Murphy Travel Index: Airfares Down, Vegas Hotels Sold Out

Airlines continue to encourage post-holiday traveling by lowering leisure fares, while hotels return to normal after New Year's Eve inflation.

That's the big takeaway from this week of the Murphy Travel Index. West Coast and Florida flights are especially traveler-friendly, while L.A. provides business expense accounts the most relief.

Overall, this is the least amount of overall movement since we started tracking, with leisure airfares the only real big mover. 

Car rentals continue to be high this week, down overall but with many big cities showing big price spikes.

The idea here is to give you a one-stop reference tool to find where the deals are, where the spots to avoid are and what the pricing trends are.

We're looking at the top 25 business and leisure airline routes, as well as the top car rental and hotel hot spots every week.

To be clear: Our numbers are based on research done last week looking for fares and rates for the Jan. 6-9 week, except for leisure airfare, which was researched for the week of Jan. 14-18.

Let's get into the information this week. Click on each image for a larger-size version of the chart.

AIRLINES: LEISURE ROUTES

Outside of the numbers, some other takeaways from our research:

- It’s a great week to take a break from the ice and snow:  ticket prices are down 19 percent from holiday highs, and bargains abound to some of the popular vacation destinations. 

- Fares are down between 33 and 55 percent on flights from West Coast cities to Hawaii, while flights to Florida are also a bargain.

- Fares are down 26 percent on flights between New York and Orlando, while fares from Dallas to Ft. Lauderdale are 39 percent cheaper than last week.

- Delta comes out of the gate in 2014 leading the price wars with the best fares on seven of our 25 routes (its best being San Francisco or Seattle to Honolulu, both down 55 percent from last week). Spirit has the best prices on six routes (its best being Dallas to Fort Lauderdale, down 39 percent).

- Southwest Airlines will bring back daily nonstop service between San Diego and New Orleans starting on April 8.  The airline dropped the route in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

AIRLINES: BUSINESS ROUTES

Business route takeaways beyond the numbers:

- While domestic fares are down from last week’s peak holiday travel season on most domestic routes, prices are up sharply on some international flights. 

- Ticket prices on flights to South America are significantly higher on flights between Miami and Sao Paulo (up 38 percent from last week), and Buenos Aires (up 6 percent).

- Fares are down sharply this week on flights between Detroit and Washington, D.C. (down 18 percent) and Atlanta (down 45 percent), and cheaper seats are once again available on discount airlines, so prices are down on flights between Dallas and Atlanta (down 40 percent) and Chicago to Los Angeles (down 77 percent).

- U.S. Airways continues its impressively low-price swan song, with the lowest prices on 10 of our 25 routes researched (its best being Detroit to Atlanta, down 45 percent from last week).

- American Airlines will award up to 15,000 AAdvantage miles to passengers who fly nonstop between New York and Los Angeles from Jan. 7 through March 31. One way flights will award half the bonus mileage.

MONTHLY TRENDS: AIRFARE 

- Once again positive news across the board on airfares, as prices are down for the second straight week to start the year.

- Hard to beat last week's price drops for leisure fares, but prices are down $61 on average this week are at their lowest point since we started tracking eight weeks ago.

- Business fares are down once again, dropping $39 on average from last week. Average fares are still $226 above our survey low for the Nov. 25, 2013 week.

HOTELS

Takeaways beyond the numbers:

- Many properties in Las Vegas are either sold out or expensive, as the city hosts the huge Consumer Electronics Show, along with various spin-off conferences and events. 

- Room rates are up 36 percent for those lucky enough to score a place to stay.  And while the average prices for a hotel room in San Francisco is down 6 percent from last week, this is because most of the expensive properties are sold out. 

Over the next week, the city will the annual ICT/Digital Media Education Conference, the Society of Critical Care Medicine and a convention for Seventh Day Adventists. 

- Average room rates in Dallas are up 10 percent from last week, as the city hosts an education conference and an annual get together for the National Association of Dental Plans. 

- Hotel prices are down 30 percent from New Year’s Eve in New York City and Nashville, but rates remain high in Los Angeles, as the city hosts the college football national championship in Pasadena.

CAR RENTALS

Beyond the numbers:

- Car rental rates remain expensive, as prices are down only 1 percent from holiday highs. 

- Prices are up in Boston (81 percent), Pittsburgh (106 percent) and Dallas (278 percent), Minneapolis (46 percent) and Seattle (61 percent), as business travelers head back out on the road.  

- Rates for cars in Miami have dropped more than 200 percent from peak holiday prices, as cars are once again plentiful and inexpensive to rent.

MONTHLY TRENDS: CAR RENTALS AND HOTELS 

- Hotel prices are fairly flat with last week though down $3 on average overall. 

- Car rentals are up $3 on average and almost on par with where we started tracking eight weeks ago after a big spike during the Christmas week.

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