When to book for Dec tickets
 

Folks - like many other people, I too can only get a longer vacation mid-Dec and airlines know that so the Dec 15 / early-Jan period to visit BOM or any other Indian city has considerably higher fares even in coach. Any strategies and do Qatar/Etihad/Emirates ever do sale for this period based on past years' knowledge?

Thanks

Even if anyone can point to sales that have occurred previously, it would be an insanely risky strategy to wait for that potential sale during that busy period of US-IND travel.

There are often Diwali sales but there is no guarantee you will get a good deal. Check rates now & if they are acceptable then go ahead & book.

I would have booked if the prices were decent but it's all $1500+. Based on what you remember, are the sales for purchase just on the airline websites or through consolidators like Expedia too? I have some credit with them

I book mine around March-April for Dec/Jan using miles. VS had a recent sale of 40% off redemptions(and a 30% transfer bonus) which made the peak period redemptions a decent but not great value. It only gets more expensive from here on.

Is this the sale you are referring to? Looks like it's still on
https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/g...uy-points.html

The transfer bonus is over. Buying miles is never a good idea other than for topping up.

ok, does Virgin do it a few times a year?
Currently I'm seeing 60k miles + $640 taxes which isn't great and it's the same as just using Chase portal to book a $1800 flight (1.5 redemption value with Reserve card)

I did not understand your Reserve maths. However, with ticket prices in the $1400+ range; 60k miles + $650 still nets you Rs. 1/mile which is very reasonable value for Y. Makes even more sense if you don't want to pay so much cash for a ticket. Obviously you need to have the 60k miles to begin with.

Also, 60k suggests one way is during off peak(am assuming US east coast based). If that's the case 20k + 270 gbp taxes is a decent price for that time of the year for one way off peak. Transfer bonuses and reward sales make the equation better.

I booked my dec trip on QR (using AA) outbound and VS return(in PE, during the recent sale). In general I see better reward availability for DEL than BOM.

Chase Reserve gives me a 50% bonus on points when using their travel portal to purchase revenue tickets so 120,000 points will net me an $1800 revenue ticket

For Virgin, I'll be paying approximately the same amount for the return ticket since it's 60k miles r/t and $650 in taxes. The dates I checked were Dec 17 - Jan 7 JFK-BOM. Anytime after Dec 17 it jumps to 80k points r/t

I don't know much about Chase Reserve, but if this applies to other airlines too.... you can get return tickets on those dates for <$1400. So using Chase points would be cheaper than VS points.

You remind me of the golden days when the miles required for J redemption were fairly low and you could buy miles and get J tickets using AA/UA for lot less than regular J fare (of course not always but I have been able to do so successfully a few times)

for what its worth - i do reverse travel (Ind-US-Ind) in Dec/Jan period and usually book around July/August for past few years.. BA usually comes up with a sale around August.. but I just booked mine yday for $3300 in J.. 18 Dec to 10 jan.. quite happy with it.. dont think i can get lower..

I don’t know what dates you are looking at (and literally every departure / return combination will have different prices given the airline and their bookings. But $1500 isn’t bad for true peak time - like 12/19 departure and Jan 5 return on JFK-BOM. I would book now. It wont get better in Y. There might be a J sale but in recent years I haven’t seen US-India come on sale for the core 2/3 weeks of the Christmas holidays.I book my miles ticket ever year 320-330 days in advance.

What prices do you get booking 330 days ahead on air India etc in Y

That's a great price and I quite like the BA product and the 4 segments is almost enough for OW Sapphire status. J travel ex-India is usually much cheaper than starting from US.

not exactly connected to this thread but have any of you tried any of the airline stopover programs? So far I'm aware of Emirates, Etihad, Japan Airlines which offer this and fly to BOM. Any others worth considering?

Pretty much all ME carriers.. QR. WY etc. etc., TK,, TP, SQ etc. all have various degrees of stopover programs.