Flight prices

[maccasa]

Have been looking at flights for the coming year - it seems Ryanair have pushed their prices up a lot and are now only a little cheaper than monarch or easyjet - in fact in some cases Monarch are cheaper as they dont add the "admin" fee at the end. Pity their flts are so damn early from Birmingham - a 6.20 take off is not funny - you have to be up at 4 and are so cream crackered for the rest of the day, you lose any advantage of an early start.

[laserblazer]

I prefer the early start. Gives you the whole day to relax.

[keela]

Increase in Ryanair flights might mean that the mother in law and sister in law won't come!!!!! There has got to be a plus point

[charliegill11]

I have been looking at the flight prices for the end of February after the half term ends and find that compared to last year they are almost treble what we paid then. I have looked at several airports not only East Midlands - which appears to be the highest in price. The early flight time when returning to the UK with Ryan Air is the off putting part as it means returning the hire car out of hours. Monarch do appear to be more comparable with Ryan Air than they were but I object at having no alternative but to pay for an allocated seat.

[EMM]

EJ had a sale on and some of their prices were significantly lower than a few weeks ago.
The higher flight prices are impacting on bookings as we know of at least one cancellation already for a villa booking due to much higher prices in June/July

[HampshireRich]

The answer is always to book as early as possible now - last minute cheap deals no longer happen.

We booked for Sept/Oct this year last November with Monarch from Gatwick and already the price has risen by over £50 per person - was £170 pp now over £220 - reserved seat plus 20k each luggage. The price will rise even more as the year goes on to over £300 pp.

[Wiltsie]

More than ever it's a case of book early with Easyjet.
When i booked our Sept 2013 Ejet flights to Faro last month it was about 3 hours after they came online! Still ended up paying over £300 for the two of us (£165 each). Dearest we've paid by a mile in 10+ years flying to Faro.

Plus the Easyjet/Thomas Cook deal is defo having an effect.....from Bristol it is anyway, for sure. Any route that TC dont fly to in S Europe their package holidaymakers are on Ejet flights.

[sunman]

I THINK I first came to the Algarve in 1984, there was a company called Unijet that seemed to organise most of the flights to Faro, and I remember paying £150 per ticket to fly; the first 'cheap' option was offered by a Carvoeiro based company, PDM (remember them?) who got spare seats on charter flights and sold them at a decent discount.

it's incredible to think that we can fly for the same money we paid 29 years ago , oil has risen from $20 a barrel to over $100 in that time, and inflation adjusted figures mean the price should be around £300 without the 'oil effect'.

logistical technology means these airlines pretty well know the exact number of people likely to fly here & between them lay on just enough flights per season, so the prices won't be going back down.

I bought a maisonette in 1983, cost me £21,500 ; same property now goes for £285,000 - flying is incredible value

[SAM SPARKLE]

It just goes to show how much the Airlines ripped us off in those days, something thats bugged me for years.

[maccasa]

The first time we came to portugal in around 1998 - we paid £195 each. Just booked my july/aug flts for about the same - for two of us!

[joeysoap]

Have been looking at flights for the coming year - it seems Ryanair have pushed their prices up a lot and are now only a little cheaper than monarch or easyjet - in fact in some cases Monarch are cheaper as they dont add the "admin" fee at the end. Pity their flts are so damn early from Birmingham - a 6.20 take off is not funny - you have to be up at 4 and are so cream crackered for the rest of the day, you lose any advantage of an early start.

Ryanair are not allowed to add that admin fee 'at the end' anymore. It's now shown in the price as is the web check in fee. If you have a debit card there are no more charges, if however you use a credit card there's another 2% to factor in. These new rules effectively mean that anyone who got a 'Ryanair Cash Card' to avoid the admin fees might as well cancel the card. It now serves no useful prupose.

On flight prices: Booked a midweek return with EasyJet in Oct and it became cheaper later

I also got a return in April/May for 2 for €160, in Aug/Sept for €260, and now €160 return in Oct next year by booking early. All priced in euros.(First 2 Easyjet, last one Ryanair)