August Airfare from EWR over $500/ticket

[River Country]

Anyone know why the August airfare from Newark to MCO is $516 a ticket for a morning flight?

I booked into Tampa for $200 per ticket less. This trip is for 5 people so it equates to $1000 in savings. Yes i rent a car and yes i have driven from Tampa to WDW before, ony took me 1 hour i just cant remember seeing the rates so high. I should say this was on United. JetBlue was even higher

 

[artesian]

Anyone know why the August airfare from Newark to MCO is $516 a ticket for a morning flight?

I booked into Tampa for $200 per ticket less. This trip is for 5 people so it equates to $1000 in savings. Yes i rent a car and yes i have driven from Tampa to WDW before, ony took me 1 hour i just cant remember seeing the rates so high. I should say this was on United. JetBlue was even higher

I posted something similar yesterday. I'm actually flying out of Hartford for $215 pp in 3rd week in Aug

 

[River Country]

You are driving to Hartford CT?

I just booked Newark to Tampa for $313 for 8/17

 

[artesian]

You are driving to Hartford CT?

I just booked Newark to Tampa for $313 for 8/17

I am. All in with parking, tolls and gas I am saving over $300 which will pay for the rental car for the week. I have flown out of AC and PHL a few times now and Hartford is not that much farther.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

I feel your pain, OP.

We booked SYR - MCO for August 17th to August 31st when Jetblue first released their schedule. $428 pp, non-stop flights both directions. Much higher than we have paid during the same timeframe the past two years.....2012 and 2013 were between $300 and $340 pp, round trip. We had enough Trueblue points, though, to get $400 of our total for free, so it ended up being reasonable with the points applied.

Fast forward to today....those same flights are $840 pp, round trip . O. M. G.

I can only assume that the airlines have discovered that we northerners like to escape to Orlando for a last blast of summer before the kiddos go back to school after Labor Day.

 

[brownhaired_girl]

I'm thinking you are checking to early. I just checked ITA software and see many dates ERW-MCO from end of April to early May for $134 one way non-stop. You don't buy tickets on this site but you can see what airlines are charging. I always purchase one way tickets. Check and see what space of dates are lower price (i.e. 4 weeks out/ 6 weeks out). Learn what a good price is and expect prices to be there at some time. Be patient. If you have an iPhone you can get the app onthefly and check many times a day and purchase at the right time. I fly from MSP to MCO and know that at some time my flights should come down to about $100/ticket.. I rarely pay more than that. It is hard to wait but it has paid off for me.

 

[jendrewmarg]

We are having the same issue. I'm looking to fly out of westchester airport the 15th or 16th of Aug and the flights are much higher than last year. I'm not sure if I should book now or wait and hope they go down and not up.

 

[JVL1018]

Ugh, it's so annoying. I have never ever paid more than $230 to fly round trip from EWR or JFK to MCO. And 99% of the time it's around $200.
We've decided to just drive.

 

[artesian]

Ugh, it's so annoying. I have never ever paid more than $230 to fly round trip from EWR or JFK to MCO. And 99% of the time it's around $200.
We've decided to just drive.

Feel your pain. As I mentioned above I got nervous and booked Jet Blue in Hartford. I didn't want to chance missing out on a rate that if I didn't get would cause me to drive

 

[Paging Tom Morrow]

I'm thinking you are checking to early. I just checked ITA software and see many dates ERW-MCO from end of April to early May for $134 one way non-stop. You don't buy tickets on this site but you can see what airlines are charging. I always purchase one way tickets. Check and see what space of dates are lower price (i.e. 4 weeks out/ 6 weeks out). Learn what a good price is and expect prices to be there at some time. Be patient. If you have an iPhone you can get the app onthefly and check many times a day and purchase at the right time. I fly from MSP to MCO and know that at some time my flights should come down to about $100/ticket.. I rarely pay more than that. It is hard to wait but it has paid off for me.

Apples and oranges. From August 15th through Labor Day, prices for the northeast to MCO have grown significantly over the last couple of years. People from the NYC Metro area have recognized that crowds at WDW are significantly lower due to southern schools being in session, while we finish out summer breaks. As a result, the lowest prices available on flights from JFK, LGA, ISP, EWR, HPN and Stewart tend to be when they are first released for those dates.

I live equi-distant from JFK and ISP. Easy drive to LGA and EWR as well. To find good fares, we have flown out of BDL (Hartford) and even considered Providence. We find that flying to TPA results in significant savings ($218 pp round trip this year) vs. the cheapest cost of flying to MCO ($430 pp round trip for same dates and similar times). For three tickets, that is a $636 savings and well worth the cost of a car rental and an extra hour of travel time to and from WDW.

 

[Asherry25]

I've booked on Frontier from Trenton.

 

[River Country]

interesting to see what prices did over the past 6 weeks. I actually saw the prices into MCO stay the same while TPA went down some which is when i booked it on United. Now i am looking for a good Car rental rate.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I'm thinking you are checking to [sic] early. I just checked ITA software and see many dates ERW-MCO from end of April to early May for $134 one way non-stop. You don't buy tickets on this site but you can see what airlines are charging. I always purchase one way tickets. Check and see what space of dates are lower price (i.e. 4 weeks out/ 6 weeks out). Learn what a good price is and expect prices to be there at some time. Be patient. If you have an iPhone you can get the app onthefly and check many times a day and purchase at the right time. I fly from MSP to MCO and know that at some time my flights should come down to about $100/ticket.. I rarely pay more than that. It is hard to wait but it has paid off for me.

Not good advice. Traveling in August is going to be more expensive than April/May. Ticket prices do not drop 4-6 weeks out; not in my experience (and I buy a lot of tickets) and not anymore, if they ever did. If I were traveling in August, I would have already purchased my tickets. Airline tickets are very expensive this summer and you aren't getting any great sale for August.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/travel/crunching-the-numbers-to-find-the-best-airfare.html

 

[Greysword]

I've booked on Frontier from Trenton.

I apologize for distracting this thread, but on this post I wanted to remind Asherry that Frontier just implemented new carry-on bag fees and rules. Please ensure you review them before traveling, so you are not blindsided.

 

[Asherry25]

I apologize for distracting this thread, but on this post I wanted to remind Asherry that Frontier just implemented new carry-on bag fees and rules. Please ensure you review them before traveling, so you are not blindsided.

Looks like they are in effect going forward for new tickets. That said, we are paying $20/pre-checked bag/flight (carry on free). We're only 30 minutes from Trenton, and at $8 parking/day with better flight times for us, it's still a win with baggage fees.

 

[RexyGirl]

I was thinking the same thing too, flights out of the NYC metro area are insane. Even Philly isn't much cheaper... unless you have a super late arrival and super early departure. That means scheduling extra days in just for travel. Frontier had decent prices but only when they came out. Now they too are insanely high if you are traveling a Fri-Sun with any of your flights. There are a few cheap days - but so hard to schedule around with their one flight per day schedule.
I had no idea Aug. was like this. Probably won't try to book again for this month in the future. I don't like having to book tickets so far in advance (like when they first come out) just to get semi-decent prices.
Sorry - just had to vent! Glad I saw this post.

 

[yaya74]

Just want to bump this thread up. There are four of us. Currently with the departure time that we want (arriving MCO by 1pm and leaving MCO around 3pm), the cost would be at least $1600 for us.... We hope to get airfare from EWR to MCO for less than $1200. Possible???????

 

[Paging Tom Morrow]

Possible - sure, but it really depends on what dates you are looking for. If you want to leave on a weekend and come back on a weekend, I wouldn't be surprised if $200 per person each way is the best deal you see. You should also check surrounding airports - particularly PHL. The extra 1 hour drive might be well worth it.