Lots of seats left on December flight - should I wait?

[Catbot]

We are travelling to Philadelphia for Xmas from London. The flights this year are excruciatingly expensive but there is a cheaper flight with Wow to Newark. I decided to bite the bullet and book but when it came to selecting seats most of them are still available on this flight.

But time is ticking. Should I book now or wait for a price drop? Travelling on the 21st/22nd December.

Any advice gratefully received (I'm obsessed with checking Kayak and Skyscanner!)

I’ve never seen prices drop on airfares, they only seem to go up! Although I’ve never heard of Wow - are they known for dropping prices? If so I’d wait, if not I’d book it now for my own peace of mind.

I would think prices would only go up, the nearer to Christmas we get.

They won’t drop. You need to book as early as you can to get the best prices.

Also, Wow Air have only just this week been bought by Icelandair, so that may affect what flights continue to be operated.

Oh crikey, that does it then. Iceland Air want to charge £340 extra for hold baggage PER PERSON! I've been utterly shocked with how underhand the airlines are with their pricing. Two days ago i got to checking out, literally about to press 'proceed' for the payment, and a notice popped up to say the fair had risen by nearly £300 but go ahead and pay. I left the site in disgust.

It's not like I left it late, I've been looking since June with email notifications. I just thought the prices are so high (double what we would have paid) that there would have to be a big drop. It didn't happen.

It makes me laugh that the Travel journalist Simon Calder talks about always only booking 2-3 weeks in advance, every time, as his strategy for how to get cheapest flights. He doesn't travel out of necessity like a lot of us do, with specific dates to specific places.

Return NYEve can be the massively cheapest date to fly, btw, in case you didn't know.

Thanks Trout. We are going for a couple of weeks to see family. It's slightly cheaper on Christmas Eve too but we want to spend that with them, so not much flexibility for us. I'm looking at +- days though.

Christmas fares are always expensive. They'll only go up not down. We book trans Atlantic 8 months in advance if we can.

We always fly back NYE as it's much cheaper.

Bit us on the ass one year though when all of the US's immigration computers went down at the turn of the new year and we were stuck in arrivals for 5 hours at 2am.

Do you have to transfer at Reykjavik? I flew WOWair to Chicago this year, and spent the whole flight think, “Wow, how could I have been so stupid?”

@SleepySofa would you not recommend then? Was very tempted to try them.

We'd stay a night in Iceland either side though as I can't deal with a 12am change over with ds.

Have you looked at BA?
They’re surprisingly well priced and theyre my preference whenever I fly as their flight and customer service and is usually really good.
(I sound like jet setter but I’m not. I have travelled to the US a fair bit over the years to see family and friends though)

BA are so fucking expensive if you want to sit together. Although to my horror, the airline I've always used (Delta) have just started the same charging for bags and seats bullshit. 

I’ve never paid to book seats on BA and they’ve always put us together.
I do book as early as I can though. Learnt the hard way!

You can't be certain they'll sit you together though. I can't risk it with a young ds on a night flight.

And it's REALLY irritating when most people have paid to reserve their seats and have to move for people who didn't.

I don't want to be that person.

There's been countless threads on here about how selfish this behaviour is.

You need to clear the cookies in your laptop or go via anoth device

These airlines save your details and knows you are looking

I flew to California one year with my kids. The flights were expensive enough and I really didn’t want to pay to book seats so I called them up to find out if I needed to book seats. They assured me that I’d be sitting with my children so since then, I’ve never worried about booking seats and we’ve always been put together.
I’ve done a couple of flights to US and one with dh to Europe since then and we re always seated together.
That’s my experience. Can’t speak for anyone else.

We are going for a couple of weeks to see family. It's slightly cheaper on Christmas Eve too but we want to spend that with them, so not much flexibility for us

You and thousands of others. That's why the flights are so £££.

Could you consider a postponed Christmas and fly on Christmas day, for example?

@dogwoofbark - they do get you there in one piece - I didn't feel unsafe. And they were polite. That's the best I can say about it, really! You have to pay for everything: food, baggage, whatever. No complimentary pillows or blankets or little kits with earphones etc in them. It's basically Ryanair or EasyJet but for two long trans-Atlantic flights. To be honest, the connection in Reykjavik was the best bit because you could get some food and walk around! It was about £1,000 cheaper than the direct flight though! I was travelling for work and being conscientious when I chose a cheap flight but I wouldn't do it again.

Btw I just realised I flew to Baltimore, not had Chicago. I think I used either BA or Virgin for Chicago. I go to the US reasonable often and got mixed up.

Thank you all for your replies. I'll wait a few more days then just book it. I suppose what I was wondering was if they haven't sold many seats yet would the price come down but I'm not sure we can wait any longer and MIL is getting anxious about it. She only gets a state pension, poor love, and saves for two years for the ticket (we alternate Xmas there and here and we always tell her the ticket costs less than it does and pay some of it ourselves).

As for paying for seats on top of the air fair, I think it is disgusting. But on the last flight we took there was a young boy of about 8 who had to sit with strangers while his family all sat together. He was quietly crying and I felt so sad for him

Price won't come down and booking now for Christmas is very late, flights are normally released about a year in advance

on the last flight we took there was a young boy of about 8 who had to sit with strangers while his family all sat together

?? Presumably there were older children and/or adult/s who could have sat alone while he moved to be in the group seating?

But still, the cost of ensuring seating you want was always part of the cost of the flight. It's just been unbundled now.

ShotsFired yes, we wondered why an adult hadn't taken that space too