Flight purchases

[luvmyfam444]

I was reading somewhere that if you can go to budget airlines ticket counter you can save money instead of buying online. My question is it still cheaper than those $50 one way prices (Alligent)? It's a 2 hr drive to the airport and they only open weds for ticket sales it looks like - so gotta take a day off of work.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Never traveled on Budget or Allegiant (not sure they’re in my area) so just going to “throw” a general question out for you to answer for yourself: Will the amt of money you save exceed the amt you’d make working?

 

[OrangeBirdGirl]

I don't believe you get a discount any longer with Allegiant. Before it used to be to waive the service fee of booking, so I'm assuming like $10/ticket. I think other carriers are similar. Highly doubtful it's worth the time to do it.

 

[kdonnel]

It can still be cheaper by a few dollars to buy spirit tickets in person. If, and that is a big if, you can find a ticket counter open and staffed.

Make sure you calculate the round trip cost of gas against the potential savings.

 

[MillauFr]

I was reading somewhere that if you can go to budget airlines ticket counter you can save money instead of buying online. My question is it still cheaper than those $50 one way prices (Alligent)? It's a 2 hr drive to the airport and they only open weds for ticket sales it looks like - so gotta take a day off of work.

How would spending 2 hours and a hundred dollars of wear, tear, and gas for your car save you money?

 

[Kooks and Bay Bay]

Even if you could get the flight for cheaper I don't think it would be worth driving a total of 4 hours...

 

[_19disnA]

Allegiant apparently charges you an extra $22 per segment if you book online or via phone. No idea they did that but never flown with them. I assume that means on any type of connecting flight you pay the $22 for EACH segment. Driving 4 hrs to save a couple of dollars seems like a complete waste of your time. If you are 2 hrs from an airport Allegiant services, do you have any other closer airports served by other airlines?

Also $5 extra to print boarding pass at the airport. Clearly when departing you can print it at home but seems like a gimmick to charge an extra fee since many don't have access to a printer while on vacation and generally you can only print your boarding pass 24 hrs prior to the flight. This is one of those shoe-string airlines that will nickel/dime you for all sorts of extras, so make sure to compare the total cost of your flight not just the advertised 'special/low' base price.

I can't find any airlines named "Budget Airlines" not sure who you are referring to.

Gave up looking on Spirit airlines for their pricing arrangements as the site is clumsy to use, kept gettting error messages and information wasn't obvious.

 

[MillauFr]

Allegiant apparently charges you an extra $22 per segment if you book online or via phone. No idea they did that but never flown with them. I assume that means on any type of connecting flight you pay the $22 for EACH segment. Driving 4 hrs to save a couple of dollars seems like a complete waste of your time. If you are 2 hrs from an airport Allegiant services, do you have any other closer airports served by other airlines?

Also $5 extra to print boarding pass at the airport. Clearly when departing you can print it at home but seems like a gimmick to charge an extra fee since many don't have access to a printer while on vacation and generally you can only print your boarding pass 24 hrs prior to the flight. This is one of those shoe-string airlines that will nickel/dime you for all sorts of extras, so make sure to compare the total cost of your flight not just the advertised 'special/low' base price.

I can't find any airlines named "Budget Airlines" not sure who you are referring to.

Gave up looking on Spirit airlines for their pricing arrangements as the site is clumsy to use, kept gettting error messages and information wasn't obvious.

View attachment 933102

You still have to print paper boarding passes? What year is this? Why don't people just use the phone app for the boarding pass?

 

[jdb in AZ]

If you're planning to fly during the winter, don't fly Allegiant! We got to our destination in snow country, and when we went back to the airport for our return trip, the plane was on approach when the pilot decided the cloud ceiling was too low (other pilots at the airport disputed that) so pilot turned around with a flight full of passengers and flew back to where they came from. They only had two flights per week to/from that city and we didn't want to book a hotel and wait (and wait) til the next flight. It was cheaper to fly on a different airline which got us home that night.

 

[starry_solo]

You still have to print paper boarding passes? What year is this? Why don't people just use the phone app for the boarding pass?

Older people don’t all use smartphones.

 

[_19disnA]

And even if they do have a phone, software sometimes crashes, phone might be doing some unexpected/lengthy update, battery dies or wifi at the airport might be down. I always print a paper boarding pass before leaving home for the airport, one less thing to go wrong. Being hi-tech isn't necessarily better in all cases.

 

[cabanafrau]

Airlines (and other entities like hospital systems and casinos) have been far from immune from tech issues of late. Factor in the minimal backup resources to be expected from a budget airline and it seems foolish not to try and minimize your risk exposure in patronizing them in the first place by doing everything in your control to bulletproof your itinerary.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

My friend has saved buying Spirit tickets in person. I believe it was around $50 a head. That being said, she was buying tickets for six and she lives much closer to the airport.

 

[bcla]

It can still be cheaper by a few dollars to buy spirit tickets in person. If, and that is a big if, you can find a ticket counter open and staffed.

Make sure you calculate the round trip cost of gas against the potential savings.

I remember Spirit being punitive at every step that involved using a human being when it could otherwise be done as an automated step. I thought that was part of how they kept costs low. If you weren't able to print up a boarding pass as home, I remember they would charge $10 each at the ticket counter. Granted we paid for a single check-in bag at the time of ticket purchase, so the only way to check in was via a human at the counter, so that wasn't charged extra to deal with a human.

We were so freaked out about it that I remember finding a FedEx Office location and spending about $2.50 printing up our boarding passes (per page and per minute for computer access) since our hotel in Vegas didn't have free printing services for airline documents like other hotels did. I wasn't quite sure if we would have been abled to print our boarding passes at an automated airport kiosk for free or if that would be charged the same. I think it probably would have been free.

However, this was over a decade ago. I think now they have mobile boarding passes on mobile devices.

 

[bcla]

Older people don’t all use smartphones.

At this point I see the vast majority of older people using electronic devices. The big problem is that they often can't figure out what to do if everything doesn't go perfectly. At one point my dad refused to do any updates on his devices because he hated it when any of the apps he used changed in any way and he couldn't adjust quickly to the changes.

 

[starry_solo]

At this point I see the vast majority of older people using electronic devices. The big problem is that they often can't figure out what to do if everything doesn't go perfectly. At one point my dad refused to do any updates on his devices because he hated it when any of the apps he used changed in any way and he couldn't adjust quickly to the changes.

I must be hanging around different older people then. Because the ones I know still use flip phones.

 

[Mirabell Rose]

I must be hanging around different older people then. Because the ones I know still use flip phones.

Guess it depends on ‘older’. My 63 year old brother in law uses a flip phone. My 88 year old mother in law (his mother) uses an Apple smartphone and so do my similarly aged parents.

 

[bcla]

I must be hanging around different older people then. Because the ones I know still use flip phones.

I know people in their 80s using smart phones and tablets. But they typically figure out how to use something and freak out when the app updates and the layout changes. I compare this to those insects who are programmed in their DNA to conduct a task, but if they are disturbed in any way they start all over again.

 

[kdonnel]

I know people in their 80s using smart phones and tablets. But they typically figure out how to use something and freak out when the app updates and the layout changes. I compare this to those insects who are programmed in their DNA to conduct a task, but if they are disturbed in any way they start all over again.

I know people much younger than 80s that freak out when apps change. Some people don’t handle change well.

 

[cabanafrau]

I know people in their 80s using smart phones and tablets. But they typically figure out how to use something and freak out when the app updates and the layout changes. I compare this to those insects who are programmed in their DNA to conduct a task, but if they are disturbed in any way they start all over again.

This kind of attempt to "other" people and claim superiority is exactly what leads to the frustration that gives birth to things like "okay Boomer".

When I look at how technology has been moving at hyperspeed and impacting so much of daily life over the past 25 years I wonder how most seniors have been able to keep up at all. I wonder if I could have managed if I were in their shoes.