Yes, as much as we'd joked about being "trapped" at TTR being just fine there's no way in hell we'd have gone for our early-April trip. Now with all the ski resorts closing early the only seats we'll be on for awhile are the sofa cushions.
We have April 4th weekend booked at Whistler, but it's not looking good. I expect the resort to shut the season down early. I suppose the bright side of all of this is that I will essentially have a "free" trip to TTR and Whistler next year, as all the money spent on booking this year's trips will be be credited for next year. So there's that.
I changed my flight from April to Sept, and got a refund for the price difference. Ended up being close to half the price, I think. I’m also booking more trips with these prices!
A bigger question is how airlines, resorts, hotels, agencies and travel services may change, merge or even financially survive after all this. It's all wishful thinking and speculation at this point isn't it. It's offensive how airlines seem to be price gouging (thousands of $) last minute travellers taking unscheduled emergency repatriation flights home, who are stranded internationally, simply just trying to get back to the relative safety and security their home countries. Greedy and sad. Given airlines' prior and recent years of obscene profits, you'd think they'd relax their emergency pricing somewhat given the global pandemic. This is where we'll see which companies are authentically 'there' for us, versus the nice tv commercials and self-serving and banal platitudes. Pardon the venting.... possibly a by-product of being two weeks into voluntary self-isolation.
Sunwing is offering free flights home for Canadians stranded abroad. Sunwing Offering Free Flights Home for Canadians
Fantastic exception to the rule, where Sunwing flies of course. Imagine the Cdn gov't will offset a healthy portion of Sunwing's incremental costs. Nonetheless a timely and impressive action... that folks will remember when they next book an all-inclusive vacay or charter flight ... coincidentally, Sunwing owns the Memories, Planet Hollywood, Starfish, Mystique and Royalton resort chains as well. Smart and vertically integrated. Still hearing nightmarish stories of airfares from repatriating international travellers. It's on every newscast.... the stories are now changing to those stranded... and similarly folks stranded still on cruise ships.
My kids' BFF, her sister, and mom went to Costa Rica for a family vacation and are now stranded. I got a few texts from the mom last night stating she was able to book flights home (didn't say with which airline) but not until Sunday, and she's terrified that flight won't happen. She mentioned being told a price of $7500 (for three seats) for a one-way flight back to Toronto. From there they'll have to try getting a flight to Vancouver, then it's a 7hr drive to our town. There's no amount of CBD that will fade those worries.
United airlines airfare on 10/28/20 that's a Wednesday OW from EWR to Cancun has dropped to $90 economy. Return tix on Monday is $105.
