Airfare is RIDICULOUS

[PatsGirl]

Double WOOW. No, Triple WOOW. For that amount of money.... OMG, I think I'm getting flamed No, really, for that amout of money have you thought about African Safaris, weeks at Prince Edwards Island with a maid and chauffeur?

Maybe it's just me but we go to WDW because:

l. We love it

2. The kids love it

3. It keeps the kids amused

4. Airfare is usually around $175 rt pp

5. The weather is considerably better than the NE regardless what time of year

6. The kids love it

7. The kids love it

8. We love it.

Would I spend that kind of $$ to visit Mickey? Once, yes. Twice, Not on your life! Well, maybe -- with Grandkids!

 

[CarolA]

If you are trying to book more than 90 days out, you will probably get a big number. The closer you book to your departure date (and the less full the plane is) the airlines start to drastically reduce.

Think of the same scenerio as retail - at preseason, the cost for a shirt is full price - roughly 400% above what the department store paid. However, by end of season, that same shirt that was say $100 is now $25 with 50% off.

But it does not normally work this way in the airline industry. There are normally not a lot of "last minute fare sales" except over holidays etc. Just to give you a for instance, buying 21 days in advance airfare from Nashville to Atlanta is about $250 or so... buying a few days in advance over $800!!!! (and NO there are no deals!) Airlines make their proft off of folks like me who buy last minute and PAY, they don't want to discount that airfare.

 

[disboy21086]

I saved $100 total roundtrip by booking a couple weeks ago.... The Delta Flights NonStop from Boston are now at over $500.

Originally I wanted to leave on July 3rd so i could be therre the whole day for the 4th, and not worry about parks reaching capacity etc....... but here's the difference in price for leaving on the actual holiday.

$810 total roundtrip If I chose to leave on the Sunday. No Thank you I'll gladly take my $400 and spend it on passes etc......

 

[Danauk]

Perhaps I should have added that we are traveling with friends who own DVC points so we pay for the flights and they sort out the accomodation. It works out pretty even for us then. DH and I are teachers so can only go on holiday at peak times. We have visited most European counties so our holidays now tend to be further away (America, Australia) so we are used to having to pay those sort of air fare prices. I guess that is why we only have a holiday like that every 2 years and not each year.
Just out of interest it would cost us a similar amount to go to Disney Land Paris as the accomodation there is so expensive (it cost us nearly the same amount to spend 5 days there last year as it did to spend 2 week in the BCV the year before!!)

 

[erikthewise]

There seems to be a lot of this going on lately. If you are interested in personally saving an airline from bankruptcy, go ahead and buy. $800 for tickets that typically cost $200-$300 is not justified by fuel costs, security, or any combination of other factors. It's simply an attempt to get the most they can from people who (for whatever reason) will pay it. Booking early is not always the answer, as sometimes they are targeting people who want to buy early!

While this is sometimes caused by seats filling up, often it is not. I have seen this kind of predatory pricing on Delta when all legs of the trip were more than half empty. I don't mean to pick on Delta, it's just that on their site you can access the seating charts without committing to buy a ticket.

They cannot (typically) fill a plane with $800 tickets. If they could, the airline industry would be rolling in money. At some point they will offer tickets at a reasonable price. But if the flight is only a few weeks away, you may have missed it.

 

[bicker]

At some point they will offer tickets at a reasonable price.

Well reasonable could mean different things, depending on perspective. As it is, "offering tickets at a 'reasonable' price" is not the only option: They could go into bankruptcy, and subsequently go out of business. It still seems likely that one of the six will.

 

[beccasmom]

I can't really complain. We have not paid over $200 for a WDW trip in several years.....of course having SW at PHL helps a lot! $158-$178 is the norm for us; Christmas would be an obvious exception.

 

[CarolA]

They cannot (typically) fill a plane with $800 tickets. If they could, the airline industry would be rolling in money. At some point they will offer tickets at a reasonable price. But if the flight is only a few weeks away, you may have missed it.

I agree with this. And they WILL leave those seats empty on the hope that business travelers like me (who don't have a choice) will walk up and buy that $800 airfare. So... even if they only sell half of their unsold seats at the "walk up" rate, they may still make more money then if they had sold all of them at $69 each way!

 

[bballdiva]

Try southwest if your looking for a good deal on tickets. I just paid 350 round trip for me and my boyfriend for the end of Oct. I thought it was a very good deal,that was flying outta rhode island

 

[Pluto2003]

$59. each way on Airtran when they had a special sale out of DFW. Not going to happen this year. I might sign up for Travelocity e mails also. $168 sounds like a deal from DFW this year..........

 

[m&m's mom]

Well, here at DFW we just don't have a lot of competition.
When Delta was here full force, between 1999 and 2004 I never paid more than $180 RT NS and as low as $112. Now you are doing very well to get it under $200.
I fear the days of around $150-180 are gone. That combined w/ the stupid new AP discount (or lack thereof) will sharply reduce our trip, time and $ spent at WDW.

 

[IStoleMyKidsPins]

For the past several weeks, my DW & I debated about getting away for a nice, long weekend. We figured maybe we'd drive to Disney. It's a 16-17 hour drive for us from PA, but we've done it several times & we hate to fly. That being said, if we drove, we'd leave Fri 2am & get there about Fri 6pm. We'd have Sat & Sun in the parks. And then drive back Monday afternoon, stay over in NC, and arrive home sometime Tuesday pm. That means taking 3 days off of work & only having 2 days in the parks. Not very relaxing. But the cost would have been in the $200-$250 range total for gas, hotel, food, etc. Very attractive compared to alot of airfares, plus the fact we hate to fly. But I figured I'd just look into airfares. Seemed like the common price for Philly to Orlando round-trip was approx $375 for both of us. Not that bad. Then I read on the DIS about SW's Ding fares. Signed up for the program. Nothing good yet though for us. But, then we rec'd an email advertising their fare specials. Low & behold, there were specials for flights to & from Baltimore. So I checked it out & the special they were running made our total roundtrip tix, taxes, fees, etc for both of us only $233!!! So I sucked it up, ignored my tremendous fear of flying & booked it. {We'll cross the fear of flying bridge when we get to it}. So now it's actually cheaper for us to fly than drive. And the best part is that I still take 3 days off from work, but now have 4 full days in the parks instead of only 2. And no half-day recuperating time from all that driving. In 2 1/2 weeks, we'll be down with the Mouse enjoying some much needed time off.