Hawaii Winter Airfare

[TXTortoise]

I've been tracking San Antonio to HNL for ten years and generally was seeing $800-$900 coach fare, $1300 Premium Economy and $1800-$2500 FC for the past few years.

The most bizarre thing I've seen yet is mid-Feb/early March fares have opened up and AA has PE at $3K+ and FC at $2500+ for SAT-DFW-OGG. I can see where they might want to be overprice PE to fill FC, but the numbers are just nuts.

Just wondering if folks from east coast non-major hubs to OGG are seeing the same thing, though I guess they would hit Atlanta for Delta direct to OGG.

Seats are still wide open, but since we usually fly late Jan/early Feb, maybe I just never noticed how high the mid-Feb/mid-March fares are.

All that said, there are cheaper fares going through Phoenix, LAX, etc., but no lie-flats or new AA Premium Economy on the old 757s.

 

[easyrider]

I noticed the same thing for Maui. The flights we usually take were about $1200 per person. About $1400 tops in the past usually took us both there and back. Then the rental cars were like 30% higher. For us, I would want to stay for at least three weeks to justify the flight cost. Maybe four weeks.

Bill

 

[TXTortoise]

Starting to sound the same rationale I've tried to use to go to Australia/New Zealand for six weeks. ;-)

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

I noticed the same thing for Maui. The flights we usually take were about $1200 per person. About $1400 tops in the past usually took us both there and back. Then the rental cars were like 30% higher. For us, I would want to stay for at least three weeks to justify the flight cost. Maybe four weeks.

Bill

I've found 3-4 week is ideal for Hawaii. Time to recover from the flight, time to unwind, time to do things. More than 4 weeks and you get bored.

(Only my job limits me to 2 weeks "over the target" currently. . . )

 

[JIMinNC]

Oddly we’re seeing some of the best fares to Maui and HNL from Charlotte that we’ve seen in a long time. About $800 RT in coach with a change of plane in either DFW or PHX. Hope they hang on for another week so we can book our full 3 week trip.

 

[bbodb1]

Come on Southwest!

 

[TXTortoise]

Looks like AA fares settled in a bit, still high, but adjusting for HNL + Hawaiian inter-island, it's not good, but bearable for not having to do the inter-island hop.

SAT-DFW-OGG - 777 (24 Feb - 9 Mar)

FC - Flatbed went from around $2000 in Jan/early Feb to $2300 mid-Feb
Premium Economy - New AA product is around $1500, which is what I paid for flatbed FC DFW-HNL last January 27th.
Economy - $804 I don't fit. ;-)

 

[rickandcindy23]

Come on Southwest!

Southwest is not an airline I could fly from Denver to Maui. I cannot stand coach that long. I would need a day at the spa after a long flight in economy. Maybe Rick I could buy a third seat and leave it empty, I don't know what we would do on SW.

I am spoiled on first class and never fly to Maui or Kauai in coach anymore. It's about the comfort of the seats for me. It's not about the food and service. The food is really awful, and I can buy a big bottle of diet coke at one of the airport stores to take on the plane with me. I don't drink alcohol because our son is a recovering alcoholic, and I support him in that way.

 

[bbodb1]

Southwest is not an airline I could fly from Denver to Maui. I cannot stand coach that long. I would need a day at the spa after a long flight in economy. Maybe Rick I could buy a third seat and leave it empty, I don't know what we would do on SW.

I am spoiled on first class and never fly to Maui or Kauai in coach anymore. It's about the comfort of the seats for me. It's not about the food and service. The food is really awful, and I can buy a big bottle of diet coke at one of the airport stores to take on the plane with me. I don't drink alcohol because our son is a recovering alcoholic, and I support him in that way.

I totally understand your point here, but if we get to do Hawaii the airfare is going to have to come down for us to make it economically feasible. I suspect we will not get to Hawaii before we retire though so perhaps we can travel during a part of the year with lower airfares.....

 

[littlestar]

Our group grabbed some flights out of Chicago to HNL for December a few weeks ago for $368 round trip. This was on Delta. Never seen a flight to Hawaii that cheap before.

 

[TXTortoise]

Just to provide a final data point on this...

SAT-DFW-OGG - 777 (24 Feb - 9 Mar)(Sun-Sat)

Original Post...
"FC - Flatbed went from around $2000 in Jan/early Feb to $2300 mid-Feb
Premium Economy - New AA product is around $1500, which is what I paid for flatbed FC DFW-HNL last January 27th.
Economy - $804 I don't fit. ;-)"

The above PE fare was put on hold on 12 April, expiring midnight 13 April, at $1500 RT.
I did a price check tonight and found that PE had dropped to $1250 on AA.com, but wasn't showing up on Google Flights.

So, current pricing for SAT-DFW-OGG - 777 (24 Feb - 9 Mar) seems to be going back to what I expected to see:

FC - $2150 (60-61" pitch)
PE - $1250 (38" pitch) (This new AA product for long haul flights on 777 looks appealing, but doesn't have the meal and amenities that PE international does.)
Main Cabin Extra - $1000 (32-33" pitch)
Economy - $800 (31-31" pitch)


YMMV... ;-)

 

[PigsDad]

Southwest is not an airline I could fly from Denver to Maui. I cannot stand coach that long.

Understand, but with the addition of Southwest in the mix, the extra competition will have a downward influence on fares on ALL carriers. So even though you would never use them, you may very well reap some benefits.

Kurt

 

[davidvel]

Southwest is not an airline I could fly from Denver to Maui. I cannot stand coach that long. I would need a day at the spa after a long flight in economy. Maybe Rick I could buy a third seat and leave it empty, I don't know what we would do on SW.

I am spoiled on first class and never fly to Maui or Kauai in coach anymore. It's about the comfort of the seats for me. It's not about the food and service. The food is really awful, and I can buy a big bottle of diet coke at one of the airport stores to take on the plane with me. I don't drink alcohol because our son is a recovering alcoholic, and I support him in that way.

But buying the extra seat won't work. If you recall, there was a family coming back from Hawaii that tried to put someone in a seat that their other kid was ticketed in but flew earlier, and there was a big brawl over it.

You cannot buy a seat for a fake person, and if a real person doesn't show up, seat is fair (fare?) game for the airline to use.

 

[TheHolleys87]

Apologies for asking a question only indirectly related to this thread, but I know y’all can answer it!

DS and family, 5 people, will fly from Houston to spend a week in Kona over New Year’s 2019-2020. How far in advance will we likely find the best airfare?

TIA!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TXTortoise]

We fly out of San Antonio to Maui annually and haven't seen a lot of fare variation on a given airline...other than it going up each year.

Generally $800 RT in coach with FC going from $1800 to $3600 depending on which airline, route, etc. We use to fly SAT-IAH-HNL on United direct but they deleted the one flight we could make. Lately for us United has consistently been more than Delta or AA.

I'd plug into Google.com/flights and look at history. Generally Feb/Mar and Jun-Aug will be higher overall, but the general fares don't seem to vary that much.

Now all that said, I was shopping for Feb 2019 at 330 days. The AA computer was a bit schizo, but once it settled down within a few days coach stabilized around $800, Premium Economy at $1225(which United doesn't offer) and FC varied from $1800 to $3K.

I just priced a September AA flight to Kona for my niece and it was $750 SAT-LAX-KOA.

For New Years, I'd either be tracking closely and ready to pull the trigger, particular once you see what the seat availability is for your preferred flight or book now if in the ranges above. That's got to be a high capacity flight period.