Airlines??

[catfan98]

I have never flown before and we have decided to fly to Disney next April. I have already been looking at prices on Expedia, Orbitz, etc. Southwest, of course, doesn't have this time frame out yet. It seems Southwest has better baggage fees and people seem to like them better overall? Is Southwest the best, or is it just whoever has the cheapest price?

ETA: We will be flying out of Nashville.

 

[Jestocost]

I have never flown before and we have decided to fly to Disney next April. I have already been looking at prices on Expedia, Orbitz, etc. Southwest, of course, doesn't have this time frame out yet. It seems Southwest has better baggage fees and people seem to like them better overall? Is Southwest the best, or is it just whoever has the cheapest price?

It all depends on where you are flying from and on your preferences. SWA is the only airline that offers non-stop flights from St. Louis to Orlando and nobody is cheap on that route so we always fly with them. Plus you do get to check two bags per person for no charge, which is nice.

SWA does not offer assigned seats like most of the other airlines, however, and that's a sticking point for some people. It doesn't bother us at all but YMMV.

There's really no way to tell if SWA or another airline will have better pricing. Back in the day SWA almost always was cheaper but the gap has narrowed considerably in the past few years. If you fly out of someplace where there's more competition on the Orlando route you're likely going to see better fares.

 

[mjdis17]

For me, Southwest is ALWAYS cheaper than Delta, Jet Blue, or American, but it does definitely depend on where you're flying out of. For instance, I live in CT and flying out of our small airport is super cheap for SWA nonstop, but flying out of NYC or Boston is never nonstop on SWA and is WAY more expensive.

The 2 free bags per person is huge especially when going to a place like Disney, and they are not free on other airlines. With a fee of ~$25 per bag on other airlines, that can really add up if you have a lot of them. Not having assigned seats is not an issue for us, but like PP poster said YMMV. The more people you have the more annoying/stressful it can be, but if you check in exactly 24 hours before and get a good boarding position you will be fine.

SWA flights generally do not show up on Expedia, Orbitz etc at all. SWA releases their next batch of flights on May 19th for travel through January 4th. Once those have been released they will update their website with the next release date, which will most likely include your April 2017 flights. I have never gotten a cheaper price on SWA than I have when booking the second the flights are released (around 6am EST the day of the release), though other people have said their prices drop sometimes. If you do book a flight and the prices drops, you can get a credit to your account for the difference.

 

[catfan98]

It all depends on where you are flying from and on your preferences. SWA is the only airline that offers non-stop flights from St. Louis to Orlando and nobody is cheap on that route so we always fly with them. Plus you do get to check two bags per person for no charge, which is nice.

SWA does not offer assigned seats like most of the other airlines, however, and that's a sticking point for some people. It doesn't bother us at all but YMMV.

There's really no way to tell if SWA or another airline will have better pricing. Back in the day SWA almost always was cheaper but the gap has narrowed considerably in the past few years. If you fly out of someplace where there's more competition on the Orlando route you're likely going to see better fares.

For me, Southwest is ALWAYS cheaper than Delta, Jet Blue, or American, but it does definitely depend on where you're flying out of. For instance, I live in CT and flying out of our small airport is super cheap for SWA nonstop, but flying out of NYC or Boston is never nonstop on SWA and is WAY more expensive.

The 2 free bags per person is huge especially when going to a place like Disney, and they are not free on other airlines. With a fee of ~$25 per bag on other airlines, that can really add up if you have a lot of them. Not having assigned seats is not an issue for us, but like PP poster said YMMV. The more people you have the more annoying/stressful it can be, but if you check in exactly 24 hours before and get a good boarding position you will be fine.

SWA flights generally do not show up on Expedia, Orbitz etc at all. SWA releases their next batch of flights on May 19th for travel through January 4th. Once those have been released they will update their website with the next release date, which will most likely include your April 2017 flights. I have never gotten a cheaper price on SWA than I have when booking the second the flights are released (around 6am EST the day of the release), though other people have said their prices drop sometimes. If you do book a flight and the prices drops, you can get a credit to your account for the difference.

Thank you for the info! I edited my original post to add that we will be flying out of Nashville. I'm just new to the whole flying thing and am really overwhelmed with it. As of right now, we will have 6 people, but it could end up just being 4, depending on several factors. I have just been watching prices right now, I'm not really sure when to book. I feel like I should wait until SW releases their fares. But if one of the sites shows a really low price, then maybe I should just jump on it? But then again, I shouldn't buy it until I know the exact number of passengers, I assume, as it isn't refundable, is it? Aaagghhh! Stressful, lol.

 

[mjdis17]

Their "wanna get away" fares, which are their cheapest, are non refundable after 24 hours. If you did need to cancel one of them after that time, a credit for the amount of the flight would be applied to your account, but only the person whose name was on the ticket would be able to use that credit. Aka you'd only be able to book a ticket for that same person with that credit. I'm not sure what other airlines are like with refunds, but honestly most are non-refundable unless you are getting the super high business class fares.

I 100% think you should to wait until SW releases their fares which will probably be in the fall for your time frame, though I've never flown from Nashville to Orlando so I can't tell you what the absolute cheapest price SW can be. For me, I know that $98 each way is the lowest it will go from CT to FL, so I will not book anything higher than $150. Since you don't know the cheapest "base" price, I would keep eyeing fares and keep track of the lowest rates you have seen with the other airlines. This will give you a jumping off point with SW when they do release their fares. Alternatively, I would actually suggest looking very early in the morning on May 19th when the next batch of dates come out to see what the prices are in early/mid December for flying in and out of Nashville/Orlando on your desired days of the week. Those prices would probably be very similar to April travel time and can give you an idea of how low the fares SW offers are on the day that they are released. Since that's on Thursday you will have an idea now what the prices are looking like for SW and therefore will have that in your mind as you check other airlines on Orbitz, Expedia, etc.