Have business class prices gone up?

Has anyone noticed this, or I am just not getting the right fares? My fares to Romania for next summer are great in economy, but 4-5 times as much in business. Last year I booked business on x2.

I can’t answer your question, but you should check flights.google.com

There are less screaming deals than there used to be, especially TATL. You’ll hear about one TPAC once in a while. Many short haul domestic flights are cheaper.

I think it all depends on time of year. I have seen lots of $10,000 RT tickets to Europe this summer, which obviously is very high. Then again I just booked a client on a sub $3,000 RT to Brussels during thanksgiving time frame. It all depends on where you are flying from and the time of year. I would definitely not expect 2X the economy price, as that’s quite rare. What are you looking to pay ideally?

Seemingly every spring there are summer fare sales. My travel agent keeps an eye out for me. In June, my wife and I flew BA (mostly) LAX-LHR, LHR-CHQ, CHQ-ATH-JTR, JMK-LHR, LHR-LAX with weeklong stopovers all along the way. Biz tix were a shade under $4,000 each.

I think with the proliferation of low cost carriers. Norweigan, Icelandair, WOW, etc economy tickets have gone down and some of the large airlines have chased those fares to a certain extent. As none of the discount carriers have a true business class product the larger airlines haven’t had to be as competitive. That is just my guess. Also the economy is strong in the U.S so many more businesses are purchasing business class seats. But… again it is airline pricing so who really knows.

George

Will be interesting to see what happens once JetBlue gets into the market

Monday we flew Austrian Airlines from Vienna to Paris. Biz upgrades were sold on an ‘auction’ basis. I bid the minimum for two upgrades (€100 each) and was successful. 10 extra kilo baggage allowance, a second carry-on, fast track security, early boarding, and lounge access. The upgrade auction concept is very smart. I hope AA and Oneworld don’t adopt it.

It’s the upgrade on long haul flights that is the concern. Was your upgrade “European” business class which is standard economy with no one in the middle seat?

B.

Yeah, I do not need business in Europe, just the transatlantic flights. Would fly out of LAX, so add another $200 for the SAN to LAX and back. Everything included, I want to keep it to $3,000 per person. Last year I bought the LAX-AMS-OTP for $2,200 per person, and got the tickets in September.

No idea what your dates are but I can definitely find ~ $3000 in July LAX to Bucharest. You definitely going to have to be very flexible with dates at that price but it is possible.

Most likely we are looking at end of May (28-30th) departure to around the June 13-15th return.

Amex Platinum has a discounted biz class fare program. Worth a call if you have one.

George

Within the past month, we booked two trips to Europe for reasonable business class tkts. About $3K R/T to Prague for Christmas and about $4500 R/T to Sicily in May. In the past these tickets were much more expensive - especially the Sicily tkts.

We just booked and flew on Lufthansa from ATL to Nairobi and back Business Class for less than $5000 each. European prices are in the $2800 to 3000 range if you are willing to go through Heathrow on Virgin. I would check that out. They are really discounting that route.

Well, we booked our flights on points. Will go to Bucharest, then Vienna, Prague, and back to the US… Business going there is about the louziest you can get wth seats facing each other. Also lots of extra cash required by BA.

We just booked with awards for late Oct/early Nov, ORD-ROME Lufthansa returning from Milan on Swiss Air for 280,000 miles on UA’s site. It would have been just short of $20,000.