MEL-USM price drop thoughts

[ero]

As of yesterday I could see 11/7/2014 to 18/7/2014 MEL-USM flights with MH for around $1,350. Today they jumped to around $1,600.

Can I ask from members experience the chance of the price coming back down, or, anyway to get this lower cost fare now?

Thanks in advance.

 

[dajop]

Are you open to making the booking on separate tickets? You could fly to either Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or coughet on one airline and then look at getting a different ticket from there to USM, obviously allowing a little more time between flights as you will not be protected for delays. But it may (or indeed may not) be cheaper depending on what is available. Airlines flying to Koh Samui include Bangkok Airways (BKK, HKT, SIN, KUL, HKG) Thai (BKK), SilkAir (SIN) and Firefly (Penang, plus out of old KL airport - SZB- owned by MH).

 

[ero]

I had a look at a variety of options but found the connecting flights of those other than BKK were close and likely meant an overnight stay. Would save a couple hundred dollars each but didn't think worth the hassle. Getting to BKK was most convenient with Jet* so this may be my option with overnight in BKK, but again, only saving a couple hundred dollars if that.... the BKK-USM flight is expensive at around AUD$350 return.

Don't know how all airline pricing works but just saw the MY flight come back to the $1,350 odd price... may get on to it....

Thanks for the options. Appreciate your reply.

 

[Scarlett]

As of yesterday I could see 11/7/2014 to 18/7/2014 MEL-USM flights with MH for around $1,350. Today they jumped to around $1,600.

Can I ask from members experience the chance of the price coming back down, or, anyway to get this lower cost fare now?

Thanks in advance.

Ero, the mysterys of flight pricing are up there with converting lead to gold, so not sure anyone could ever really answer your question about whether the fares would come back down or not. I see however that they subsequently have.

A couple of explanations for this could be:
- The cheaper fares were for a particular 'discounted' fare bucket and all of those seats had sold out when you checked back and found a higher fare. (why the price then dropped back down is another question - perhaps someone reserved the seats but didn't pay in the alloted time and they were released back into general sale - too many possible answers to this question)
- Perhaps the airline released some more cheaper seats when the first lot sold out.

Anyway, hopefully you got the cheaper fare you were after.

 

[Mark3000]

As of yesterday I could see 11/7/2014 to 18/7/2014 MEL-USM flights with MH for around $1,350. Today they jumped to around $1,600.

Can I ask from members experience the chance of the price coming back down, or, anyway to get this lower cost fare now?

Thanks in advance.

How about Air Asia? We've booked in October in Air Asia, business class, which is an angled flat bed (but not lie flat) for around $1000 and from there you can get $50 flights to Koh Samui or wherever you want really. We picked coughet this time, but were very tempted by Koh Samui. Maybe next time.

Obviously for that price Air Asia business is nothing like MH, SQ or QF business, but I figure it is much better than economy.

 

[ero]

It's the flight from *wherever* to USM that's the expensive part... so whilst getting to KL, BKK, or SIN is relatively inexpensive the flight to USM adds lots of $$ and then the hassle of non-airline organised connecting flights or stayovers.

Saw a price of $989 on Tues so was tempting but haven't booked because of curfew (seems to have relaxed a little) and travel insurance not covering cancellations because it's no longer an "unforeseen event"....so, unsure what to do! Perhaps need to look at a different holiday spot.

Thanks again for the replies everyone... the community here is awesome!

 

[smit0847]

USM is a very expensive place to fly to because Bangkok Airways own the airport therefore have complete control over pricing (and dont allow other airlines many slots to operate flights).

I was there a few months ago for a wedding and friends just booked flights to BKK thinking 'we can just book a cheap domestic flight later. Yes you can do this for HKT and KRB (have booked a $40 flight the day before travel) but they ended up paying $200 each way to fly BKK-USM.

If you see a price of $989 I would jump at it - thats very cheap.