Road Tripping in the USA!

Fr0dders said:
Cheers. will see what the prices look like for August come April / May time. Are we going to get these reductions with BA / Virgin though ?
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You should do, but given you are not going until 2017 you can model exactly what happens to price approaching August 2016. Check every so often and log the results on a spreadsheet or something, this will inform you for next year when it's time to work out when to book and how much to pay.

What'll be happening now is they are not at all worried about loads this far out and are therefore happy to mop up the OMGZ MUST BOOK EARLY crowd who'll pay whatever. When we get closer, you'll start to see price movement.
 
Juneish, not booked it yet. We did a bit of BC and Alberta on a Pacific Northwest trip in 2013 and loved it, so this time spending the entire time there to see more of it.
 
It's frustrating though as flights anchor the whole trip. Until you have confirmed flights you can't book anything else really, so having the play the silly airline game of waiting and waiting for overpriced flights to fall in price is frustrating. For months last year I watched the flights I wanted advertised at £1k - seriously, who pays £1k for economy returns to North America outside of school holidays? Nobody. I knew they'd eventually drop and they did but it's a shame we can't cut all the crap and just buy them at a decent price in the first place..
 
Between 6 and 2 months IMHO.

Work out what the right price is for the flights you want, and then book once you see them hit that level.

Depending on which of my trips you are replicating Oct/Nov might be problematic with the weather.

My last trip would likely be impassable in November for example.

If you are going to LA I'd want to pay £450ish for flights in October/November.
 
Robi said:
Your original trip. Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, San Francisco and then back to Los Angeles. With everything else in between.

Any airlines to avoid like the plague?
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Delta is the only one I'd avoid on that route - everyone else flies brand new (or at least decent) stuff and Delta have a daily rotation on a 20 year old 767 :rolleyes:

Tioga Pass will be closed when you go which means you can't go from Mammoth Lakes to Yosemite.
 
Had the same thing with SF really, loads of really crap Best Western type places for a million quid just because they were central.

Stayed in a Marriot about 15 miles down the road for half the price. Took 15 minutes from hotel parking lot to parking space next to Lombard street..
 
LA etc will always be fine but it's hit or miss out towards Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon - the elevation at Flagstaff is 7000 feet and they do get snow. The Canyon rim is a similar elevation.

Personally I would recommend June or September as a combination of best weather without getting ripped off for flights.
 
Things to account for:

a) Flights. No idea about school holidays but outside the school holidays do not pay more than £500 to LAX.
b) Car hire - budget £30 a day for a Luxury Saloon or a Mustang Cab. If it's more than this you've not looked hard enough for a deal.
c) Hotels - your average will be between £50 and £80 a night for the trip depending on your tastes and how close you need to be to city centres. Note average - San Fran for example will be three figures, middle of nowhere Motels will be much less. We now buy almost every hotel through Hotels.com - you get 10% Quidco and you get a credit for every night you stay, which after 10 is good for a 'free' night. They'll start adding up, we are usually redeeming several 'free' nights per trip. Hotels.com is usually as cheap as it gets anyway so the bonus points and cashback really add up.
d) Food - this is entirely personal. We are not that fussed so are happy enough with a $30-40 bill for two at the local Applebees grille...
e) Activities - how long is a piece of string? Our only real activity cost tends to be National Park fees these days. This year we did 9 national parks so bought an America the Beautiful pass for just $80.

We tend to spend much less than you'd expect as the focus on being sufficiently frugal that we enjoy the trip but the trips are still sustainable now they are an annual thing rather than a 'once' type trip where you'd be more tempted to go mad on best hotels ever and gourmet dining..

Also think about how you pay for the trip - I pay for everything on a credit card with some sort of introductory bonus now which usually gets me a couple of free nights at least on the trip. This time we stayed for free using Hilton points from a credit card signup bonus at the Waldorf Astoria Resort in Park City :D Few trips before that we had 3 nights in a Sheraton in Vancouver for nothing using Starwood points transferred from an Amex signup bonus...
 
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The reason why the flights are not much cheaper is nothing really to do with the USD depreciation (It looks bad but its only about 5%) but more the fact the Chicago is not a leisure heavy destination in the same way SFO and to a greater extent LAX are, therefore the willingness to pay is, on average, higher.

This is why LAX, despite being about as far as you can possibly fly, is one of the best value destinations - there is so much capacity and competition.

Hope Chicago is fun for you, I've always wanted to visit but I always struggle to fit it into a trip as it's surrounded by 800 miles of nothingness in most directions which makes it really hard to tag onto a road trip. Perhaps next year we'll do Chicago and over to North Dakota and Wyoming.
 
Joe T said:
You may be right, but currently flights to San Fran (Virgin PE) seem to be £150-£200 higher than we paid last year. Last year I booked on 27 Dec, so it could be Jan price gouging I guess.
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It's all about booking time - no keen offers on at the moment (Though there were none this time last year too, I was checking daily and it was £900 to LAX this time last year :D). They'll come down, I reckon this year will see the best fares for quite some time.

[quote
Re Chicago, we might not actually visit the city (would be kinda a shame though). Currently we will be flying in, and then driving straight out for an event the next day. Might do a day or two at the end. Still working on this bit! :)[/QUOTE]


You really do need to work some time into the city - it would be madness to fly into and out of Chicago and not see Chicago, especially as Chicago is probably the best place to visit within a good few hundred miles!
 
Don't hire two cars, just hire one from Boston to NYC. Then you don't pay two lots of one-way fees.

Fairly tedious drive from Boston to Niagara, mind. Might be better just flying?
 
No absolutely not!!! Always book on the UK websites or through UK based brokers. The prices on the USA sites are exclusive of ANY insurance, the prices on the UK sites are fully inclusive of everything you need and have zero excess at a rate thats MILES better than the rate a US citizen would pay for the same rental.
 
Exactly - its all about booking at the right point. Too many people do a flight search and assume thats the price it is and then pay it.

£1k though for an economy product, I'm amazed you find value in PE at that sort of money.
 
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