it to be way higher than just the AS portion by itself

It's a combination of factors: oil prices, supply and demand, competition, second-order competition effects, pricing mistakes, etc.