Booking flight legs separately

[london75]

Ever since we booked this August's flight outbound in Upper on Virgin with just points I've been looking for a return leg at a reasonable price and you wouldn't believe the options I've looked into!

What seems like quite a good idea now the kids are a little older and possibly to let them see a little more of the world, there is a return flight from New York direct to Manchester for quite a reasonable price (£390). There are also flights between MCO and New York as low as £70 per person. However, when I try to book these together on the same ticket despite the same airlines and times etc, it comes out at over £900 per person.

Given I'm currently thinking about flying to New York three days before the NYC-MAN flight home, are there any drawbacks to booking the two legs separately? What do you think the chances are of being bumped off the MCO-NYC flight and not getting an alternative within the three days left?

Any other issues you can think of?

At the moment it seems like a great idea so just looking for the inevitable gotcha!

Cheers, Andy

 

[TheFram4]

I really can believe the options you will have looked into because I'm doing the same but I plan to stop at New York on the way out returning from Orlando (Jacksonville?), just about on the verge of booking some complicated journey but like you looking for the pitfalls.
I don't think you should worry about getting bumped off the MCO -NYC leg as there are so many flights you would be bound to get sorted. I have done quite a few journeys between different cities in the USA and have had no issues to date.

 

[wayneg]

Ever since we booked this August's flight outbound in Upper on Virgin with just points I've been looking for a return leg at a reasonable price and you wouldn't believe the options I've looked into!

What seems like quite a good idea now the kids are a little older and possibly to let them see a little more of the world, there is a return flight from New York direct to Manchester for quite a reasonable price (£390). There are also flights between MCO and New York as low as £70 per person. However, when I try to book these together on the same ticket despite the same airlines and times etc, it comes out at over £900 per person.

Given I'm currently thinking about flying to New York three days before the NYC-MAN flight home, are there any drawbacks to booking the two legs separately? What do you think the chances are of being bumped off the MCO-NYC flight and not getting an alternative within the three days left?

Any other issues you can think of?

At the moment it seems like a great idea so just looking for the inevitable gotcha!

Cheers, Andy

What date is it you are looking for, let me take a look.

The one time we visited NYC we booked transatlantic flights as a round trip then a separate booking for internal flights to Florida, saved over £100pp back in 2002, we had no problems.
Issues only arise if you are late for your last leg, not being a thru ticket its your problem not the airlines but if you have 3 days in NYC that won't be a problem. We flew straight up to NYC then back to MAN with only a few hours spare, our visit to NYC was on the outbound leg.

 

[london75]

We're pretty flexible, I was considering the 21st up to New York and the 24th back to Manchester when this cheap one way seems to be available (only via the Flight Network though it seems).

Favourite alternatives are 3 days over in St Pete's or Clearwater and fly home from Tampa or a few days down nearer Miami and fly home from there although a lot of Miami flights seem to want to get you to Heathrow first then up to Manchester and I'd really like the Atlantic flight to be the final leg.

The New York flight is on AA codeshare with almost everybody it seems.

 

[disneyholic family]

we usually have our internal flights booked separate, since we have multiple stops inside the US - lots of one way flights that work out much cheaper for us when i book each one as a separate leg.
We typically fly to Orlando, then to Detroit, then to NY, then home.

Though sometimes we just fly into NY then to Orlando, then back to New York and then home.

But whatever route, we rarely have our flights on the same ticket. It works out much cheaper for us to book each flight separately.

the point being, given that you're going to be staying in NY for 3 days there really isn't much of a problem...unless you have a hurricane or some weather of some sort - but really...with 3 days between the flights, it shouldn't be an issue.

we often stop in new york on the way back - usually for 2 or 3 days.
it's great fun doing all the touristy things and going to a couple of broadway shows.

I try to have us there for 2 or 3 nights, so we can see two or three shows...and during the day we always go the museum of natural history (my kids LOVE it), the central park zoo (my kids LOVE it), we take the double decker bus (very touristy, but you do get a nice view of all of manhattan), FAO Schwarz, walking around central park, etc etc etc.

Lots of stuff to do in NYC!!!!

anyway, no problem doing the flights on separate tickets.
Price is the reason i've done it that way. It comes out much cheaper for us, if i have it on separate tickets.

The only problem with having flights on separate tickets is when you're flying the same day, from flight to flight, no one has to take care of you if your first flight is late for the second one. But we've never had an issue with it.

Bottom line, by all means go ahead and save the money!!!

 

[wayneg]

Had a quick look but I am going to have to get some work done(always gets in the way of DIS) nothing jumping out at me. Don't understand them only being on FlightNetwork, it is possible it won't accept your reservation but you would have to try and find out. Will try find time to have another look later today but having work done in the house and couriers arriving this afternoon. Spending too much on the house instead of holidays

 

[london75]

I know the feeling, my family can't understand how much time I put into finding the best options and I constantly tinker with the holiday so it rarely looks even vaguely close to the original plan we had months ago.

I love it when you find a slight tweak to the itinerary that gets you more for less. In this case we come home a day later, spending three nights in New York and actually spend slightly less than we had currently planned!

I'm sure we'll waste loads of money in New York but that's beside the point. I'm sure the kids will love seeing the real Central Park after the fake one on the million episodes of Jessie they've watched!

 

[pampat]

Every holiday we do now consists of direct flight to MCO and then on the way home we do 3 nights in NYC to take advantage of the day time flights back to UK (as well as the fact that we love NYC!). We usually book the transatlantic sections together, but then book the internal flights separately with Jet Blue. Not a problem, we've found.

Pam

 

[disneyholic family]

I know the feeling, my family can't understand how much time I put into finding the best options and I constantly tinker with the holiday so it rarely looks even vaguely close to the original plan we had months ago.

I love it when you find a slight tweak to the itinerary that gets you more for less. In this case we come home a day later, spending three nights in New York and actually spend slightly less than we had currently planned!

I'm sure we'll waste loads of money in New York but that's beside the point. I'm sure the kids will love seeing the real Central Park after the fake one on the million episodes of Jessie they've watched!

no such thing as 'wasting' money in new york - spending sure, but not wasting!!

you'll have a wonderful time..

the first time we went was back in 2001 (easy for me to remember because of 9/11)...
for many years, we had been flying on air canada (via toronto), but that summer i got very nervous about security....this was before the 9/11 attacks..
but something in me was very worried about security, so i switched us to el al, which meant flying via new york..
DH and i lived in manhattan for 3 years before we had kids and i'd always wanted to show the kids new york..
so since we were flying via new york anyway, i figured we may as well stop on the way back home for a few days..

now i have to say that when we first got there, the kids hated it...
new york is really really big and they're just not used to that sort of city...
let me see...how old were they at the time....DD was 16 and DS was 14...

i was really upset at first that they didn't like it since DH and i love it so much...
then i had an idea.....make it the movie tour of new york....
so i took them to every place that they knew from movies...(like in ghostbusters - the library, and central park west, etc....and movies that were in central park)
that really got them into the city....
after that they just enjoyed themselves (and as i said, they LOVED the museum of natural history and the central park zoo)...

we went on the ferry to the statue of liberty and ellis island ...
DD and i got terribly seasick on the ferry, so we changed our plans..
i had been planning on taking them to see DH's old office in the world trade center as well as to the observation deck on top...
but since we were so sick, i said we'd do it next year, saying, "We'll see it next year. The world trade center isn't going anywhere.".....less than 2 weeks later was 9/11...

since then we've stopped in new york every time. for a few days. It's never boring!!!

 

[london75]

Ours will be 6 and 8 so I'll probably spend a fair bit of time researching things to do and I doubt we'll get to shows or have any really nice meals but it's an experience never the less.

 

[disneyholic family]

Ours will be 6 and 8 so I'll probably spend a fair bit of time researching things to do and I doubt we'll get to shows or have any really nice meals but it's an experience never the less.

the central park zoo inside central park has a petting zoo which is good for kids that age....and the zoo itself is very good for kids the ages ofyours...
it's small and very manageable.
http://www.centralparkzoo.com/

in central park - there's the carousel (it's beautiful!!!) and lots of other things for kids..
here's a list of 10 things to do with kids in central park:
http://www.centralpark.com/guide/activities/children-s-activities.html

we used to live on 72nd street and central park west....right at an entrance to the park...
as you can imagine, DH and I spent a LOT Of time in the park when we lived there...

 

[wayneg]

Ours will be 6 and 8 so I'll probably spend a fair bit of time researching things to do and I doubt we'll get to shows or have any really nice meals but it's an experience never the less.

Matt was 8 when we visited, had 4 nights but didn't have enough time. We visited ground zero(1 years after it happened) Empire State building, Grand Central Station, saw a show(Beauty & The Beast) central park, open top bus tour, randomly walking around sight seeing.
Highlight was seeing the original Winnie the Pooh toys http://exhibitions.nypl.org/treasures/items/show/28

We only ate in one restaurant and couldn't believe the cost, so busy rest of time we just picked up a subway, McD's etc, no time to eat there.

 

[Elise79]

We took DD in April (she will be 6 next month) and she enjoyed it. We did Empire State with her but her favourite thing was the American Girl Store.

We had transatlantic flights booked and then our internals were booked separately.

In December we are flying in to NY again which is booked as part of return flying back out of MCO with the internal the next day booked on its own with JetBlue.

 

[wayneg]

Matt was 8 when we visited

He just saw this thread and sent me an email reminding me he did a Blog post about our trip. He wrote this in 2011, 9 years after our visit to commemorate Sept 11. http://mathewgillings.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/new-york-october-2002/

 

[london75]

Just a little update. Call me fickle but we're now flying home from West Palm Beach on the Sunday (24th). Booked it through Vayama which was a little scary as hadn't even heard of it until last week but got indirect to Manchester via Chicago with only 70 minutes connection for £342 per person. It's a BA codeshare of the very same AA flight I was looking at from Tampa! It's a very strange system the airlines use.

I can't select seats but the reference I was given by vayama is already working on the BA site. That price leaves me enough to try a legroom upgrade at the airport too. Woohoo.

We chose West Palm Beach as we're going to stay for a couple of nights at Vero Beach we think. No hurry to book that though unless anyone knows differently?

Very excited now.

 

[disneyholic family]

Just a little update. Call me fickle but we're now flying home from West Palm Beach on the Sunday (24th). Booked it through Vayama which was a little scary as hadn't even heard of it until last week but got indirect to Manchester via Chicago with only 70 minutes connection for £342 per person. It's a BA codeshare of the very same AA flight I was looking at from Tampa! It's a very strange system the airlines use.

I can't select seats but the reference I was given by vayama is already working on the BA site. That price leaves me enough to try a legroom upgrade at the airport too. Woohoo.

We chose West Palm Beach as we're going to stay for a couple of nights at Vero Beach we think. No hurry to book that though unless anyone knows differently?

Very excited now.

so if i understand you, you're flying direct to orlando and indirect back home.
The 70 minute connection in Chicago is doable, since you just have to get from one plane to the other.
Just be sure when you check your luggage in at the airport in Palm Beach that you tell them to check the luggage all the way through to the UK.

In fact, i suggest doing what i do and have them show you the tag they put on your suitcase so that you see that it is actually checked all the way through to the UK.
The really good ground agents show it to you without even being asked to do so - but if they don't, by all means double check that the baggage tag does show your final destination.

.

 

[london75]

That's right we had enough miles for upper class direct on the way there but weren't ready to choose a return date due to work commitments so we've only just found the indirect return. We flew AA via Chicago last year and the second leg was three gates down if I remember correctly. Probably that was just luck but at least it ought to be the same terminal.

The Tampa and mco returns both had 4+ hours in Chicago and this is cheaper too so I'm really chuffed. No idea what west palm beach airport is like though.

 

[disneyholic family]

That's right we had enough miles for upper class direct on the way there but weren't ready to choose a return date due to work commitments so we've only just found the indirect return. We flew AA via Chicago last year and the second leg was three gates down if I remember correctly. Probably that was just luck but at least it ought to be the same terminal.

The Tampa and mco returns both had 4+ hours in Chicago and this is cheaper too so I'm really chuffed. No idea what west palm beach airport is like though.

i guess this must be it:
http://www.pbia.org/

map:
http://www.pbia.org/guide/terminal-map/

 

[london75]

i guess this must be it: http://www.pbia.org/ map: http://www.pbia.org/guide/terminal-map/

It looks quite nice actually, I'll report back in when we're back.

 

[Woodview]

So you hire a car in MCO and hand it back in West Palm Beach ...is there

an extra charge for returning car at a different departure airport. ?