Disers from SK check for flights!

[CdnKayDee]

Hi,

We have been watching for our flights for our dates (Sept 22 - Oct 7) for some time. The flight prices have been incredibly high. We checked last night and they dropped to $477/person out of Regina on Delta. Haven't seen this low in quite some time. If you are planning a trip and want a good deal we say grab it! Of course, now we will be watching to see if it drops more and we bought too early.

Kim and Danelle

 

[dis_guy]

Hi,

Of course, now we will be watching to see if it drops more and we bought too early.

Kim and Danelle

How true, lol! I vow every time to stop checking fares after we book, but I always do anyway. Once you form a habit...

We've been very lucky and have never seen a lower fare after we booked. There's always a first time, though.

 

[holidaygirl]

Have you looked for flights out of Minot? We have driven down for the past three years and taken flights from there, great prices, good departure times, hotel will let you leave your car at no charge, and no US customs in the airport

 

[CdnKayDee]

Have you looked for flights out of Minot? We have driven down for the past three years and taken flights from there, great prices, good departure times, hotel will let you leave your car at no charge, and no US customs in the airport

What is the cheapest you have flown out of Minot? We had been watching Minot prices but we thought the $477 was such a good price. Clearing customs at the border would be so much easier!

 

[almacdonald]

After our last flight with Delta, we won't be flying with them anymore!

The airport check-in in Vegas was a nightmare, complete chaos, no line ups, just people pushing their way in where ever there was room. The self check-in kiosks weren't working for some people, it directed you to see an agent. Well, the only agents working were the ones at the luggage drop-off desk. We were corralled over to a "line up" which actually had no entrance, it had ropes all the way around. We stood in that line for over 2 hours before anyone told us what was going on. Turns out our flight was delayed and we were going to miss our connection. It took them over an hour to sort out another flight for us, which was hard because they don't have any code share partners that fly to Canada. They did pay for our hotel but it was some crappy hotel in the middle of nowhere. We were each given a meal voucher for $7 to cover us for 24 hours. FFWD to the next day, we have a layover in Salt Lake City. There are 5 gates jammed into a tiny area with like 50 seats. No room, so we go sit somewhere else for 8 hours. Come back approximately an hour before our flight departs and find out we need to RE-check-in with the desk and the second check-in order would determine which order people would be let on to the over sold flight. We were next to last, we almost got bumped from another flight even though we had check-in like 12 hours earlier! And had we been bumped, we would have been spending 2 nights in SLC before flying to Minneanapolis THEN to Calgary. Yah, you heard me right, 3 extra nights to get back to Calgary. Every leg of our flight was over-sold. Nearly every flight departing from the gates near ours were over sold.

I did find a really good price on a delta flight to Orlando for our upcoming trip but there is no way I am putting up with that "service" again. For fun, I checked the "on time departure" percentage... 30%! That's probably because they're spending so much time trying to find volunteers to take another flight.

I've never been one to hold a grudge against an airline before but Delta has definitely lost my business. I don't care how cheap they are, you get what you pay for. Oh, and they make you pay for each checked bag too. Factor that into your cost too.

 

[holidaygirl]

We paid $456 but for Feb. 2011, that is the cheapest that it has ever been. We are flying with United, only one stop in Denver. We have flown Delta in the past with no issue's, (cross my fingers) yet.

 

[almacdonald]

We have flown United lots of times, Denver is a good connection airport. Fingers crossed for a good flight for you guys!

 

[SaskDisNut]

$477! Great price. The cheapest we've booked was $420 back in Feb. '08 for our Dec '08 trip on NWA. Our trip last Oct we drove to MSP and flew from there for $270 each on Delta. I've priced flights out of Minot but have never seen them much cheaper than Regina especially when you factor the cost of gas and hotel. Allegiant Airlines flies out of Fargo and I've seen fares as low as $39 one way. Allegiant flies into Sanford airport so no DME.

United is adding a YQR-ORD (Chicago O'Hare) flight starting in June, so that will add another route to get to our beloved WDW!

holidaygirl, if you got $456 YQR-MCO for Feb. 2011 then you got a great deal. When did you book that? We are planning a trip for Feb or Mar 2011 and right now flights are over $700 .

My only wish is that Air Canada and WestJet would have flights with good connections somewhere where you don't need 2 days to get to MCO.

 

[CdnKayDee]

We are still quite pumped about the price. We have been watching (not sure what good it will do) and the prices have went up slightly. For awhile out of Minot for our dates was $440 when Regina was $577, we were really considering going the Minot route slowly but surely the Regina prices came down.

We feel that the Delta (old NWA) far surpasses the AC and West Jet for flight schedules out of Regina. It would be nice to have the TVs but what can you do.

SaskDisNut we are sure the prices will go down as they always seem to. We have paid around $500/flight for the past 4 years and went at different times.

 

[dis_guy]

United is adding a YQR-ORD (Chicago O'Hare) flight starting in June, so that will add another route to get to our beloved WDW!

I'd be careful of that ORD connection- it's not a very "connection friendly" airport. The only time I flew United through Chicago, I had to change terminals before catching my next flight.

MSP and DEN are way better places to change planes, with Denver being my favourite by far. You can sometimes get much cheaper fares through ORD because most people avoid connecting there if they can. YMMV

 

[holidaygirl]

Love your flag SaskDisNut!
We booked our flights over the Easter Break, pretty much as soon as they were available...... yes we have a problem.....planning our trips to the world is a huge passtime Now I am just working on where to stay....OKW, AKV or THV..... problems, problems, problems

 

[DeannaMKB]

Hi Everybody! I have been looking at flights for February 2011 out of Regina. Price doesn't matter too much as we will be using airmiles but I'm trying to weigh the benefits of getting in earlier to MCO (but going kind of out of the way through Denver) as opposed to getting in later to Orlando but having actual shorter flight time (going through Chicago). Someone posted that Denver is an easier connecting airport than Chicago. Is that everyone's sentiment? We have only ever flown through Minneapolis. Is it worth going through Denver to have longer air time? What about weather in February? Are any of those airports more likely to have bad weather?? I wish that Minneapolis flight hadn't changed as I believe we would have been getting in around 2:30 and now the earliest I see is 4:15. Anyway, thank you for your advice! Good luck to everyone in your planning!

 

[DeannaMKB]

And another concern I have is this...what if Air Canada or WestJet do finally come up with some better flight options? I am kind of scared to book a flight and then perhaps a better option come up later. I don't know what to do!?!

 

[SaskDisNut]

I'd be careful of that ORD connection- it's not a very "connection friendly" airport. The only time I flew United through Chicago, I had to change terminals before catching my next flight.

MSP and DEN are way better places to change planes, with Denver being my favourite by far. You can sometimes get much cheaper fares through ORD because most people avoid connecting there if they can. YMMV

We've been through ORD once before in 2007. We like to call that trip our circling the continent tour. We used Aeroplan points and to get the 4 of us on flights for 25000 pts each so I didn't have much choice. We ended up going from YQR-YWG-ORD-MCO going down and MCO-DEN-YYC-YQR coming home. We got to see a lot of airports on that trip. The nice thing with flying through Winnipeg was that we got to clear US customs there (something we can't do in YQR ) so then in Chicago we just hopped on a shuttle that took us to the other terminal for our next flight. It wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be. But man that is a huge airport. We've been through MSP a few times now and feel pretty comfortable navigating our way around there. DEN is huge too but seemed very nice in the short time we spent there.

 

[SaskDisNut]

Love your flag SaskDisNut!
We booked our flights over the Easter Break, pretty much as soon as they were available...... yes we have a problem.....planning our trips to the world is a huge passtime Now I am just working on where to stay....OKW, AKV or THV..... problems, problems, problems

Thanks. Hopefully the Green & White will get a chance to not have too many players on the field come November.

Our problem is we don't have our dates figured out yet so we won't book until we do. DD and DS will be in grade 8 next year so we want to minimize them missing school since I want to go for 2 weeks. We are looking at the school calendar for next year so hopefully we can figure out when to go soon and then begin doing multiple daily Kayak checks for airfare and flight options.

Good luck solving your problem now that you've got your flights out of the way. Those are some tough choices! Do you own DVC? That's something I'm trying to figure out if it fits in to our future.

Hi Everybody! I have been looking at flights for February 2011 out of Regina. Price doesn't matter too much as we will be using airmiles but I'm trying to weigh the benefits of getting in earlier to MCO (but going kind of out of the way through Denver) as opposed to getting in later to Orlando but having actual shorter flight time (going through Chicago). Someone posted that Denver is an easier connecting airport than Chicago. Is that everyone's sentiment? We have only ever flown through Minneapolis. Is it worth going through Denver to have longer air time? What about weather in February? Are any of those airports more likely to have bad weather?? I wish that Minneapolis flight hadn't changed as I believe we would have been getting in around 2:30 and now the earliest I see is 4:15. Anyway, thank you for your advice! Good luck to everyone in your planning!

Getting into MCO earlier is always a good thing! I think as long as the flights work for you it doesn't matter where you connect through. Winter travel through any of those cities is going to be hit or miss. As long as you have a backup plan, and watch the weather. If you know a storm is heading to any of your airports the airline might accomodate you and get you on a flight before the storm hits. They do issue travel advisories and can waive change fees to get you on another flight.

I noticed that the early YQR-MSP-MCO option isn't there right now for Feb., Mar. I'm hoping that those flights will show up again as we get closer to those dates. Maybe Delta doesn't have all of their flights determined yet. Now that Delta has 4 daily YQR-MSP flights, we should have more options.

And another concern I have is this...what if Air Canada or WestJet do finally come up with some better flight options? I am kind of scared to book a flight and then perhaps a better option come up later. I don't know what to do!?!

I really don't think you need to worry about that since with AC and WestJet we usually have to connect in Toronto. I'd much rather connect in MSP or DEN or even ORD (right dis_guy ) before YYZ.

OK, last thing and then I'm done for the night. I'm impressed with the number of us Saskatchewanites that seem to be posting lately. Let's keep it up.

 

[dis_guy]

And another concern I have is this...what if Air Canada or WestJet do finally come up with some better flight options? I am kind of scared to book a flight and then perhaps a better option come up later. I don't know what to do!?!

Even though I fly with United regularly, I've never booked a flight directly with them on united.ca. I've always gotten much better prices on my United flights on aircanada.com. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason on whether the prices for the exact same flights ever match on the two web sites.

Anyway, I've saved on average a few hundred dollars for our family flights by keeping an eye on aircanada.com for the United codeshare flights.

 

[Harlie]

Last year we flew with westjet and thought the flight there was not bad (we left at 5 am and got there at about 6pm) our flight home was horrible - we had to leave the resort at 2:30 am flew to to Toronto for a 5 hour layover Flew over Regina to Calgary for a 3 hour layover and then got home at about midnight. It was almost 24 hours in a plane/airport. i was glad it was just me and dh I really don't know how my kids could have handled such a flight! When planning our Sept 2010 trip with our kids I looked again with west jet and AC and the flights home were horrible too! We have driven to Minneapolis before and it is not a bad drive. Driving to 10-12 hours will be nothing for us we drive to Jasper every year and its about the same. Our flights were 179 return per person flying Southwest and we get to MCO at noonish. and we leave MCO at 3 in the afternoon.

I saw that some one else for SK is going at the same time we are We are going Sept 20-30! We will be wearing our Rider Pride while out there will you? LOL!

 

[dis_guy]

Last year we flew with westjet and thought the flight there was not bad (we left at 5 am and got there at about 6pm) our flight home was horrible - we had to leave the resort at 2:30 am flew to to Toronto for a 5 hour layover Flew over Regina to Calgary for a 3 hour layover and then got home at about midnight. It was almost 24 hours in a plane/airport. i was glad it was just me and dh I really don't know how my kids could have handled such a flight! When planning our Sept 2010 trip with our kids I looked again with west jet and AC and the flights home were horrible too! We have driven to Minneapolis before and it is not a bad drive. Driving to 10-12 hours will be nothing for us we drive to Jasper every year and its about the same. Our flights were 179 return per person flying Southwest and we get to MCO at noonish. and we leave MCO at 3 in the afternoon.

I saw that some one else for SK is going at the same time we are We are going Sept 20-30! We will be wearing our Rider Pride while out there will you? LOL!

What a lousy bunch of flights you got from Westjet. Don't get me wrong I love WJ but going to Orlando from western Canada is really bad for times and connections unless you're lucky enough to have access to direct flights from Calgary.

Have a look at United flights. They have some good ones for SK flyers. How about a 6:40 AM departure for a 4:01 PM arrival in Orlando? Coming back you can grab the 3:35 PM flight and still be back home at 9:54 PM. These are for Saskatoon but Regina has similar options. As I've said before you can often do much better on United fares by checking aircanada.com.

As always, check often and don't hesitate when you see a good fare, just grab it.

 

[CdnKayDee]

Last year we flew with westjet and thought the flight there was not bad (we left at 5 am and got there at about 6pm) our flight home was horrible - we had to leave the resort at 2:30 am flew to to Toronto for a 5 hour layover Flew over Regina to Calgary for a 3 hour layover and then got home at about midnight. It was almost 24 hours in a plane/airport. i was glad it was just me and dh I really don't know how my kids could have handled such a flight! When planning our Sept 2010 trip with our kids I looked again with west jet and AC and the flights home were horrible too! We have driven to Minneapolis before and it is not a bad drive. Driving to 10-12 hours will be nothing for us we drive to Jasper every year and its about the same. Our flights were 179 return per person flying Southwest and we get to MCO at noonish. and we leave MCO at 3 in the afternoon.

I saw that some one else for SK is going at the same time we are We are going Sept 20-30! We will be wearing our Rider Pride while out there will you? LOL!

We will be there the same time and will be wearing our rider pride. Last time we were there we ran into others wearing rider pride. My husband and a friend went to a Tampa Bay Bucs game last year and wore their rider jerseys and got lots of comments and met a lot of people because of them.

We considered driving to Minnie but backed out because we have a 2 year old and thought that would be too much. We are pretty happy with our $477 flights and it is for good times as well.

Where are you staying while there? We are staying at Kidani.

 

[CdnKayDee]

Well we just rechecked our flights and they went back down 476. Anyone coming?