Calling all Febraury Flyers...

[Fonzy13]

Looking to visit WDW from February 19-24 (Sun- Thurs) on Presidents Week. Just did some checking on airfare and oh my lord. From upstate NY (Albany) and even NYC, we're looking at plus $400 for airfare. Now, I'm not a complainer, but should I expect this to fall (I'm used to paying about $100 R/T).

Finally, any idea when SW will release these dates. Thanks for any help!

 

[Brian Noble]

From detroit, airfare is between a little and a lot more this year compared to last year. I bought last year's President's Week tickets right around this time (Sept 04), and paid just a bit under $200 RT for direct flights on Spirit. This year, the chepeast direct flight on a regular carrier is almost $300 (airtran), and Spirit and Northwest are $400 and $500 per person, respectively. Even connecting flights are $300 and up, round trip.

I bought this year's tickets a bit earlier, in August, and got direct flights for the exact times/days I wanted for $280 pp. I could have gotten that down to $225 for taking less desirable times, but still on direct flights. In August, I felt like I might have been paying more than I necessarily had to, but wanted to limit my risk. Now that it's September, I'm glad I did.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that prices may come down a little bit---$400 just seems way too high, even accounting for airlines deciding that they need to make money in the face of rising fuel prices, and I can't believe those planes are already full. But, I don't know for sure!

Keep an eye on the prices, and jump as soon as you see a deal you can live with. Don't wait long after SW releases flights---SW often doesn't discount holiday weekend flights nearly as much as other times, but it will probably never be cheaper than right then.

Finally (and I hate to say this, but...) you might want to have an upper limit on round trip price beyond which you won't go.

 

[Fonzy13]

From detroit, airfare is between a little and a lot more this year compared to last year. I bought last year's President's Week tickets right around this time (Sept 04), and paid just a bit under $200 RT for direct flights on Spirit. This year, the chepeast direct flight on a regular carrier is almost $300 (airtran), and Spirit and Northwest are $400 and $500 per person, respectively. Even connecting flights are $300 and up, round trip.

I bought this year's tickets a bit earlier, in August, and got direct flights for the exact times/days I wanted for $280 pp. I could have gotten that down to $225 for taking less desirable times, but still on direct flights. In August, I felt like I might have been paying more than I necessarily had to, but wanted to limit my risk. Now that it's September, I'm glad I did.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that prices may come down a little bit---$400 just seems way too high, even accounting for airlines deciding that they need to make money in the face of rising fuel prices, and I can't believe those planes are already full. But, I don't know for sure!

Keep an eye on the prices, and jump as soon as you see a deal you can live with. Don't wait long after SW releases flights---SW often doesn't discount holiday weekend flights nearly as much as other times, but it will probably never be cheaper than right then.

Finally (and I hate to say this, but...) you might want to have an upper limit on round trip price beyond which you won't go.

Thanks for the help. I'm an offseason traveller (mid-September, middle January), so I usually don't have to worry about the prices of airfare, but I'm going down with a teacher this year, so things have changed a bit.

$300 is my limit. If I don't get it, I'll drive.

 

[debster812]

That's a tough week to be flying from the NE to FL. It's President's weekend, and many states' February School Vacation as well. We're flying out on the 14th and coming home on the 26th (BOS-MCO, then RSW-BOS), and because of how DS's school district did the vacation and days off, he only misses 1 and a half days of school.

You have to check every day or so, and like another poster said, if you find a deal you can live with, jump on it. The prices may come down a bit, but who knows now.

Our outbound flight was booked last March, and our homebound flight I booked in July.

 

[Tinkim]

Fonzy13 ~ I hear ya! That vacation week is a killer from the Northeast. We live in NH and we usually pay around $215-230 R/T. Our winter break from school is the following week of 2/25 to 3/4, however. This year I was playing around with airfaire and found Delta for $128 R/T per person. This is absolutely the best fare I have ever seen and I jumped on it right away. My friend is going with us and wanted the same flight and she booked her flight a couple of weeks ago at $400 R/T per person. My hope was that Delta would drop its prices and she could rebook and hopefully save some money even if she had to pay the $50 per person change fee. Unfortunately now that Delta has filed for bankruptcy that probably won't happen.

Two years ago we flew SW and paid $215-230 R/T per person. That was the best deal I could find at the time even though it was at the tail end of President's week. It seems to me that those SW special fares are gone in a matter of minutes. I heard about the sale and that same day a couple of hours after it started these prices were the best I could get. There is the Ding program now so they may have a decent price. Right now there is a Ding from MHT to MCO for only $42 but they are only booking until 1/9. I think you will have to keep checking SW for the schedule to open up and then hope for either a sale price or Ding price that you can live with but that might be closer to $200 R/T than $100. As far as SW opening their schedule for Feb I think I read it was sometime in November historically. I will do a search and see what I can find. Good luck. I know how frustrating this can be.

 

[Tinkim]

Fonzy13 ~ Check out the thread on this board entitled SWA Feb Watch List. I am technologically challenged so I don't know how to post the link. There is a discussion there about SW opening up their schedule and it looks like last year they released dates through March 4 on September 23 so it could be as soon as this week. They also said that they seem to release the new schedule around 11 a.m. EST. There was a discussion about that being a difficult week to get any deal and some people thought SW didn't really release anything spectacular for that week anyway. They also suggested possibly flying out on Monday to avoid President's weekend all together and possibly getting a cheaper fare that way. Hope this helps.

 

[pumpkinboy]

We bought out outbound flight on Delta/Song from BOS-MCO for February 17th at 331 days out at midnight (just as they became available, and managed to get the only cheap tix for that date, 4 fares at $87 apiece. Tried to do the same for our return on the 25th, then on the 26th and found rates in the $300s one-way (non-stop), and so waited until June to actually buy the return tix. Glad we did too, bcs when I checked the non-stops for our dates, one-way fares we in the $350 range for our dates. That's even after they doubled their Florida bound flights.

As for connecting flights, I have been trying to price out fares for some friends who were planning to join us for February vacation (we got a 2BR). Back at 331 days, they could have had connectors for around $200 round-trip. They waited and waited, and by mid-summer they could still get decent dates for a little more than $300. They are still waiting and I cannot see anything less than $400 now, even with really inconvenient connections. Now, they did have good reason for waiting, as their DD was waiting to see if she got into a singing competition over Pres Day weekend. She did, so now they will likely join us onthe Tues of that week, if they come at all. They can still get decent fares for that Tues, but the return is gonna be a killer.

Lesson for February vacation flights, get them early.

As for waiting for a bargain fare from SWA, you might be able to find something, but it won't be what you are used to paying. All the airlines know that they are gonna be able to sell all those seats at pretty close to full freight, so there is little incentive to discount. I hope SWA come thru for you. Good luck!

 

[maroney495]

DH & I are thinking of a February trip(14 -19 not sure if possible yet) so I have been looking for airfare. We have never flown before always drove. (Neither of us has even been inside an airport) I was watching and thinking of a non-stop from LIT to MCO(was told there was no such thing, but up until this weekend there was one listed) but wouldn't purchase as we are not sure if we can work out the trip, anyway, it was on all sites Friday and now is gone. Don't know if it is gone permanently or what?? We were willing to pay the extra to have non stop as we are really concerned about plane changing since we have never even been in an airport.