Airline Costs - Toronto to LA $$$

[Frozen2014]

Anyone else find that airline is just ridiculous now? I am checking various options for our trip Aug 24 - Sept 2nd - and skipping evening flights since we are coming with two kids and there is a time change.

A direct flight from Toronto to LA is $722 per person. For four people, that's a total of $2890!

Our ideal flight is

• Going there: Toronto to LA (since we are staring in LA) - direct
• Returning home: Orange County SNA to Toronto (since ending at Disney) - 1 stop

The cost is $591 per person. For four people, that's a total of $2365

I also looked at the option of flying to Burbank and returning from SNA. The cost is $470 per person, which for four adds up to $1880. This is the cheapest and makes most logical sense since our hotel is closer to BUR than LAX, but the stopover times are around 1hr which makes us nervous (or we can have a 2hr stopover but the flight leaves at 6:30am in the morning). Other flights have us arriving at 8:30pm LA time at night, which means 11:30pm our time, which would be super late for our kids by the time we get luggage, rent car and check into hotel.

We're leaning towards the second option as the flight times are good and one way is direct, but still the cost hurts.

As an aside, anyone know how accurate the 'flight hopper' app is? It says we should book the LAX flight now.

 

[kuhltiffany]

I use Hipmunk, search for the flight you would want (your top choice regardless of price), then set up a Fare Alert. It will email you as soon as the prices change (they vary widely throughout the week) so you can decide what to do. I had a goal of around $500 pp (we have 4 people) for our trip in February. I got a direct flight from Montreal to LAX with Air Canada for $518 each after only watching it for a few weeks (when I started watching it was $800 pp!!!).

When we lived in the GTA we used to drive to Buffalo and fly out of there. It was cheaper to stay overnight and park, than parking alone in Toronto, plus the flights were cheaper and they had so many more options/airlines to choose from...

 

[Frozen2014]

Thanks. Haven't heard of Hipmunk so just tried it. Does it only capture Air Canada flights? There is one from American Airlines that I've been watching but doesn't seem to be on there.

I looked at other options too such as flying from Buffalo, but if we did this, it would have to be a direct flight since a 3hr drive + stop flight would be too much. But anyways, I didn't see any savings flying out of a Buffalo as the pricing was similar to Burbank option with 1 stop as well.

 

[kuhltiffany]

Just checked ours again out of curiosity, at least 6 airlines showed up. Many airlines don't plan routes until 6 months before, so you're probably early to be looking at all of your options yet…

Thanks. Haven't heard of Hipmunk so just tried it. Does it only capture Air Canada flights? There is one from American Airlines that I've been watching but doesn't seem to be on there.

I looked at other options too such as flying from Buffalo, but if we did this, it would have to be a direct flight since a 3hr drive + stop flight would be too much. But anyways, I didn't see any savings flying out of a Buffalo as the pricing was similar to Burbank option with 1 stop as well.

 

[Frozen2014]

Funny, I'm not seeing the same flights on the site that are available through say Expedia, FlightHub. But still a neat site.

Flight hopper is saying to book now, but prices so high. :-(

 

[alohamom]

try the ita matrix and click the circle marked "see calendar of lowest fares". This will give you info only which you then take directly tot eh airline website to book with. For example it might show you United has a flight from yyz to lax that you are good with for price/date/time. It will show the flight number and the cost breakdown which you then use at the United Airlines website to book It covers most major airlines. Here is the link https://matrix.itasoftware.com/

 

[pigletto]

Is flying out of Buffalo an option? Jetblue or Southwest would likely be much cheaper and I would fly out of Buffalo 100 times over Pearson. It's just so much smaller and easier to navigate.

 

[Frozen2014]

try the ita matrix and click the circle marked "see calendar of lowest fares". This will give you info only which you then take directly tot eh airline website to book with. For example it might show you United has a flight from yyz to lax that you are good with for price/date/time. It will show the flight number and the cost breakdown which you then use at the United Airlines website to book It covers most major airlines. Here is the link https://matrix.itasoftware.com/

Thanks. That's a neat site.

 

[Frozen2014]

Is flying out of Buffalo an option? Jetblue or Southwest would likely be much cheaper and I would fly out of Buffalo 100 times over Pearson. It's just so much smaller and easier to navigate.

Thanks for the tip. Jetblue I don't see any direct. And Soutwest dates stop 2 weeks before we go, but i checked those days for same days of the week and they also are not direct. So if we are going to do non-direct, we may as well fly to BUR and return on SNA.

 

[Frozen2014]

Whoo hoo for the Hopper app. Got notified that direct flights from Toronto to/from LAX were down. Checked and a flight with great times popped up for $481. Last week flights were showing at $722! Huge difference. So we booked right away. We'll have to do the drive from Disney Anaheim back to LAX but the return flight is around 12:30pm on a Saturday so hopefully the drive won't be too bad. And this way we don't need to worry about the stress of missing a connecting flight.

 

[LittleFlounder]

I just booked a flight from Toronto to SNA(John Wayne) and had good luck with prices with Google Flights. You just enter your airports you wish to come and go from and your dates and it'll show you a list of flights available on various airlines/prices, starting with their "Best Flights"(based on price/duration/# of stops). When choosing you dates, it'll show you a calendar with the flight prices on each day so you can see when the lowest priced days for arrival and departure are). Once you pick the flights you like, it directs you to the airline sites to book directly with them. You can sign up for alerts to on price changes. It's my new favourite flight tip!!

 

[Frozen2014]

I just booked a flight from Toronto to SNA(John Wayne) and had good luck with prices with Google Flights. You just enter your airports you wish to come and go from and your dates and it'll show you a list of flights available on various airlines/prices, starting with their "Best Flights"(based on price/duration/# of stops). When choosing you dates, it'll show you a calendar with the flight prices on each day so you can see when the lowest priced days for arrival and departure are). Once you pick the flights you like, it directs you to the airline sites to book directly with them. You can sign up for alerts to on price changes. It's my new favourite flight tip!!

Neat. Google flights sounds similar to FlightHub where you can see a matrix of each departure/arrival combos over multiple days. Great that you bought your flight. It feels good once you book your trips...like the trip is now official. If we were just doing Disneyland then we would have looked at SNA but we're starting in LAX, and thankfully got lucky with the price. From your signature you're going August too?

 

[alohamom]

Whoo hoo for the Hopper app. Got notified that direct flights from Toronto to/from LAX were down. Checked and a flight with great times popped up for $481. Last week flights were showing at $722! Huge difference. So we booked right away. We'll have to do the drive from Disney Anaheim back to LAX but the return flight is around 12:30pm on a Saturday so hopefully the drive won't be too bad. And this way we don't need to worry about the stress of missing a connecting flight.

Was this $481Canadian dollars for a direct flight from YYZ to LAX? If so, you got a great price!

 

[Frozen2014]

Was this $481Canadian dollars for a direct flight from YYZ to LAX? If so, you got a great price!

Yes. That is the CAD amount. WestJet came out with great prices.

 

[LittleFlounder]

It feels good once you book your trips...like the trip is now official. If we were just doing Disneyland then we would have looked at SNA but we're starting in LAX, and thankfully got lucky with the price. From your signature you're going August too?

Yep...once you book your flights, here's no turning back! I normally wouldn't book flight this early, but I was happy with the price and just jumped on it. Yes, we're also going in August. I went last August and it was wonderful...great weather(hot!...breach beach temps!) and lower crowds.