The Return of Last Minute Travel?
When I first started in the travel business in the 90’s there were still a fair amount of ‘last-minute’ deals people could find. I remember looking at a ticket for a weekend trip for months, finding it too expensive and then having the fare drop to a quarter of what it had been a few days before prior. I made the trip. It was fun. That was a tactic for years. If a trip was optional and the airfare was too dang high, check again at 22, 15 and 8 days prior to see if it dipped. Often it would go up, but sometimes down and sometimes down a lot. Then, that tactic stopped working and for many years after that, last minute became synonymous with expensive. at least with airlines. While there have always been exceptions and the occasional last minute deal, by and large, up until the Covid 19 pandemic, this was the case.
During the Pandemic I saw a trend of AMAZING deals followed by mounting prices to the point that they seemed like extortion. Now… it seems like the reverse is often true. Where we start with extortionate pricing and then, sometimes, it winnows down to some decent pricing. I wrote about this in terms of Spring break awhile back and if we take Cabo for Spring break as an example. Back that Saturday to Saturday was a whopping $1400+ in economy during the THICK of spring break and… it still is. However, midweek departures have dropped considerably and if we look out to the last weekend of February we are down to $420! Which is close to a traditionally ‘normal’ price for a nonstop flight to Los Cabos in the Spring. For it being close to Spring break, that’s actually on the cheap side (historically).
That’s just one example where I had notes to refer back to. Now, I’ve made more, because I’m curious to see how this pans out over this year.
It’s going to be interesting to pay attention to the summertime transcon flights (especially this summer to Europe) and then at some point to Asia and Oceania (where prices are REALLY inflated for flights especially). We’ve had a lot of really, really high fares and now I’m seeing in the Spring, some dips. Same with Hotels. I saw some of the highest prices in Mexico I’ve ever seen last fall and I just looked a bit this week and found some deals. I priced one of the best All Inclusives in Los Cabos (Le Blanc) for a good $2500 less for a week than it was back in November. My wife has friends and family back in the Midwest who want a visit and a few weeks ago, prices through March were a steady $250-$300 a ticket at least to not only Milwaukee, but even Chicago, and yesterday at 22 days prior, I ticketed O’hare for $150.
I think that the reason may be because of the recovery continuing from the Pandemic. You see, the Trend I noticed with Air NZ is a trend I noticed a lot as travel started to take off, but was still shaky. Ticket prices started high and then rather than cutting ticket prices, the airlines cut flights. I think that the reason the airlines were able to do this was because they also weren’t carrying much cargo and this played a part in all of the ‘supply chain’ issues we are still climbing out of. I think that now that airlines are starting to take cargo obligations on again they are starting to be forced to drop ticket prices sometimes. I don’t know when, I don’t have the cargo manifests, I sure wish I did.
Similar with the hotels. Staffing was (and is) such a problem that many resorts and hotels were not going up to capacity quite purposefully. Many took on more than they should have and their reputations suffered for it (especially in the luxury market) then their sales pick up where they could and had to hire. Now that their staff have started to grow, they’ve also started becoming more aggressive in pricing to fill room nights. Not predictably, not yet.
I think if you have very set and rigid dates, you may be stuck because if you are stuck flying at prime time for something you have your heart stuck on, it will have to be in advance. Grand Velas, the best family All-inclusive in Los Cabos, has been largely sold out for spring break for weeks now.
But… if you are flexible about where you want to go within say.. Half a dozen places and when… start checking some dates that work for you at least twice a month and you may get very happily surprised.
And, also a really good time to keep your options refundable and flexible, don’t get locked in, especially if something seems high. Then, make a point of rechecking things every few weeks before you go. You could be surprised.
