At what point do you bite the bullet...

[DrMomof3]

And spend too much on airfare?

We're traveling to WDW in August and I've been horrified by the airfare. We're a family of 5 (and this is the 1st trip where we have to buy a seat for the youngest) and we're flying out of NY. We took 2 trips to Disney last year and paid around $200 per ticket or less. Jet Blue (our 1st choice airline) is around $2000 for the 5 of us. Delta (with changing planes! For a 2.5 hour flight!) is around $1300 plus $200 roundtrip in baggage fees. Southwest requires a 1.5 hour drive but we'd still do it except it's now $1500 for so-so flight times and $1750 for the better flight times. I have the $25 code so that's less $125 but still. And last week Southwest was a little cheaper (more like $1300 for the better flight times) but I didn't jump fast enough.

I don't know if I should wait and see if the fares come down or if they'll only go up and up and up. We are driving distance to at least 5 different airports and we're willing to be flexible. I'd prefer to fly direct (my kids are 6, 4, and 2 and we'll gate-check 2 strollers - although we could gate-check one and baggage check one if need-be) but I'm not sure I can be picky at this point!

When do you decide the fares are only going to get worse and buy???

Amanda

 

[edna E mode]

We are a family of five.
I booked just this past Friday for a June 5-14 flight with Airtran.
My home airport is Pittsburgh, with lousy flight times and prices.
However, my total cost is $1137 including paying for seat picks. I do not know where I will stand with luggage and may not need to baggage check, but if I do it will only be one for $15.

Keep watching EVERYDAY. I saw prices jump for one flight time but others would drop. Craziness.

If push came to shove, I would do the 1.5 drive with so-so flight times with Southwest. That is exactly the decision I had to make. Well, my drive time is that anyways, so I didn't need to factor that in.

I would not do Delta or JetBlue.

 

[pat fan]

I guess my advice would be when you find a price that is at all doable, get it.

I choked and bought airfare for 4 people for $1300. More than I have EVER paid for airfare, but I had been watching it for months and it had not gone down at all, only up a few dollars and then back down to what I purchased it at. I have been religiously watching it since, hoping to get vouchers for the difference when it went down to use for a later trip, but it hasn't gone down. In fact, today the same flights are $1,800!!!!

BTW, this is SW and everything else I had been checking was even higher priced and you had to pay for your bags. It's a June/July trip.

 

[Lucky4me]

Jetblue is our favorite airline, but Airtran beats them here on price, so we usually go Airtran. Price beats out comfort for us, especially when it's a direct flight for a few hours.
If I was you, I'd camp out on both Southwest and Jetblue's websites or sign up for their email alerts. Give it a couple more weeks and if nothing panned out on Jetblue, go for the Southwest fare.

 

[huskies90]

We are going in Aug and booked AirTran out of HPN the week it was released back in Jan. We are paying $74 each way pp and got our seats free through Kayak. Since then I have been checking every couple days to see if my flight times have change and the price just keeps going up and up and is now over $200+ each way.

I am all for the airlines remaining profitable. It IS a business but I wonder how much people will be willing to spend and for how long. Things have defininately changed. It will be interesting to see how demand will react. Will more people drive places they would have normally flown to? Will they travel less??

 

[Janell]

We are going in late Aug. I have been watching airfare for months. Over night United jumped over $200 per person. I quickly looked at other air lines and found Continental code sharing with United and was $200 cheaper then United. Which I thought was odd, its a United flight, but if I bought the ticket through Contonetal.com it was cheaper. So Im sure you have, but if not check all the air lines websites. You just never know.

 

[ElizabethG]

I was shocked when I started to look for airfare. It is double the price of our trip last August. I was debating when to buy. I just wanted my tickets. I wanted non-stop and there were two carriers, Delta and SunCountry. There were three flights for Delta each way and I really wanted the "good" times, so I booked.

 

[Elmo007]

You mention that you are 1.5 hours to SW. I dont know if you meant Islip by that. But if you are in lower Westchester you may want to even consider going out of Philadelphia if the fares are lower. I know someone who lives right by Islip who clicked on the wrong date button when she bought her ticket and found out the hard way she did not have a ticket for when she thought she did. There were no flights from ISP, so she went to Philly and said it was a good deal and not a bad trip. She even said she would do Philly again if the price and timing were favorable.

BTW - Even though you can get some priority with the young kids (After A before B) spend the $50 and get early bird. It just feels better

 

[skiingfast]

I would try www.bing.com/travel/ it has a price perdictor built in, see what it says. However it won't work for some small airports. Also you might try to find the price for oil or gas the last time you bought tickets and compare it to now. This will indicate if the prices you see are overpriced or not.

 

[yitbos96bb]

I guess my advice would be when you find a price that is at all doable, get it.

I choked and bought airfare for 4 people for $1300. More than I have EVER paid for airfare, but I had been watching it for months and it had not gone down at all, only up a few dollars and then back down to what I purchased it at. I have been religiously watching it since, hoping to get vouchers for the difference when it went down to use for a later trip, but it hasn't gone down. In fact, today the same flights are $1,800!!!!

BTW, this is SW and everything else I had been checking was even higher priced and you had to pay for your bags. It's a June/July trip.

Remember when the airlines said all the baggage fees and other ways they decided to bilk us would make the prices LOWER??? Heck they are higher now than two years ago when gas was sky high because the airlines cut a ton of flights to Orlando and Vegas and other vacation places. My guess is its gonna get worse.

Honestly, I'm almost to the point where I'll bite the bullet and drive the 19 hours. Next year, my daughter turns two and we'll have to buy 3 tickets... I'll have to figure out whether $1000 is worth it or not.

 

[yitbos96bb]

We are going in late Aug. I have been watching airfare for months. Over night United jumped over $200 per person. I quickly looked at other air lines and found Continental code sharing with United and was $200 cheaper then United. Which I thought was odd, its a United flight, but if I bought the ticket through Contonetal.com it was cheaper. So Im sure you have, but if not check all the air lines websites. You just never know.

They are merging. That's why the code share.

 

[seashoreCM]

Wait.

At least give the prices "a" "chance" to get better.

Unless your travel dates are extremely popular on an absolute scale, like Sunday after Thanksgiving.

 

[HFC1969]

Book when you feel its right...

I let DW do all of the flights...

I will say this .. We booked SW yesterday for our 4 and it was 1050 from STL, which is a 2.5 hour flight.

I can remember a couple times paying more than that for just 3 of us, before our daughter came along.

 

[ratlenhum]

I'd say bite the bullet and go with Southwest. When I first looked at our flights they were $89 each way. I didn't book because I wasn't 100% sure we were going. When we finally decided it was $150 down and $175 back home. I waited about 2 weeks, checking several times every day. One day the flight down was $109 but the flight home didn't change. I booked the flight down and waited some more. About 4 hours later the flight down was back up to $125!!! Another few days later the flight home was $109 so I jumped on it.

If you book check the site several times a day. If the flight goes down you can rebuy the tickets at the lower price and apply the funds you've already paid. You won't get a refund but a credit with Southwest that has to be used in a year. There's an excuse to go back. I just learned this or I would have bought my tickets when they were high and not worried about it. But keep a close eye on the prices, the can change several times a day.

We have only flown Jet Blue twice. Once because they were cheapest to CA for us, and another time because we had 3 free flights due to our American Express card. Otherwise they were too expensive. We have one free flight right now. We were going to pay for the other 2 tickets we need and fly out of JFK. BUT....it was actually cheaper for us to pay for 3 tickets on Southwest than to use the freebie and pay for the 2 other seats with Jet Blue, so we're going out of Islip.

 

[5boyz]

I am waiting for my $25. off code from SW then I am most likely booking as the prices just keep going from $109-$114. for my flights ea way. So with the $100. off (4X$25.) It will be just under $900. and I budgeted for $800. and I am tired of wondering when I am leaving and coming back..lol. So my advise is when you feel it is time! Good Luck All!!!

 

[DrMomof3]

Philly is over 2 hours away so I'd have a hard time convincing DH that it's a good idea. The SW airfare is a bit cheaper but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle.
We have $200 worth of travel vouchers on JetBlue but I doubt we'll get to use them because the airfare is still much higher.
I'm leaning towards SW but I figure I can wait a few more weeks and then book it.
Thanks for the advice and suggestions. I'm going to keep hoping for an airfare sale. Our trip is late August but before Labor Day so not a holiday travel date or anything. I can keep hoping, right?

Amanda

 

[DrMomof3]

One more thing I wanted thoughts on....

How much more are you willing to pay for your "ideal" flight times? My 1st choice flight is the 10:30am out of Islip. That way we don't have to get up at the crack of dawn (we're early risers anyway so getting up at 6am is normal for us but getting up at 4am is torture) and we should miss Long Island beach traffice. I don't really want to take the earlier flight because of the long drive to the airport. The 12:30pm flight is a little bit cheaper and the 3pm flight is even cheaper. My kids eat dinner pretty early and go to bed pretty early. If we arrive at MCO at 5:40pm, we probably won't get to our hotel until 7-ish. I suspect I'll have 3 very crabby kids and we'll miss a whole day in Florida. Is that worth saving $150-$200?
Opinions?

Amanda

 

[mamapajama]

We couldn't bite that bullet-we're driving. Last time I checked it was $1227 for our fam of 5 for SW and that's not including parking at the aiport (another $140) and the rental for one day for food shopping but we were up to about $1500. We're leaving a day earlier and we're losing half a day at the end, leaving Monday afternoon instead of Tuesday. I'm figuring it will cost of half as much and that's money we can put towards our passes.

 

[5boyz]

I dont mind getting up in the middle of the night to go on vacation, I dont really sleep anyway too excited! BUT I HATE getting up in the middle of the night for an early morning flight home. I try to stay away from them but.....if the price was right I would do it...my dh likes early there early home, but he wont do stops so that is the compromise, non stop my time home...

Not sure what I would do if I knew that my kids would be miserable then making me miserable and missing a whole day at Disney. Can you put the kids to bed earlier the night before and you too so that you will get the sleep and then take the early flight.... Our flights right now are 6:30am from Buffalo so we will leave from here Toronto at 1 or 2 am (we would have to leave not much later flying out of TO anyway), we will get thru the day and then go to bed early on the first night....we are good to go after that...we are there for 2 weeks too. Then our flight home is 8:45 arr Buffalo 11:30pm, we will then stay at a hotel and then leave to drive home in the morning......I do the sleep park fly.

 

[DrMomof3]

I've considered driving! We drove last summer to Maine which took 8 hours. Between the poop explosion 2 hours into the trip and the frequent bathroom stops for the other 2, I thought my DH would have a heart attack! Not sure we're ready for 19 hours....yet.

We've found that getting the kids up at 4am and then trying to spend the day at Disney isn't a great idea. Maybe if we made the 1st day a pool day it would work. I'd probably let my DH nap with the little one and take the older kids to the pool. If my kids were older it would be easier to do the early morning flight!

Amanda