Crazy NE airfares in April

[Figment&Piglet]

To the OP: we travel every year Sat. to Sat. of April school vacation. We fly PVD or BDL to MCO whichever is cheapest. We buy tix the second SW releases their flights. You will need to act fast and buy immediately--within minutes--to snag the best fares. Dont hesitate! Doing this we've never paid more than $300 per person. Prices rise all morning and never come down.

 

[no one]

Thanks, that is the exact information I was looking for. I am ready for tomorrow morning.

 

[SuzaBanana]

I am in the same situation, although we have a bit more flexibility with dates. Does SW fly direct to Ft. Myers or Tampa? I'm assuming flights will be highest to MCO from BOS (which is 20 mins from home, so flying from anywhere else really needs to be many hundreds of dollars cheaper per person) and hoping that another airport might be better flying Wed-Fri for example.

 

[DisDadDVC]

I am in the same situation, although we have a bit more flexibility with dates. Does SW fly direct to Ft. Myers or Tampa? I'm assuming flights will be highest to MCO from BOS (which is 20 mins from home, so flying from anywhere else really needs to be many hundreds of dollars cheaper per person) and hoping that another airport might be better flying Wed-Fri for example.

Both PVD and BDL have non-stops to TPA and FLL, but I find they are generally priced the same as MCO (at least to start)

 

[rdevine10]

The reason you are not seeing cheaper flights out of BDL is most of CT has spring break that week too. The perfect storm of several state trying to fly to FL for april break. We live in western CT. I prefer to fly out of BDL due to much lower parking costs, even though its farther than NYC for me. However we are flying out of JFK in april. NYC has april break a different week- thankfully!

 

[CookieandOatmeal]

This has been all that has consumed me today. Prepared and ready for tomorrow's SW April vacation fare release. Hoping and praying for the best!

 

[Donna M]

Good luck everybody

 

[zilp]

WTH? When did tickets go on sale?? I kept refreshing since 5:45am and all of a sudden around 6:30am it show all flights almost all sold out??

 

[edbo77]

I'd say that about 2/3 of the flights that I'm looking at are showing unavailable at the Wanna Get Away fare level. Have only been looking for about 10 minutes or so, not sure if that means that all of the tickets in that price range have already been snapped up.

 

[Figment&Piglet]

I think I jinxed myself. LOL. The fares were sky high from PVD this morning so we got tix out of BDL and still paid over $1100 for the three of us. And the prices are still climbing. I've never seen PVD so expensive with no wanna get away fares!

 

[no one]

OP here. I booked this morning but as PP said prices were pretty disappointing out of PVD (BOS no better). No wanna get away fares available. I did get two non stop flights, booked through my Chase card using points. I just dont know where those fares are that people talk about with $300RT in the past. This was $900 RT per person anytime fare.

 

[DisDadDVC]

I'd say that about 2/3 of the flights that I'm looking at are showing unavailable at the Wanna Get Away fare level. Have only been looking for about 10 minutes or so, not sure if that means that all of the tickets in that price range have already been snapped up.

No, they were never available. SW will release them in a month or so.

 

[DisDadDVC]

For those looking at PVD the week of 4/15, WGA fares WILL get released in the future. I would expect you will be able to get WGA fares < $300.

 

[Figment&Piglet]

I respectfully disagree. In 6-7 years of buying April school vacation tix from PVD and BDL, always on SW and always the morn the schedule is released, I can tell you that prices were never higher than they were this morn, and prices have never come down after the first morn of schedule release--only up. I will be very shocked (pleasantly) if they come down. However given the flights we got from BDL this morn went from 350 each when we bought to 816 inside of 40 minutes, I think this is the last time we do this crazy mad rush. Too stressful and too expensive!

 

[zilp]

No, they were never available. SW will release them in a month or so.

So SW never released all their WGA fares? I did see a few available and all were priced from $299 and up. Now they are all gone.

 

[DisDadDVC]

So SW never released all their WGA fares? I did see a few available and all were priced from $299 and up. Now they are all gone.

They often hold some back for the in demand days. You will see them come and go today probably. Usually after a month they release a bunch more.

 

[katie111]

Be sure to check Kayak this morning for other airlines. We are trying to go to either Cancun or Costa Rica for April vacation & Kayak had the lowest fares I've seen in the past month this morning. Thinking it's tied to SW releasing their dates. And the fares were cheaper than SW.

 

[zilp]

They often hold some back for the in demand days. You will see them come and go today probably. Usually after a month they release a bunch more.

I sure hope so. I've never flown during school breaks. This is stressful and $$$ !

 

[CookieandOatmeal]

We've been staking out since 5:45 and booked Wanna Get Away fares for April school vacation 4/18-4/22 for two from PVD. Paid $1060 for the fare and with all the taxes and early bird- came to $1246. Most expensive WGA fares we've ever paid. We booked immediately when they open. Hubby said within minutes from completing our purchase, the fares already went up by $200.

 

[monorailsilver]

April 2016 will be our 4th April in a row going to FL. The first one my sister moved in September (we go visit her in Ft. Myers) and tickets were outrageous at that point. I live in southern CT near the CT river. I even checked the NYC airports up until the day we left, well the day before. I am from that side of the state and we could of stayed at my moms to get to NYC. So we drove (dh, me, 3 kids and my mom).

The next year we did the Autotrain and I booked it as soon as I could and it ended up being $1800 ish RT with our car (my mom flew and we just took her luggage). But we hated the AT so for April 2015 I booked flights on Delta the day they came out because I was afraid of what Jet Blues would be like. That was a mistake, flights were cheap RT about $240 but we had a connection in Atlanta both ways and we flew into Tampa as it was cheaper so we had a 2 hr drive after landing and when JB flights came out they were only about $10 more and direct and into FT. Myers.

So for April 2016, I held off until July and booked with Jet Blue the day they came out. At 9am, the site was not working and when it finally did, flights were $500 RT from BDL to RSW. I looked at Providence, LGA, JFK and HPN. They were all pretty much the same. I told my dh we were driving and he said fine (we both dreaded the drive but we didn't want to spend $2500 plus rental car). So what did I do next, I checked the dis boards and some kind soul said to check in thru google flights so I did and holy $**&#&#, the flight was $236 RT so I booked 6 tickets. Phew!

So yes I feel your pain. Our vacation week is the 18th-22nd. We are flying on the 1/2 day (I think it is a 1/2 day), the 15th and returning Monday the 25th.

My hometown of Trumbull I believe has the week before off.

I am just so relieved it is later this year because last April our vacation started with Good Friday and lets just say all the roads to the beaches and the beaches themselves were crowded. Our final Monday we went to the beach which was a new week and everyone left. We were able to drive thru the Ft. Myers Beach road with out any delays. It was so nice. So I am hoping next April it is the same...6 months, well 5 months and 3 weeks but who is counting!