Booking Tickets for Holidays Now!

Last night, I decided to start booking tickets for the holidays. Why in June? Because it other people aren't thinking about booking the holidays. There is less demand ie possible lower prices.

Photo Credit: www.meme4u.com

I am flush with Southwest Rapid Reward points through getting 2 Southwest credit cards. The benefit of booking with Rapid Reward points is the ability to cancel the ticket with no penalty. 

Last night, I was able to book my ticket back to DC for less than 3,500 points. Less than 3,500 points!

The other benefit of booking with Rapid Reward points is that if the price drops; you have an opportunity to get some points back. For that reason, I bit the bullet and book my ticket to Connecticut. The price was closer to 7,500 points.

My hope is that Southwest has a sale and the price of the ticket drops. However, I am not going to complain about spending 11,000 points for my ticket back to Connecticut for the holidays. Last year, I waited to long and paid close to $350.

If you don't have Southwest points, British Airways Avios points can be useful as well. With US Airways joining the OneWorld Alliance, cheap flights can be found.

The trip from DC to Hartford is less than 500 miles; therefore, a one-way ticket would cost 3,500 Avois points. Unfortunately, I could not find any availability. If I did find availability, I would have transferred Chase Ultimate Rewards points to my British Airways points.

Take a minute and look at December. It will be here sooner than you think.



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Best & Worst Airlines for Holiday Travel

Forbes.com and Flightaware teamed up to put together a list of the best and wort airlines for Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. Flightaware used arrival delays, rather than departure, delays from 2010 through 2012.

I was impressed that the metric was arrival delays; rather than departure delays. Typically, departure delays are used to determine an airline's on-time level. However, the article correctly pointed out, "it is sometimes possible for airlines to make up time lost on the ground while the plane is in the sky." In additon, the Forbes learned that" late arrivals actually declined during the Thanksgiving travel season — just 12 percent of Thanksgiving flights were delayed last year, compared with 19 percent in 2010. according to the Transportation Department."

Now the Best List:

1. Hawaiian Airlines
2. Alaskan Airlines
3. Mesa Airlines
4. Airtran Airlines
5. US Airways

www.hawaiimagazine.com

As you see, 3.5 of the 5 airlines operate West of Rockies (The 1/2 is US Airways due to their AmericanWest merger). The location of where an airline operates can have drastic effect of on-time ratings.

Looking at the list of worst on-time airlines, you will notice that they operate heavily in the Midwest or out of big traffic heavy airports

And the Worst List

5. American Eagle
4. American Airlines
3. Frontier Airlines
2. Express Jet
1. JetBlue

Jetblue.com

" 'With 75 percent of our flights touching the Northeast, either New York or Boston, one delay in the morning can affect the entire line of flying for that airplane,' said Jenny Dervin, a JetBlue spokeswoman. And, the Northeast is particularly affected by the kind of winter storms that delay flights."

Should these lists change who you choose to fly over the holidays? My opinion is no. Airline delays is like stock picking. You can do all the research in the world, but there are always external factors outside your control. The only thing you can do is pack your patience. Bring a smile, your patience and some holiday cheer and you will be at your destination in no time.

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