This week at U.S Forum, we connected with some of our esteemed members and partners who shared their insights on the top travel trends for the year ahead.
What do you think is on the horizon for travel in 2025? Share your thoughts below!
#VirtuosoTravel #SoVirtuoso
Since the virtuoso post was so popular on Portugal was so popular, I thought that I'd add this on. TAP often has amazing prices.
You can add on United airlines flights to TAP, Sometimes that's a good deal, but it often isn't. However, from the airports where TAP flies, great prices and sometimes, flying more can cost less.
https://tinyurl.com/25xoukde/
Pricing airline tickets can be quite counterintuitive. In markets with free stopovers in play it is possible to have the vacation you planned, add on another destination, and end up saving on airfare.
Sometimes a lot. For this, I took one of the most notoriously expensive flights to one of the most popular destinations of 2023. The Denver-Tokyo nonstop lowest current possible is nearly $10k for this fall.
Here are 5 spots you can take a short or long trip after spending days or weeks in Japan and lower your business class airfare. Sometimes dramatically.
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These Icelandair prices would’ve been much better if I had done them a few months ago.
But, it’s too early for next summer and going to these spots in the winter is a bit more adventure than everyone likes. Iceland itself is bigger than folks think and it's one “European spot that doesn’t have trains. It’s fun to drive (I enjoyed it) but it’s larger than you think. The entire country is about the size of Virginia and rugged. A drive to Egilsstadir can take over 8 hours, while Isafjordu may take less than 6 hours on a good day, you’d better like Switchbacks. Then… there is Greenland.
I suppose the two things to remember is that while Saga Class is very nice, it doesn’t lay flat. Also, while you can ticket flights within Iceland (for a savings) to your big ticket, you do have to get to RKV airport from KEF on your own. Flybus does make this easy.
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It’s no secret that in large cities with lots of competing airlines, that airfare is less.
When it comes to crossing the Atlantic, we often assume the best will be New York.
While that is often true, it just as often is not, and a key city likely to beat it, is Chicago.
Personally, I try to never fly to one place in one day on two different tickets. So I also like a stopover city that’s fun to stay in overnight. Chicago is a great city to see in its own right.
The little *asterisk there on the Qatar flights is about fare families. Just as most airlines now have a stripped down fare for economy which includes less, Qatar also has this for business class. So while those prices are accurate as of today, they likely don’t include seat assignments (so no Q suites) nor lounge access.
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Sometimes Package pricing can be amazing. Even with a full luxury hotel in Barcelona for 3 nights sometimes (like in this case) the package pricing can be just amazing. Savings for Detroit came in at over $1200, Denver was only about $250 savings. Delta Air Lines and @airfrance, SkyTeam generally speaking can have some nice deals from time to time.
Packages can be more money and should never be purchased without careful analysis, but sometimes, they just rock. These ones are ok. I just picked a spot at random.
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Beyond the outback with Singapore airlines
Getting folks down to Australia and New Zealand has really been upsetting lately.
The exchange rate has been good and this part of the world was locked down for an extra long time and is extra amazing.
The insult to Injury has been with Adventure cruises to some of the most beautiful and unknown parts of the world, particularly the Kimberly region of Western Australia. Withoutfits like Scenic , Lindblad Expeditions and True North Australia. These itineraries are amazing and on my personal bucket list, but the travel time and cost has been so hard lately. Lately, I've been finding better pricing on Singapore, one of the nicest airlines in the world, to these fare flung spots in Oz. Amazingly, the Travel times are really not that bad. Perth is only an hour further to Singapore than Sydney and the time difference is even shorter to Darwin. For a little extra sugar, Singapore Airlines allows free stops in Singapore most of the time.
#australia #kimberly #australiantrip #counseltravel #airfarespecialist #nothingmoreuniquethanajourney #ItinInspo
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Saving with Premium Economy returns from Europe
The flight over to Europe from North America is almost always an overnight flight, but never is on the return. Sometimes by downgrading to Premium Economy on the way back, we can see great savings, other times, the savings isn’t worth it, especially with long connections and great lounges in play.
There are a number of reasons for variety in pricing, but one big one for this especially is advance purchase. Hence the double pricing. 90 days, 50 days, 28 days, 14 days are common, but every airline sets its one advance purchase window and sometimes, they waive them entirely.
These are from Denver, Colorado as about 60% of my clients fly out of that airport most often, but I do take requests. United, Lufthansa and Air France
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The Return of Air Canada
I’ve always loved Air Canada. Last summer when it became clear from their OTP (on Time Performance) ratings how hurt they really were as an airline. I had to stop selling them. They had some great prices, but people need to get where they are going and it wasn’t worth the stress folks were having last summer with delays and cancellations.
But I’ve been keeping an eye on their OTP for the past 6 months and there has been steady improvement. Their Asian airfares and partnerships with Asian Airlines can really add a lot of value.
So, I’m back to offering Aircanada I'm excited about it. . #japantravel
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