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LUX
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in mind, body, and spirit tours, trips, retreats and personally planned
vacations to fit your style of travel. Activities generally include
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The Early Bird
Gets the Luxury Travel Deal
by Carol Kopp
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Did you hear that the recession is over?
Well, the travel
industry hasn’t gotten the news. They’re
still flying on a wing and a prayer.
That’s great for you, because it adds a new truism to strategies
for travel bargain hunting
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The old axiom -- that the best
deals are grabbed at the last minute -- may or may
not be true this time.
As 2009 winds down, booking early for the year-end holiday season can
get you a better deal, with a higher degree of luxury, and you can take
your pick from a wider selection of destinations and packages.
How the Early Bird Wins
Autumn is always the slowest season for the travel industry, and that's
given its executives plenty of time to fret about whether they’re
going to get any business during the critical holiday season.
So, airlines and hoteliers are getting out early with their best deals
in an effort to kick-start the season. If they’re lucky, consumer
spending may perk up before they’re forced to hold a last-minute fire
sale.
Their expectations aren’t high to begin with.
International airfares were down 19% in the second quarter of 2009
compared to the previous year, according to American Express’ North
America Business Travel Monitor. Domestic air fares were down 18% in the
same period. Those figures are based on prices actually paid.
Few projections are available for the holiday season, although Bing
Travel -- a service of the new Microsoft (MSFT)
search engine -- estimates that Thanksgiving airfares to US destinations
will be down 22%, to an average $327
Meanwhile, hotel
costs have fallen in every major US city except
Honolulu, according to Bing Travel. New York rates have fallen as much
as 30%, and Chicago rates are down 21% year-over-year.
Best Buys Right Now
We went looking for some real-life examples of great
deals in the luxury sector for the period from
shortly before Thanksgiving through New Year’s.
We found that Thanksgiving week and Christmas week prices may go a bit
higher, but if you’re willing to be just a little flexible on dates,
there are great high-end deals to be had.
Some of the deals below may not still be available when you click, but
you’ll find other appealing offers there -- maybe even better ones.
Here’s a perfect example:
JetBlue (JBLU)
has a Travel
Deals section with the best offers in a “one-day sale.” On
Wednesday, the listings included a seven-night Mexican Riviera cruise
aboard the Royal
Caribbean (RCL)
line’s Mariner of the Seas, with prices for a balcony stateroom at $479
(the next-to-top price level) for three sailings in November. For the
remaining week, which includes Thanksgiving, the price jumps to $919.
You can get the same balcony stateroom for the cruise on two early
December dates for a still-sweet $628. The price jumps to $1,099 during
Christmas week, and again to $1,599 for New Year’s week.
So, you still need to get on a flight to Los
Angeles to get on board the ship. Sample JetBlue fares on the sailing
dates include: from San Francisco to Long Beach, $69; from Salt Lake City,
$99; and from Chicago, $169.
The discounter’s prices are nearly matched by its competitors: The San
Francisco to Los Angeles route is currently priced at $98 by American
Airlines (AMR),
United Airlines (UAUA),
and Alaska Airlines (ALK)
as priced on Travelocity.
That one-day sale may be gone by now, but there are a lot of luxury cruise
ships out there, and tomorrow’s one-day sale should be just as good.
The Strudel Sale
All-inclusive vacations also are getting rate cuts. Viking
River Cruises, a deluxe small-ship line, has steeply discounted the
best cabins on its last 2009 Grand European Tour -- a 15-day vacation --
to $2,499 from $5,999. The ship sails on November 22 from Amsterdam to
Budapest, meaning Thanksgiving dinner comes somewhere between the tour of
the Van Gogh Museum and the apple-strudel workshop. It’s also offering
airfares of $597 from the East Coast to Amsterdam -- about half the usual
price.
The river cruise
line has half-off prices on all of its remaining 2009
cruises in Europe, Russia, China, and Egypt. And it’s already offering
early booking discounts on its 2010 itineraries, although they’re not
(yet) as substantial as the 2009 prices.
Another example of hedging bets comes from the four-star Estancia La Jolla
Hotel & Spa, a resort near San Diego. It's checked into Travelocity’s
“Good Buys” rates, but for just one week so far. From December 4
through December 12, its sample rates drop to $116 to $129, while most of
its September and October rates are still hovering around $200 a night.
*Source: Carol
Kopp writer for Minyanville.com on Sep 16,
2009 12:55 pm. Carol Kopp is a veteran producer, developer, writer
and editor for Internet news sites including CBSNews.com and MSNBC. She
was senior news manager of the pioneering Prodigy online news service.
www.luxworldtravel.com
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