Allegiant Air - Stuff I should know before booking

[JenLanDisney]

We're thinking of booking with Allegiant Air which operates out of Sanford, FL.

If you've flown with this airline before, can you please help with a few questions?
- If I want my family of 3 to sit together, how important is it for me to pay the seat fee?
- Is the Trip Flex worth it?

Any other fees (beside baggage) that I should know about?

Thanks!

 

[nacho113]

We have flown several times into Sanford with Allegiant. Nice small airport, very quick to get in and out of.
We have always been seated together, but we always make sure we are one of the first to check in as soon as the ticket stations open 2 hours before flight time. Make sure everyone is booked on the same itinerary. One of our sons decided to join us last minute a couple of years ago and ended up being seated halfway across the plane.
Friends of ours had some car trouble getting to the airport in January and arrived at the counter 30 minutes before flight time and ended up with seats all over the plane.
If your worried about being split up or don't want to be at the airport 2 hours before flight time, then I would suggest purchasing the seat assignment.

Pack light to help reduce the amount you pay in baggage fees. DW and I usually split a checked bag for our 7-10 days in Jan/Feb and just do a load of laundry half way through so we only have to pack 4 or 5 days worth of clothes.

The trip flex is OK if you are worried about having to cancel or change your vacation. For example if you are flying in hurricane season or if you have extra time available and you want to be able to extend your stay if you are having a really good time (or conversely ,book an earlier return flight if you are having a bad time or the weather is not co-operating).
If your vacation dates are not flexible and you feel that these are the dates that you need to fly and wont need to change, then you probably don't need the trip flex.
I always book my flight with a credit card that offers trip cancellation coverage, that way if the whole vacation goes sideways, I'm still covered

 

[Jestocost]

We're thinking of booking with Allegiant Air which operates out of Sanford, FL.

If you've flown with this airline before, can you please help with a few questions?
- If I want my family of 3 to sit together, how important is it for me to pay the seat fee?
- Is the Trip Flex worth it?

Any other fees (beside baggage) that I should know about?

Thanks!

You likely are aware that there is no DME service to Sanford, which means you will have to pay for a rental car or other transfers.

 

[nacho113]

OOPS double post, mods please delete.

 

[Jestocost]

We have flown several times into Sanford with Allegiant. Nice small airport, very quick to get in and out of.
We have always been seated together, but we always make sure we are one of the first to check in as soon as the ticket stations open 2 hours before flight time. Make sure everyone is booked on the same itinerary. One of our sons decided to join us last minute a couple of years ago and ended up being seated halfway across the plane.
Friends of ours had some car trouble getting to the airport in January and arrived at the counter 30 minutes before flight time and ended up with seats all over the plane.
If your worried about being split up or don't want to be at the airport 2 hours before flight time, then I would suggest purchasing the seat assignment.

Pack light to help reduce the amount you pay in baggage fees. DW and I usually split a checked bag for our 7-10 days in Jan/Feb and just do a load of laundry half way through so we only have to pack 4 or 5 days worth of clothes.

The trip flex is OK if you are worried about having to cancel or change your vacation. For example if you are flying in hurricane season or if you have extra time available and you want to be able to extend your stay if you are having a really good time (or conversely ,book an earlier return flight if you are having a bad time or the weather is not co-operating).
If your vacation dates are not flexible and you feel that these are the dates that you need to fly and wont need to change, then you probably don't need the trip flex.
I always book my flight with a credit card that offers trip cancellation coverage, that way if the whole vacation goes sideways, I'm still covered

Is there an echo in here?

 

[JenLanDisney]

You likely are aware that there is no DME service to Sanford, which means you will have to pay for a rental car or other transfers.

Yes, we are staying offsite and will be renting a car. Do you have information about the rental car counters at Sanford? Are they at the airport?

 

[JenLanDisney]

We have flown several times into Sanford with Allegiant. Nice small airport, very quick to get in and out of.
We have always been seated together, but we always make sure we are one of the first to check in as soon as the ticket stations open 2 hours before flight time. Make sure everyone is booked on the same itinerary. One of our sons decided to join us last minute a couple of years ago and ended up being seated halfway across the plane.
Friends of ours had some car trouble getting to the airport in January and arrived at the counter 30 minutes before flight time and ended up with seats all over the plane.
If your worried about being split up or don't want to be at the airport 2 hours before flight time, then I would suggest purchasing the seat assignment.

Pack light to help reduce the amount you pay in baggage fees. DW and I usually split a checked bag for our 7-10 days in Jan/Feb and just do a load of laundry half way through so we only have to pack 4 or 5 days worth of clothes.

The trip flex is OK if you are worried about having to cancel or change your vacation. For example if you are flying in hurricane season or if you have extra time available and you want to be able to extend your stay if you are having a really good time (or conversely ,book an earlier return flight if you are having a bad time or the weather is not co-operating).
If your vacation dates are not flexible and you feel that these are the dates that you need to fly and wont need to change, then you probably don't need the trip flex.
I always book my flight with a credit card that offers trip cancellation coverage, that way if the whole vacation goes sideways, I'm still covered

Thank you - this is exactly the input I was looking for.

 

[pk1959]

We fly Allegiant quite a bit and have found that they seem to go out of their way to seat my husband and I apart if we haven't purchased our seats. Not a big deal to us really, but you would think ONCE in a while we would ACCIDENTALLY be seated together. We always check in online at the 24 hour mark, so maybe we would have better luck if we waited till we got to the airport and had our seats assigned there. Might try that next time.

Another thing about Allegiant that kind of drives us crazy is the fact that their checked luggage weight limit is only 40 pounds instead of the usual 50 pounds of most other airlines.

Certainly not my favorite airline to fly, but they are usually cheaper so we do use them more often than not.

Car rental counter is in a seperate building a short walk from the baggage claim in Sanford.

 

[JenLanDisney]

Thanks for your input, everyone. We decided to pay for assigned seats. It was just $10 a seat and eliminated the worry that DS7 wouldn't be near a parent.

 

[nacho113]

Is there an echo in here?

Wow, weird double post but 18 minutes apart. I'll see if I can delete one

 

[nacho113]

We always check in online at the 24 hour mark, so maybe we would have better luck if we waited till we got to the airport and had our seats assigned there. Might try that next time.

We find the best way is to check in at the airport as soon as the counter opens, usually 2 hours before flight time and we have always been seated together.
Whatever you do, DO NOT go to the check-in online page. You will be assigned really cr@ppy seats, and offered the option to pay for the upgrade. If you don't buy the seat assignment at this point, you are doomed to get those seats that are assigned by the computer. I'm sure they do this on purpose so that you will buy the assigned seating.
As I said DO NOT even go to the online check-in page, just get to the counter early and you will find that you will be assigned decent seats together.
The caveat is make sure you get to the counter very early.
The only time we have purchased our seat assignment is if we have a very early morning flight (like 6am). To be at the counter to get decent seats we would have to be there at 4am which means leaving the hotel at 3am which means waking up at 2am (or staying up all night). In a case like this, I will pay the $10-15 per seat for an extra 60-90 minutes of sleep ;-)