Flight advice for disembark please

[michellekcm]

We fly home to Australia from LAX the day we disembark from our cruise. I am currently looking at available flights - hoping to get direct flights from MCO to LAX to minimise potential issues.

My question - I'm thinking of doing the onboard check-in to make it easier to wrangle the kids at the end of the cruise and not have to worry about luggage at MCO, as well as have check-in sorted. My go-to airline in the US is Southwest, which isn't a participant. Which airline would you recommend to LAX?

Thanks.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We fly home to Australia from LAX the day we disembark from our cruise. I am currently looking at available flights - hoping to get direct flights from MCO to LAX to minimise potential issues.

My question - I'm thinking of doing the onboard check-in to make it easier to wrangle the kids at the end of the cruise and not have to worry about luggage at MCO, as well as have check-in sorted. My go-to airline in the US is Southwest, which isn't a participant. Which airline would you recommend to LAX?

Thanks.

You'll probably find Delta has the most flights. But I, personally, don't care for Delta. That said, my primary prerequisite when booking flights is non-stop. So sometimes we've booked Delta because they were the only non-stop flights that fit in the time criteria we wanted.

So, I look for 1) non-stop and then 2) cost and finally 3) flight times. I don't find much difference in US airlines, so this works for us.

 

[adamki]

The following airlines fly non-stop MCO-LAX:

• Alaska (with AA codeshares)
• American
• Delta
• Frontier*
• United
• Virgin America*

Frontier and VA are not participating airlines for onboard check-in AFAIK. I'd recommend using flights.google.com to check flights for your date and compare times/prices.

 

[holula]

My preference of the flights that do onboard check in would be Delta, American, United. Never flown Alaska. But I would also look at the flight times. A lot of direct flights to the West Coast only have early morning departures.

 

[mmouse37]

We are flying to LAX on United non stop (from Newark (EWR ) for our cruise next month. I have used United several times and really had no problems worth mentioning. Have also flow JetBlue from NY to LAX but doesn't look like they non-stops from MCO (at least for the days I checked).

MJ

 

[Captainkate]

SouthWest usually has great fares and 2 checked bags fly free. There is a list of available options when you book and you can usually get a flight where you stop but do not have to change planes. On Edit, I read that too fast. You said Southwest is not a participant. We also fly American Airlines on occasion. It sometimes beats the Southwest fair, but not by much. They usually have non-stop flights to choose from.

 

[CalDisneyMomof2]

My preference of the flights that do onboard check in would be Delta, American, United. Never flown Alaska. But I would also look at the flight times. A lot of direct flights to the West Coast only have early morning departures.

This is not true actually. Just looking at the day my family will be traveling home from MCO in November, there are 10 non-stop flights that day. 6 are after 4:55 P.M.

 

[adamki]

OP, are you flying Qantas home from LAX?

If so, flying American from MCO to LAX should allow your bags to be checked through all the way to Australia and, in my experience, American will not charge you a baggage fee if you are continuing internationally on a oneWorld partner airline (even if ticketed separately). In this case, however, I wouldn't trust the DCL system to correctly link the two reservations for baggage purposes; I would want to present my bags at MCO to an AA ticket agent and see the correct baggage tag with my own eyes. You'd have to decide which is worse; a) dragging your bags through customs coming off the ship or, b) picking them up at LAX and dragging them from whatever terminal your flight arrives over to TBIT/T4.

Personally, I'd choose to deal with 'a'.

 

[michellekcm]

OP, are you flying Qantas home from LAX?

If so, flying American from MCO to LAX should allow your bags to be checked through all the way to Australia and, in my experience, American will not charge you a baggage fee if you are continuing internationally on a oneWorld partner airline (even if ticketed separately). In this case, however, I wouldn't trust the DCL system to correctly link the two reservations for baggage purposes; I would want to present my bags at MCO to an AA ticket agent and see the correct baggage tag with my own eyes. You'd have to decide which is worse; a) dragging your bags through customs coming off the ship or, b) picking them up at LAX and dragging them from whatever terminal your flight arrives over to TBIT/T4.

Personally, I'd choose to deal with 'a'.

Oh wow, I didn't realise that. Yes, 'a' makes much more sense than 'b'. Thanks for that information, now to see what flights AA has.

 

[perditax]

Oh wow, I didn't realise that. Yes, 'a' makes much more sense than 'b'. Thanks for that information, now to see what flights AA has.

Keep in mind that if you're going to wrangle your own bags, southwest is back on the table.

 

[holula]

This is not true actually. Just looking at the day my family will be traveling home from MCO in November, there are 10 non-stop flights that day. 6 are after 4:55 P.M.

I looked at MCO for my October flights (I am flying to LAX) and I couldn't find any flights like that on the day I needed to fly. It would be so much better than my 6am departure from Tampa. But that's good to know in future.

 

[ludari]

I live in Los Angeles and travel all the time between MCO and LAX for a lot of my WDW visits and Disney Cruises. I definitely prefer flying non-stop so I typically pick American Airlines but I have also flown with Virgin America as well.

 

[CalDisneyMomof2]

I looked at MCO for my October flights (I am flying to LAX) and I couldn't find any flights like that on the day I needed to fly. It would be so much better than my 6am departure from Tampa. But that's good to know in future.

That's a bummer. We have a 5:35 PM flight back home in November.

 

[michellekcm]

There's an American Airlines non-stop flight that gets us into LAX 3 hours before our international flight. I'm thinking that it might be easier to book a day room at the MCO Hyatt and stay there until 4pm-ish, than have to hang around LAX all day .

Thanks for all the advice.

 

[adamki]

There's an American Airlines non-stop flight that gets us into LAX 3 hours before our international flight. I'm thinking that it might be easier to book a day room at the MCO Hyatt and stay there until 4pm-ish, than have to hang around LAX all day .

Thanks for all the advice.

That should be an easy connection.

Just in case anything happens to your MCO-LAX flight, know that your Qantas flight(s) are also protected by American Airlines/oneworld policy. MCO is not a huge station for American, so be prepared to cite chapter and verse of the policy should anything go wrong (and/or call AA to get it solved faster):

If a customer is holding separate tickets on AA or another oneworld carrier, customers holding separate tickets where travel is on oneworld airlines should be treated as through ticketed passengers. In the event of a disruption on the originating ticket, the carrier responsible for the disruption will be required to reroute the customer to their final destination. The ticket stock of the second ticket must be of a oneworld carrier, eligible under the Endorsement Waiver Agreement. You may contact AA Reservations 1-800-433-7300 (U.S. and Canada) or outside the U.S. and Canada, reference Worldwide Reservations Numbers for additional information if the separate ticket is for travel on a oneworld carrier.

Edit: FlyerTalk link to policy discussion.
Edit 2: AA Policy, see page 12 "oneworld Reaccommodations – Separate Tickets"​

You can also cite the first sentence above policy if the AAgent at MCO wants to try to charge you baggage fees.

Another option instead of a day room at MCO would be to take an earlier connecting flight through Dallas-Fort Worth with a really long connection there. You could rent a car (probably $40 or less) and do something near DFW.

• The American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum is just outside the airport (closed on Sundays)
• Sealife Aquarium at Grapevine Mall
• Visit In-n-Out Burger

 

[michellekcm]

Thank you so much!!!

That should be an easy connection.

Just in case anything happens to your MCO-LAX flight, know that your Qantas flight(s) are also protected by American Airlines/oneworld policy. MCO is not a huge station for American, so be prepared to cite chapter and verse of the policy should anything go wrong (and/or call AA to get it solved faster):

If a customer is holding separate tickets on AA or another oneworld carrier, customers holding separate tickets where travel is on oneworld airlines should be treated as through ticketed passengers. In the event of a disruption on the originating ticket, the carrier responsible for the disruption will be required to reroute the customer to their final destination. The ticket stock of the second ticket must be of a oneworld carrier, eligible under the Endorsement Waiver Agreement. You may contact AA Reservations 1-800-433-7300 (U.S. and Canada) or outside the U.S. and Canada, reference Worldwide Reservations Numbers for additional information if the separate ticket is for travel on a oneworld carrier.

Edit: FlyerTalk link to policy discussion.
Edit 2: AA Policy, see page 12 "oneworld Reaccommodations – Separate Tickets"​

You can also cite the first sentence above policy if the AAgent at MCO wants to try to charge you baggage fees.

Another option instead of a day room at MCO would be to take an earlier connecting flight through Dallas-Fort Worth with a really long connection there. You could rent a car (probably $40 or less) and do something near DFW.

• The American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum is just outside the airport (closed on Sundays)
• Sealife Aquarium at Grapevine Mall
• Visit In-n-Out Burger