TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Booking airfare to SXM

How far in advance should a person book airfare to SXM to get the best rates? We plan a November 2015 visit. Jet Blue has not released their schedule yet. Any advice?

331 days for FF mile flights and the same for the best cheapest seats.

Air fares, like hotel rates and rental car rates, will vary and may change many times a day.

If you are using miles/points, do it as soon as possible after you know your dates.

If using $$$, when it gets to a price you can live with, BOOK IT!

For Feb./March 2014 I booked almost a year out. For Feb./March this year I did not book until Nov. 2014 and got a better price than last year.

It pays to check often or use a search and notification tool also. A lot depends on where you travel from. East Coast gives you more options and usually better fares. You get away from the East Coast or a hub city and you generally see higher fares and connections.

I would not focus on just one airline, especially if you have options to use more than one.

If she is thinking JB then the 331 won't work...

No clue where you are departing from but read the posts and see what a decent fare is...if you see it grab it.

If you can see the seats available and there are minimal occupied then hang in there for a bit.

If you book WAY in advance do not assume the flight you booked will be the same as the flight you take....

Thanks for all the advice. Right now there are huge swings in cost. United is the cheapest and delta the highest, waiting on JB. I will check seat availability, we are leaving from east coat. Would connect Into hub of the airline we choose. There are many flights that have big layovers possibly overnight which we do not want. Concerned about jet blues reputation for canceling flights

I usually book as soon as possible when we get back from our last trip. Prices from our area are not as cheap as they were a year ago. I like to continually browse the sites to see what the fares go for so I will know for the next time.

At least from DC, prices are pretty high 9-12 months ahead. They tend to dip 4-5 months prior, and can have their best savings roughly 2 months before (as long as the flight still has a number of seats left).

I've been looking at rates for months leaving 4/24/15. Found the cheapest rate ever in 10 years last week. 381 round trip non stop out of jfk. To me..it's a crapshoot. I'd suggest signing up with air fare watcher .com. they will email you every time a fare goes down.

The tix we just bought for our next trip (13 DAYS!!!) were much cheaper - like 3/5ths - closer to our dates than when we first looked for them.

This is our experience too. I booked my next trip 4 months in advance and I thought the fares were high but I was needing an island fix. Fares have lowered a bunch since then. Its now two months away and the fares are more inline with the past.

Another key about Dane's statement is whether they have seats left as time passes. A couple of the flights we originally considered don't show up anymore on searches since they're full. This becomes very important if you're flying from a small airport on a commuter flight to a hub since those often book full quickly.

Usual guidance is:
1. Its a crap shoot.
2. Use the internet search engines to watch airfares
3. Watch the fares enough that you know what a good deal is or isn't.
4. Book at any time you think the fare is reasonable and budget acceptable.

Do searches here on this topic - you'll get lots of good advice.

Another option is to use expertflyer.com

For a small membership fee, you can check all of the published fares for any route, as well as the fare bucket availability on different flights and carriers. I have found this to be far more accurate than looking at the seat maps to tell how many seats are unsold (since airlines reserve seats for dead-heading crew, for elite flyers who book last minute, etc.)

My experience has been that the best fares are within a month of our dates being released. I'm finding fares this year to be about 10% more than last year. I just bit the bullet and booked for our November trip. Since we fly the Saturday before Thanksgiving, bargains are few and far between. Still, it feels good to be booked!

That's funny - I've just started looking over the past week-end for the Saturday after Thanksgiving and not seeing any great deals out there. For a few years running we were able to step into a Business Class sale on AA for our dates but no luck yet. Gonna' keep on checking though. See you there........ <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

We did get business class for less than the usual double coach fare, so I'm happy with that! Yes, we'll see you there, for sure!