Flights & car hire

[SEVANS2208]

Decided to do it all independently for our 2006 trip! Have found a house and we can book that now, even though the holiday is more than 18 months away.

How far in advance can you book flights? We want to fly direct, preferably into MCO rather than Sanford - who would you recommend?

Finally - Alamo look the best bet for car hire (esp. with the Brits Guide discount - assuming it will still apply in 2006!), does anyone have any experience of them as we've only used Dollar before?

 

[Hilary]

Flights can be booked 11 months ahead, but fly-drives are classed as a holiday and can be booked much further out. There's often little difference in the price and you don't have to take the included fly-drive car if you want to arrange that separately (and more cheaply) rather than taking the TA's car insurance package. If you're travelling at a busy time and can't be flexible with dates, the fly-drive route may be a good option to get what you want when you want it.

Virgin and BA both get good press (usually! ) from posters here flying into MCO.

For car rental I'd look at a brokers like Airline Network or USCarhire as I've found their prices much better than trying to deal with the rental companies directly. If you do a few costings with different companies you'll get a feel for a good price when you find one! Check the MCO website for the car rental companies on site at the airport - in my view there's nothing worse than having to struggle with shuttle buses to get you to the off airport depot.

 

[KayleeUK]

We are flying with Virgin LGW to MCO Always had a good service there.

Its never to early to start planning

 

[tartangirl]

I think Hilary has pretty much got it spot on. We've flown Virgin and BA and flights have both been fine. I dont think any other scheduled airline flies direct into MCO. We're using USCarhire for the first time this year as their prices were way below Virgins.

You can book fly-drives for early 2006 already. Summer 2006 brochures will probably start appearing after Easter. Keep an eye on the Virgin web-site as you can normally book there before the brochures are in the travel agencies.