TRADITIONALLY - I've found (after 15 years in the travel industry) that the MOST EXPENSIVE times to travel to Costa Rica will be holidays - Xmas, New Years, Easter & the month of Feb.
TRADITIONALLY - The cheapest DAYS of the week to travel:
Going TO Costa Rica - Sun., Mon., Tues., Wed.
Leaving Costa Rica - Tues., Wed., Thurs., Fri.
So if you want to be in Costa Rica for 7 nights/8 days - the CHEAPEST days would be to travel on a Tues. or Wed.
Next lump of time - when the Snowbirds are wanting to escape their bad weather for something nice (hence since the planes are so booked, they don't need to offer as much incentive to get people here & why prices are much higher in accommodations often since many places only have about a 4 or so month window to recoup their investment [the bulk of the "peak" season in CR is basically from Christmas to Easter & 2008's Easter is an EARLY one - in March!]).
Traditionally in the travel world - the CHEAPEST CHEAPEST time to travel are between U.S. Thanksgiving & Xmas because many people travel one holiday or the other - or for the rest of the world - lets just say - the first 2 weeks in Dec.
Next, what I found when I was in the travel industry - the first 2 weeks in Sept. (after all the kiddies are back in school) & then the first 2 weeks in June (just before the majority get out).
In between when you can find some good specials is between Easter & June & Sept-Oct. (November can be more up there because many of the longer-term Snowbirds go down to warm-weather destinations from Nov.-April).
Bottomline - YOU the consumer basically dictates the price - when the airlines needs to fill the plane (ie; fewer people are traveling) - you'll of course get better prices!! When they don't - you won't!
A hint I've OFTEN (not always) found & use when purchasing airline tickets:
I call the airlines (or look online [fyi - buying online does NOT always guarantee the cheapest fares! If airlines come out with specials - the cheap online companies don't always get those fares]) between around 6-8am. The reason for that is OFTEN (not always) there are only a certain amount of cheaper seats available on each flight. Those people that had tickets held & didn't ticket them by the night before - once their computer systems cleans out all them, means more seats are available hence often more cheaper tickets!!
If you're having to make a stop within the U.S. to get here (I can only talk about how it is for those people), if you ticket less than 2 weeks (normally that's what the cheaper tickets are based on - booking/ticketing at least 2 weeks before travel THOUGH - if you're ONLY traveling internationally - say from Houston non-stop to SJO - that rarely affects the price) - you'll pay for it.
(again - this is just MY observations after 15 years in the travel industry on various levels).
Thanks for your info. I recently was looking at booking a trip to CR (in May), and was stunned at how cheap the fares were over this entire summer (under $500 N/S from LA0. This prices held for weeks, but have since climbed up over $600 through Sept. I'm just hoping the before long, there might be another window....I came down last May for rafting trip on the Pacuare & can't wait to come again!
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