Airfare question: Friday night, Sat or Sun?

[Razor Roman]

Question,

my fiancee and I are planning a trip to WDW and plan on leaving either 3/11, 3/12 or 3/13... my question is

what is a better (and by that I mostly mean cheaper) time to fly... Friday night, Saturday (any time) or Sunday (any time)? We basically want to do a week, so if we fly down friday, we will probably fly up the next frday, unless we have some extra cash and could do a friday or saturday through sunday trip.

 

[DianeV]

I have found that usually Friday is cheaper then Saturday or Sunday

 

[Kitty-chan]

Generally speaking, Friday is probably cheaper.

But if you're willing to travel early Sunday morning, sometimes there are good fares then. We're on a 6AM Sunday morning flight to MCO this December for that very reason.

 

[deltachi8]

Many vacation travelers use Saturdays, so thats generally the highest priced day. Friday evening/night and early Sunday morning are probably the best bets.

 

[CarolA]

Depends. For example from Atlanta to Nashville on Friday evening the plane is PACKED with business travelers like me (My ticket this week from Nashville to Atlanta and back this week cost $613!!!!) So... I would just play around. Late night flights on Friday might be cheaper. Sunday evening can also hit the business travelers. The airlines know when we are traveling (even though we may buy at the last minute) and will hold seats in the hopes of selling them for the above $600!

 

[bdcp]

The best thing about Saturday though is there are less flights due to less business fliers, so there are usually fewer delays and the planes are less likely to be packed.

 

[Brian Noble]

Many vacation travelers use Saturdays, so thats generally the highest priced day

Saturday may be more expensive, but this is not why. Business travelers are *much* less sensitive to price. I know I care a lot less when I spend my research funds on trips than when I spend my own!

In general, Sunday nights and Friday nights are the most expensive. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are often good. Saturday is a mixed bag---for a vacation destination like Orlando, it can be expensive. For a "business" destination, often it's much lower.

To find out for your specific route, use Orbitz' "30 day search" tool.

 

[TaurusSES_Sport]

I would do thurs or mon. Avoid the weekends, too much traveling happends and fares go up. I know because I have relatives in the airline industry.

 

[WDW_Paul]

This info probably doesn't go across every airline but as I said in a different post, I do work for United in res sales and svcs and I can say at least on us, if you go TUE, WED, or SAT, those are more likely to be the days that have lower fares available. You also should really try to book kinda early, at LEAST 2 weeks ahead if not sooner. Just a hint: if you do book at say, $300 for a flight, any flight, and you notice on the UAL website that the fare for your flights is now $225 we can send you back the difference in travel vouchers good on other flights in the future. And Sundays are not good days to fly for low fares.

I see it every day at work. Of course, if you are going to Orlando on United, you're really ending up there on "TED" which is just a spinoff airline from UniTED. It's suppose to be the "low cost operator" portion of United. There is a website about Ted, www.flyted.com, where you can learn about it. Believe me when I say I am not going out of my way to get business for United since they're closing my res office and outsourcing the jobs to India to save money but I do know I have seen pretty good fares especially from ORD, MCO, or DEN airports. Maybe if you call United tomorrow, before I leave Saturday, for Orlando (on ATA - it was nonstop for me), you might speak to me...(but, probably not).

Here's hoping for sun and 80 degrees from 12-4 thru 12-9...

WDW_Paul

 

[Razor Roman]

Thanks so much for the info guys... I am travelling in mid march (my fiancee is in grad school part time, and has one week for spring break, so) we're fairly locked in to our schedule, though we are going to consider taking off friday and flying out Thursday night... hmm, so many choices. Maybe we'll just drive again Now that we have XM sattellite radio it might be fun ;-) Actually driving down is always a blast. Driving home is what stinks

 

[Razor Roman]

Thanks for the tip Paul,
seems like Ted doesn't fly from where I'll be leaving... Newark, NJ (or perhaps Philly or Atlantic City)

Too bad the Trenton Airport doesn't have big planes flying out of that. I'm right down the block from them