Here's the situation: I finally have the confirmation for my son's spring semester in St Petersburg (college junior). I need to get him his travel ticket. The program has specific date he must arrive, including time, and there is a specific exit date on his Visa. He will leave Philadelphia on Wednesday, plane needs to be scheduled in by 17:00 Jan 31 for them to meet him and take him to the 1st night's lodging (else he has to get there on his own), and he leaves for home on a Friday end of May. Best option I was finding is a British Air combo, although it requires overnight on way home in London. As he has a friend in school there who can put him up, for only slightly more I had this as multi-city, and he would stay over the weekend and come Monday. The problem? I've been checking all kinds of options and investigating this for a couple weeks. We finally have everything in place (had to communicate with his friend) so I could get the tickets tomorrow. But Britsh Air prices jumped almost 50% when I checked today - as in $990 to $1364. All of the increase is in "fare", fees haven't changed. This is from BA's site (which the various travel sites were not beating). I would really hate to think we blew this. The other options we looked at all have certain issues we don't want to deal with (including times, transfers and airports, needing to drive to and use JFK, landing at the wrong St. Petersburg terminal after transfer and customs in Moscow). So what happened? Is this a matter of I checked this on a Sunday? Have I checked this too many times from the same ip address?
Any of the many more experienced fliers have some ideas that would help? Thanks in advance.
Posted by
Denver, CO, USA
1591 posts
It is quite possible that this is because you are checking this on the weekend. My advice, sit tight and check again on Tuesday. One rule of thumb is not to buy tickets on the weekend since prices are usually a lot higher (at least this is what I have found).
Posted by
Bloomington, IL, USA
9369 posts
You might also clear your cookies before checking again. You don't say what website you were checking, but Expedia has been known to keep track of the fact that you checked before. EDIT: Yes, I see now that I missed a sentence in your post, that you were using the BA site.
Posted by
OP
PA
2844 posts
MY cookies, and browser history, are cleared every time my browser is closed, which is more often than i turn off the computer. Also note this is from British Air sites.
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23570 posts
Unfortunately air fares change constantly. There may have been only a few seats available at that price and someone else beat you to it. You can wait and it might come down and it could go up. When you see cheap fares you have to move fast.
Posted by
Truro, NS, Canada
3941 posts
I watched a Brit Airways fare for almost 6 weeks...it started out really low (London-Venice) - like $75, but we were still fixing our travel dates...when I went back after a few weeks, it had more then doubled to around $180, so I checked everyday, finally one day it was down to $120 and I pounced...you can sign up for alerts if prices change...best thing is if you don't want to pay the higher price, just keep checking it everyday...