Booking internal flights myself - any tips for a newbie?

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

I still have several internal flights to book for our upcoming trip and this is the first time I have done this myself.

I have been looking on the Hipmunk website that Karen recommended which is great to get a feel for pricing and which airline offers flights for that route.

I also think someone suggested waiting until it is under 6 months until you need to fly because alot of the airlines don't release the flights until then.

Also, is it correct that most of the airlines (except Southwest) charge for all bags now?

Any other information you could share with me to make the process less stressful would be greatly appreciated.

The flights I need to book are:-

NYC to Quebec City
Quebec City to Toronto
Buffalo to Boston
Boston to Washington

Does it matter if I book each leg with a different airline or would it be best to try and book as many as possible with the same airline? Are there any benefits to doing this?

I probably have more questions but can't think of anything right now lolol.

 

[WAMUMOF4]

I would definitely be looking at Southwest my reasons are mind you keep in mind i haven't flown them yet.
Our US Friends only fly someone else when they have to.

I booked return DFW to LAX airfares with American Airlines and i am loosing the money on them if i want to change the dates i have to pay $150 per person + the fare difference to change them.

Southwest i originally booked New York to DFW then we decided we were not going to NY i went online typed in my confirmation number and changed the flights to LAX to Seattle ended up being the same fare price and it cost me nothing to change them. It was so easy to change hopefully they are good to fly with but knowing my friends they wouldn't being flying them if it was an issue.

 

[Kangarucci]

Any frequent flyer points to use?
What about train Boston to Washington.
I think that I've bought mine individually. Just waiting/ finding the best price and booking it.
Not much help, sorry.

 

[nikdisney]

I still have several internal flights to book for our upcoming trip and this is the first time I have done this myself.

I have been looking on the Hipmunk website that Karen recommended which is great to get a feel for pricing and which airline offers flights for that route.

I also think someone suggested waiting until it is under 6 months until you need to fly because alot of the airlines don't release the flights until then.

Also, is it correct that most of the airlines (except Southwest) charge for all bags now?

Any other information you could share with me to make the process less stressful would be greatly appreciated.

The flights I need to book are:-

NYC to Quebec City
Quebec City to Toronto
Buffalo to Boston
Boston to Washington

Does it matter if I book each leg with a different airline or would it be best to try and book as many as possible with the same airline? Are there any benefits to doing this?

I probably have more questions but can't think of anything right now lolol.

Hi Shuttergirl,

I'm no expert, but I'm flying from Orlando to Toronto after my Disney trip (I'm a Canadian living in Oz). I just booked the internal flight with Westjet.com last night. They are having a 15% off all flights right now (just started yesterday) up to Dec 14th - and they include one checked bag each. it worked out cheaper than any other airline because everyone else seemed to charge for baggage. I haven't flown them in a few years, but they were always excellent in the past. They won't fly Buffalo to Boston, or Boston to Washington (they are a Canadian airline), but they should fly NY to QC and QC to TO.

Good luck! We'll be in WDW about the same time as you - we are there Dec 3-12

 

[alicia1506]

we flew jetblue and southwest on our internal flights last year...

jetblue allow 1 free checked bag, so we booked them for our earlier flights on the trip, when we would only have 1 checked bag. i think their second bag is only $20.

southwest allow 2 free bags and we loved them. the inflight staff are great, have a nice sense of humour and are usually veteran staff (that we observed anyway) so seem to be a little more professional. the planes themselves are fairly standard and certainly nothing to rave about, but we felt safe, comfortable and well looked after. southwest do not have any change fees and they are very upfront about policies etc. i found they were consistently priced under most airlines, but they don't advertise on third party resellers, so you won't find them there.

when i was booking all of our flights myself for our last trip, i just monitored the flights like crazy. i found most airlines charge more the further out your trip is, and tend to discount closer to the flight time (unlike accomodation and international flights). southwest has crazy deals like $40 for their 'get away' fare for some flights... the most expensive flight we booked was $130. that's practically a bargain for us. i found the best deals for southwest are usually offered a few months before you go, sometimes on their less flown routes and the best way to hear about them is to sign up for their emails. sure, you'll get some marketing stuff in there, but when those $40 or $50 or $60 flights come up, it's worthwhile to know about it beforehand.

just my $0.02

 

[Andona]

I usually start with Expedia.com Strongly recommend Expedia.com rather than expedia.com.au because I've found that there are sometimes flights listed on the .com site that just don't come up on the .com.au site.

I also use skyscanner.com as it will search travel sites like Expedia, eDreams, Jetabroad, Travelocity etc in one go and save you having to look at all those sites separately.

Make sure you check out Southwest and Jetblue separately as they don't usually feed their flights into the consolidators like Expedia etc.

I've flown Southwest and they were fine - the only issue I had with them was the business of them not allocating specific seats for your ticket but I believe that others on the board have paid the extra fee for priority seating and found that it was worthwhile.

If you are a Qantas FF you can earn points with American Airlines. if you are a Velocity member you can earn points with Virgin America - that might be a consideration for you?

I also recommend that you check out the insidetrip.com website. It compares flights across several airlines and will "rate" the flight according to a heap of factors such as age of aircraft, average flight delays, length of flight and length of layover (if it's an indirect flight) , how often they lose luggage, "comfort" level ( which includes things like seat pitch and how crowded the flight usually is). You can ask it to disregard certain factors ( e.g. if you don't care about the age of the aircraft or the "comfort" level - you can take them out of the equation)

After I've used those sites to narrow down my choice I'll usually check the specific airline to see if the flight is as cheap or cheaper booking direct with them. Generally I prefer to book directly with the airline unless it will save me a lot of money to book with a consolidator.

I dont really see any advantage to booking all the flight with one airline other than
a. if you wanted to go with one airline to earn FF points or
b. you liked to be able to log into one site to check all your bookings in one place.

There may be another advantage that i don't know about though

Because all the airlines operate out of different hubs the prices will vary dramatically across different airlines for the same route , so I'm usually happier to go with the best deal on each individual flight ( with an airline that I'm comfortable with) . It means I've flown with 3 or 4 different airlines on one trip but I'm OK with that

Good luck!
Andona

 

[ame]

Any frequent flyer points to use?
What about train Boston to Washington.
I think that I've bought mine individually. Just waiting/ finding the best price and booking it.
Not much help, sorry.

my thoughts too. The Acela is a convenient and affordable solution there.

There is also airfarewatchdog where you can have prices emailed to you and kayak which sounds like hipmunk.

Good luck!

 

[GrazingGoat1966]

For what it's worth we have flown Southwest exclusively domestically for our last 3 trips to the States and have NEVER had a problem. Plane has never fallen out of the sky....what more can you realistically ask for?

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

I would definitely be looking at Southwest my reasons are mind you keep in mind i haven't flown them yet.
Our US Friends only fly someone else when they have to.

I booked return DFW to LAX airfares with American Airlines and i am loosing the money on them if i want to change the dates i have to pay $150 per person + the fare difference to change them.

Southwest i originally booked New York to DFW then we decided we were not going to NY i went online typed in my confirmation number and changed the flights to LAX to Seattle ended up being the same fare price and it cost me nothing to change them. It was so easy to change hopefully they are good to fly with but knowing my friends they wouldn't being flying them if it was an issue.

That's a good point, it would be great to have bookings with an airline that let you make changes. With that said, I'm so anal, once I book stuff I very rarely consider changing. I did look at the routes Southwest fly and I don't think they service many of the places I want to go to, not with direct flights anyway.

Any frequent flyer points to use?
What about train Boston to Washington.
I think that I've bought mine individually. Just waiting/ finding the best price and booking it.
Not much help, sorry.

Wouldn't the train from Boston to Washington be a very long train trip? I know NYC to Washington is about 3 hours so would that mean Boston to Washington would be 5+ hours?

Hi Shuttergirl,

I'm no expert, but I'm flying from Orlando to Toronto after my Disney trip (I'm a Canadian living in Oz). I just booked the internal flight with Westjet.com last night. They are having a 15% off all flights right now (just started yesterday) up to Dec 14th - and they include one checked bag each. it worked out cheaper than any other airline because everyone else seemed to charge for baggage. I haven't flown them in a few years, but they were always excellent in the past. They won't fly Buffalo to Boston, or Boston to Washington (they are a Canadian airline), but they should fly NY to QC and QC to TO.

Good luck! We'll be in WDW about the same time as you - we are there Dec 3-12

Nikdisney, thanks for the heads up on the Westjet sale. I wouldn't need to fly into Canada until 29 December so I believe I would miss the sale but I'm going to go and check it out today. Thank you.

We arrive at WDW very late on 9 Dec and are there until 20 Dec

we flew jetblue and southwest on our internal flights last year...

jetblue allow 1 free checked bag, so we booked them for our earlier flights on the trip, when we would only have 1 checked bag. i think their second bag is only $20.

southwest allow 2 free bags and we loved them. the inflight staff are great, have a nice sense of humour and are usually veteran staff (that we observed anyway) so seem to be a little more professional. the planes themselves are fairly standard and certainly nothing to rave about, but we felt safe, comfortable and well looked after. southwest do not have any change fees and they are very upfront about policies etc. i found they were consistently priced under most airlines, but they don't advertise on third party resellers, so you won't find them there.

when i was booking all of our flights myself for our last trip, i just monitored the flights like crazy. i found most airlines charge more the further out your trip is, and tend to discount closer to the flight time (unlike accomodation and international flights). southwest has crazy deals like $40 for their 'get away' fare for some flights... the most expensive flight we booked was $130. that's practically a bargain for us. i found the best deals for southwest are usually offered a few months before you go, sometimes on their less flown routes and the best way to hear about them is to sign up for their emails. sure, you'll get some marketing stuff in there, but when those $40 or $50 or $60 flights come up, it's worthwhile to know about it beforehand.

just my $0.02

I might sign up with Southwest then so I can receive their email sales. Thanks for mentioning that.

I usually start with Expedia.com Strongly recommend Expedia.com rather than expedia.com.au because I've found that there are sometimes flights listed on the .com site that just don't come up on the .com.au site.

I also use skyscanner.com as it will search travel sites like Expedia, eDreams, Jetabroad, Travelocity etc in one go and save you having to look at all those sites separately.

Make sure you check out Southwest and Jetblue separately as they don't usually feed their flights into the consolidators like Expedia etc.

I've flown Southwest and they were fine - the only issue I had with them was the business of them not allocating specific seats for your ticket but I believe that others on the board have paid the extra fee for priority seating and found that it was worthwhile.

If you are a Qantas FF you can earn points with American Airlines. if you are a Velocity member you can earn points with Virgin America - that might be a consideration for you?

I also recommend that you check out the insidetrip.com website. It compares flights across several airlines and will "rate" the flight according to a heap of factors such as age of aircraft, average flight delays, length of flight and length of layover (if it's an indirect flight) , how often they lose luggage, "comfort" level ( which includes things like seat pitch and how crowded the flight usually is). You can ask it to disregard certain factors ( e.g. if you don't care about the age of the aircraft or the "comfort" level - you can take them out of the equation)

After I've used those sites to narrow down my choice I'll usually check the specific airline to see if the flight is as cheap or cheaper booking direct with them. Generally I prefer to book directly with the airline unless it will save me a lot of money to book with a consolidator.

I dont really see any advantage to booking all the flight with one airline other than
a. if you wanted to go with one airline to earn FF points or
b. you liked to be able to log into one site to check all your bookings in one place.

There may be another advantage that i don't know about though

Because all the airlines operate out of different hubs the prices will vary dramatically across different airlines for the same route , so I'm usually happier to go with the best deal on each individual flight ( with an airline that I'm comfortable with) . It means I've flown with 3 or 4 different airlines on one trip but I'm OK with that

Good luck!
Andona

I hadn't thought of looking on expedia.com. Great idea. I'm going to have a play around with it this afternoon. I will also check Jetblue directly. Southwest haven't released the dates I want yet.

my thoughts too. The Acela is a convenient and affordable solution there.

There is also airfarewatchdog where you can have prices emailed to you and kayak which sounds like hipmunk.

Good luck!

Thanks ame, I will have a look at airfarewatchdog today.

For what it's worth we have flown Southwest exclusively domestically for our last 3 trips to the States and have NEVER had a problem. Plane has never fallen out of the sky....what more can you realistically ask for?

That's good to know Grazinggoat. I like my planes to stay up in the air

 

[Kangarucci]

Ms. Shuttergirl- I don't know the actual time that it takes as I have only travelled Washington to New York, however, if you factor in the wait at the airport/security and then at the other end- waiting for luggage, you may not save much time overall.

The train trip is quite pleasant with plenty of space.

 

[australiankaren]

I travelled on peter pan/ greyhound boston- new york- washington in 2008....cheap and cheerful, although my travel buddy nearly got in a punch up with an old women about overhead space.....

they are clean, on time and budget friendly...and run every hour ish...

good way to see the country...and it is beautiful, especially outside boston

 

[cola]

There are two possible reasons to stick to one airline:

1) your flight from Australia is with them and if it is all on the one ticket, you don't have to pay for baggage. If it's not all on the one ticket and you have your Australian originating ticket, you have a good chance of being let off paying for baggage.

2) don't change airlines mid leg - keep connecting flights on the one airline, particularly with the time of year you are going, delays are common, if a connecting leg is a different airline and you miss it due to a delay it is all your problem. If a connecting leg is the same airline and you miss it, it is usually their problem. If you just go for direct flights connecting legs don't need to be considered, but sometimes there is a HUGE saving for even just one connection. Sometimes they are more expensive. It is all about demand, and only the airline knows the demand.

 

[mattincanberra]

I would suggest having a look at Porter airlines for your New York-Quebec City-Toronto Legs. First bag is free, and in Toronto they use an airport that is basically downtown rather than Pearson which is the more usual miles from anywhere Airport.

From Buffalo I would absolutely Look at JetBlue (first bag free) and then from Boston to DC I would look at the train vs JetBlue - be aware that DC has three airports, DCA (Reagan National) is the most convenient, then IAD (Dulles) then BWI (Baltimore).

If you are looking for a cheaper hotel in DC have a look in the Crystal City area - inevitably they will have a free shuttle to and from DCA, and it is an easy metro ride (Washington's Subway system) into the touristy bits of DC.