Anyone else cutting out events due to rising airfares?

[escape]

I've been off the boards for a while so I apologize if this has already been discussed.

DH, Steve, and I really wanted to do the Race for the Taste this year but due to a $400/pp airfare to MCO, we may forgo this trip. I just can't justify paying this kind of money for a 3-day trip. The fare is also $400 for January's marathon weekend. I'm wondering if I should jump at this rate for fear of the fare going higher? Had I known that the fares were going to climb so high, I might not have signed up for the half in January '09 since I've participated the last two years.

Anyone else cutting events due to rising fuel prices?

 

[dsnyfan21]

Well, I had already purchased my airfare to CA for the DL 1/2 in early May just for this reason and I had already signed up for the race. If not I would not be going. I am still meandering the thought of doing the ToT. I have a seasonal pass and live 3 1/2 hours away. I thought maybe about sharing a room with someone, but would still have to pay for tolls and gas. SO I am still thinking about it and have not made any commitments. I usually take a "Christmas Trip" in early December, and then to go in Jan. which is a must. I will be thinking twice about any upcoming events or races. I am only doing local races as of now (excluding the DL and WDW in 09).

 

[laxdef69]

This is one of the reasons I love Southwest.

You can buy your ticket, and if they have a better fare available, you can cancel your original ticket and have a year to use the money, with no charges to change your itinerary.

Hopefully Southwest flies near you!

Mike

 

[chimera]

Anyone else cutting events due to rising fuel prices?

Yep, we're registered for RnR in Va Beach over Labor Day weekend but canceled. Also canceled a July 4th weekend trip to Gainesville, not just for fuel but overall travel costs. We also cut back our vacation plans due to flight costs.

 

[Big Vic]

Looking at cancelling our trip to North Carolina (Run To Victory) in December. I really want to run this race, but can't justify the cost.

 

[escape]

This is one of the reasons I love Southwest.

You can buy your ticket, and if they have a better fare available, you can cancel your original ticket and have a year to use the money, with no charges to change your itinerary.

Hopefully Southwest flies near you!

Mike

Unfortunately, SW cut two flights to MCO from Little Rock. Now, we only have one flight a day and the fare is $420. I would need to travel on Friday and return Monday and SW rarely discounts those days (out of LR, that is).

 

[laxdef69]

Unfortunately, SW cut two flights to MCO from Little Rock. Now, we only have one flight a day and the fare is $420. I would need to travel on Friday and return Monday and SW rarely discounts those days (out of LR, that is).

Suzie, have you signed up for DING?

They periodically send you notices of discounts that you have to act upon quickly, but we find that we can often do much better than the posted rates...that said, we do live in Chicago, so there is likely more competition for getting butts in seats...

Try this link for their featured destination...I picked some dates at random from Little Rock to Orlando, and they were substantially better than $420...

http://southwest.com/hotfares/hotfares3.html

If you are flexible with your travel dates, this is a pretty nice tool that they have, too....

http://southwest.com/cgi-bin/lowFar...5136@CC96A6C9860C11A529045B30A8234A7ADC67C509

Mike

 

[funwalker]

Mike,

I tried the SW Link - I could not get to the January 2009 (?)
I am registered for WDW January 2009 and it is making me very nervous not having flights.

 

[laxdef69]

Margie:

The schedule is only open until October 08....

You can check their normal schedule at this link.

http://southwest.com/cgi-bin/buildItinerary2

By the way, I am not employed by Southwest, just have had great experiences flying with them...

Mike

 

[ultramickeymouse]

Susie,

I am flying on FF miles in Oct and Jan. If paying, I wouldn't go in Oct. The airlines have raise rates over 2 dozen times and with checked bag fees, it sucks. I read that we can expect the rates to almost double by this time next year as airlines are cutting flights trying to drive the prices even higher. The Princess is probably out as United has blocked out all flights to MCO through May.

Wish it will change but I would book now as they are only going to go up

 

[JacobsMommy11002]

I desperately want to do a Disney race, but this is the exact reason we can't. Airfare is just so darn expensive. Driving isn't even really an option for us, as we are in Maine and it would take too much time out of our trip.

 

[Jen117]

We have a trip planned in August to WDW and got the airfare at a decent rate before it jumped high. Marathon weekend is in limbo and I am not sure we can afford it for 4 people. We are not sure we can get a babysitter for that long since the girls are in school. It's almost easier to take them out a couple of days. So we will just wait and see what happens.

 

[escape]

Well, I had already purchased my airfare to CA for the DL 1/2 in early May just for this reason and I had already signed up for the race. If not I would not be going.

I purchased airline tickets in May as well for fear of rising prices. I ended paying around $312/pp. As it turns out, I could have saved $30 pp if I would have waited. Go figure.

 

[escape]

Please see my quotes in blue...

Suzie, have you signed up for DING?

Oh, yes! I have found some great deals in the past but not in the last several months. I watch for the ding specials daily. SW did offer a special yesterday to MCO but the offer only extended through Sept. 30 and did not include a Friday or Sat. travel option. Due to my work schedule, I can only travel Friday-Monday during school fall and spring semesters.

They periodically send you notices of discounts that you have to act upon quickly, but we find that we can often do much better than the posted rates...that said, we do live in Chicago, so there is likely more competition for getting butts in seats...

Try this link for their featured destination...I picked some dates at random from Little Rock to Orlando, and they were substantially better than $420...

http://southwest.com/hotfares/hotfares3.html

Oh, no doubt. However, we're trying to go for the Race for the Taste 10K weekend in October. For some odd reason, we feel compelled to torture our bodies by getting up at 4:30am to run 6 miles in the heat while on vacation. (It's all about the medal - and the food and WINE festival!) If I were just going to Disney without doing any races, I could find better deals. As I stated earlier, I have to travel on Friday and return by Monday. I could leave out late Thursday but SW only offers 1 flight out of LR for MCO and I can't make that flight due to my teaching schedule. They used to offer a later flight but that's been cut out. Not sure why. Right now, SW's fare is $421 for that weekend.

If you are flexible with your travel dates, this is a pretty nice tool that they have, too....

http://southwest.com/cgi-bin/lowFar...5136@CC96A6C9860C11A529045B30A8234A7ADC67C509

I agree! I've used this several times to plan trips in the past. I found it interesting that the cheapest flight anytime in October out of LR to MCO is $348. SW is just not much of a bargain for the LR market anymore.

Thanks for all your research. Now if I lived in Chicago....

Mike

 

[BamaEd1]

I want to do several races but am reconsidering because of this. We are DVC members and usually drive to WDW anyway. Our most recent trip, we actually spent less in gas money than the previous trip by making our vehicle more fuel efficient (K&N air and fuel filters plus performance spark plugs/wires and a performance chip, about $400 worth of stuff for 12 mpg). However, I was thinking of trying to do a marathon/1/2 marathon in each state, now, it will probably be ones in the south only.

***Warning-Political Rant***Call your Congressman and tell them to drill here and drill now and let the oil companies build (clean)refineries if you want prices to come down anytime soon. As a member of the Army it makes me mad that we are sending so much of our oil money to countries that don't like us and have sent their representatives to shoot at me and my friends.****Rant over****

 

[princessrunner]

I desperately want to do a Disney race, but this is the exact reason we can't. Airfare is just so darn expensive. Driving isn't even really an option for us, as we are in Maine and it would take too much time out of our trip.

We were able to get flights for ToT weekend (Friday to Tuesday) on Jet Blue out of PWM for $263 each which, granted, is not stellar air fare but it will do. If you can travel on a Tues, Wed, Thurs, you might be able to score something in this range and join us for ToT!!! The discounted hotel rates available were pretty good for this time also which made it doable for us.

Hope to see you there!!!

 

[scoolover]

I know that this will only apply to about 2% of the people on this board but Jet Blue still had $79 each way from Newburgh, NY to MCO. It's about 2.5 hrs from me but will save us about $125 a ticket for 4 people. thought I'd put it out there?

 

[bunnyfoo]

We're going to be using our FF points to purchase tickets for January. If we weren't using points, the tickets wouldn't be cheap. I'm wanting to do the Princess 1/2 Marathon but don't think I can justify the cost of flying down twice to WDW so soon after January I'll still keep an eye on the seat sales though.

 

[amykab]

I am lucky enough at the moment to live within 2 hours from WDW, so as long as I can swing a hotel room for a night and entry fee, I'll probably continue to do those races. Unless gas gets to be 10.00 a gallon and we still live in Palm Harbor, I'll probably continue to do races there.

It will affect me signing up for races out of state though. It's already affected our summer vacation plans. We were going to fly to NC for our vacation that starts this weekend, but even with figuring gas would be over 4.00 per gallon, it was actually cheaper than buying 3 plane tickets. And we were looking for tickets months ago. Although I have to say I am starting to feel like this in regards to traveling 10 hours in a car with a one year old!!

 

[twoWDWfools]

We also dropped some tentative travel plans for the summer and will stick to doing more local events.

We are going to ToT and want to hear something really frightening.... It will actually be cheaper to drive our RV down than to fly, park, rent a car, etc. And that was me using $4.50 as gas price.

Since we're also in Chicago we use SW alot and by Jan will have another free flight coming so one of us will fly freebie and I take advantage of the rebooking at cheaper rate, too.