Group discounts on commercial flights or private planes?

cmej2011 · April 2012

Hi. I am thinking of checking into seeing how much a group discount would be to fly from New Orleans to Cozumel. Have any of you contacted an airline for a set price? If so, please let me know how you went about doing this and if it was worth it.

Also, I was thinking of checking into the price to charter a plane. (I can't pay for it out of the wedding budget, but I thought maybe it would be better priced if I had 12 to 20 people.)

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

BMcLeodTeam · April 2012

I haven't looked into it, but its definitely a good idea to look at! Pricing things out sometimes works better for everyone! I know with our photog we priced the difference on cost per km travelling vs renting a vehicle and it was cheaper to rent them a car!

XML&MrP · April 2012

Hi, we used unitedvacations which recently merged with continental and they guaranteed price match PLUS we get a credit for every reservation made.... Hope this helps, GL

nicolej518 · April 2012

When I looked into the pricing for my group from NJ to DR I was told that they do not do group discounts for regular air. The only advantage to booking with a group is that you do not have to pay in full within the 72 hour period, and can pay in installments. I think the full price of the air is due either 60 or 90 days before the flight with names as they appear on the passport and birthdays.

What I did was find the cheapest price I could and my travel agent called the group booking department. They held all of the seats with a $100 deposit per seat (US Air, but some other airlines are cheaper. Continental was only charging $50 per seat to hold it). i just paid the deposit and will have people pay me back because I wanted to jump on the price I saw. If you find this info out earlier you can always collect money before to keep it in a reserve of sorts. I booked a few extra seats in the event that anyone else wanted to come, and you can release these at any time. You are still required to put the deposit down on them, and if you release them that money that was put down can be allocated to another seat.

vsnoberg · April 2012

The issue I had with "group" booking through a lot of the airlines was that the "base Price" they were reserving the seats for were WAY higher than the price I could get if I just went to their website (One airline said they could get me a "Group rate" of $987 per person, but if I went online and looked up the tickets we were getting the checkout price was $455, um hello that's not a discount in any sense of the word). The way we found the best rate was through American Airlines (while i'm not the biggest fan of them in general it was the best deal we could get). You can call them and as long as you have 10 or more people flying they give you a "code" for your guests to put in to get 10% off ticket prices. This way if people want different flight options (first class, economy etc.) they still get a discount. We are paying for everyones travel (plane tickets and hotel) and it was way cheaper this way. Quotes for 20 people to fly I got from other airlines with the "Group Rate" thing were around $20,000 (no joke, I still have the e-mail to prove it). When we did it through AA with the code it came out to be just under $11,000.

ginadog · April 2012

AA has a 5% off for weddings. Fill out this form with details and they will issue you a code.

http://www.aa.com/i18n/businessPrograms/groupsMeetings/main.jsp?anchorLocation=DirectURL&title=group

http://www.aa.com/i18n/businessPrograms/groupsMeetings/weddingTravel.jsp

HOWEVER - My wedding was on July 14 and the discount was good only between July 7 and July 21. 7 days before and 7 day after the wedding.

Read the details.

Group discounts on commercial flights or private planes?

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