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Flying to Colombia from Europe in August- seems very expensive

Hi!,

I'm going to Colombia for the first time this year, and willl get the most time available by going during August. I've spent quite a whjle looking at airfares and it seems August(1000-1200 Euros ish) is very expensive to fly in, double what it is in April (500-600E ish)- (I'm looking on Rumbo.es as they seem to come out with the cheapest prices, although I've looked at many others including airlines' own wesbites). I'll be flying from Madrid or maybe London.

Yet I'm unsure as to why it's so much more expensive at this time, as I've read mixed things on so-called high and low seasons for Colombia. None of the things I've read say August is a peak sason, and haven't seen August get a special mention anywhere, neither for tourist numbers nor weather, not even in my guidebooks. One website says August is in Off season. So I'm not sure why the airfare cost doesn't seem to reflect my findings.

Do you know why might air-fares be so high then? Maybe I'm overlooking somehting obvious.

I've been looking on these forums and have searched for many combinations of August and so on.

Thankyou for any insight you might have

..

By ecco on Mar 5, 2007, 17:01 in Friendly Talkzone.

kalder says on Mar 6, 2007, 05:05:

School holidays. Colombian ex-pats with kids can only return for a long vacation in August.

The prices are insane.

"kalder- have you ever had a woman?"--Sam Salmon

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sandramoreno80 says on Mar 6, 2007, 06:53:

August is in the midst of the summer holidays for both Spain and London so demand will be high during this time and thus air fares will be too. Whilst August is not high season per se in Colombia (the school holidays are finished for some school/unis), it is high season here in Europe. The high season in Colombia would be Christmas, Easter, June/July (summer holidays)

I don't know where you live but the best air fares for going to Colombia in my experience has been through ex-pat/Latin American flight specialist travel agencies. They will have the best deals always, I have never travelled in August, always July and return end of Spetember (uni holidays) and through these travel agencies I have paid between £600 -700 rtn with Air France, BA (when they did the route)and Air France.

We use Condor Travel and Soliman Travel here in London but they are not online. There should be these travel agencies anywhere where a Colombian ex-pat community exists, London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Frankfurt.

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Ctg Bound says on Mar 6, 2007, 09:51:

ecco As pointed out by the other posters it is the school holidays, or more importantly the University holidays.

Latin America is popular with back packers, so flights to most if not all destinations in Latin America go up a lot.

The back packer season starts around the end of June to beginning of September.

I try to avoid travelling then and at Christmas.

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ecco says on Mar 6, 2007, 11:53:

Hi- kalder, sandramoreno80 & Ctg Bound,

Thanks very much for the replies. Yes, it appears the school/university holidays is what I had been overlooking.

Unfortunately my holiday times are kind of unmoveable as where I work always shuts down in August (I've only been there for a little over a year) as there's little work, but then at the beginning of September it gets mad again so they're not keen on me being away at that time. Tomorrow they said they will speak with me about it- hopefully I can try and push it back a couple of weeks- or one at a minimum I'm hoping for. My searching suggests the prices drop about 400E only within a couple of weeks for my current dates.

I am based in Seville in Spain so will probably be going via Madrid. Thanks for the tip though- I will look out for such travel agencies as you say and might be able to get to Madrid beforehand, perhaps in Easter week to enquire. ALthough I'll probably just have to set myself a figure asap and if I see a price I can live with to just go for it before it's too late.

Thanks again
:)

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bickerss says on Mar 6, 2007, 21:55:

I used to travel for as low as 449 euros rtn with air chance from CDG.

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