Flights from Upstate/Western NY

[Mouse Skywalker]

Greetings Everyone:

I want to take our family of 4 down to WDW for the last part of my daughter's school break in April: April 20-23. Does anyone have any thoughts for how to get the cheapest flights? I check Travelocity, and the flights are around $300-$400 rt. I can stay 3 nights leaving and returning anytime from April 17 --> April 23. I can fly from Rochester or Buffalo, but I'm not finding any bargains out there. Are there any to be had?

 

[Bob P]

I'm guessing you're not going to do any better than that...you are going during Easter week when airline seats are at a premium.

 

[Letsbgoofy]

Did you check Delta our of SYR, or is that too far of a drive for you?

 

[deltachi8]

Thats probably about right for Easter Week.

Wait a little while and you will be able to see Southwest Fares from Buffalo and you may do a bit better.

 

[Lori-n-NY]

Your break week is a week later then ours, I'm in Syracuse, We are on break 4/10-4/14. We are cruising 4/9-4/16 and flying on Delta to West Palm Beach. I got tickets for $218 per person r/t way back in June. Since then the price for any airport I have checked...meaning Orlando, Miami, West Palm have been around $300-$350 each.
Southwest does not fly out of SYR, but they do fly out of Buffalo
So keep a watch on them and Airtran out of Roch usually has good prices too. I haven't seen any spring sales yet. They are still pushing the winter time flights.

Keep looking and I hope something will work out for you.

Lori

 

[misslissa]

Greetings Everyone:

I want to take our family of 4 down to WDW for the last part of my daughter's school break in April: April 20-23. Does anyone have any thoughts for how to get the cheapest flights? I check Travelocity, and the flights are around $300-$400 rt. I can stay 3 nights leaving and returning anytime from April 17 --> April 23. I can fly from Rochester or Buffalo, but I'm not finding any bargains out there. Are there any to be had?

Hi there!

I'm so glad to find this thread 'cause someone on these boards helped me out so I'm going to give you the same information. I live in St. Catharines, Ontario which is only about a half hour from Buffalo. Usually we fly out of Buffalo. But, someone on here suggested that we try the Southwest Airlines DING program on our computer, and I did and got a great deal. There are several deals every day going out of Buffalo and Albany. I didn't see Rochester, but it could be on there. Anyway, this program can be found at: http://www.southwest.com/cgi-bin/systray?action=registrationForm&refId=2005050000000002

When you have this on your computer, a little thing pops up and there are sales on their daily, but you have to book that day. We only booked 2 months in advance but ended up getting a flight out of Detroit because there WERE sales in Buffalo but not on one particular date that we were looking for. I've even seen Buffalo to Orlando flights for as little as $36 each way.

Out of Detroit, we ended up paying $50 each way... and we kinda get an extra day out of it 'cause we decided to stay there one night. Which is kind of neat. But, keep your eye on it and this far out you are bound to find some great deals!

 

[Mouse Skywalker]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm relatively new to the area, and didn't know that Syracuse had an airport. I'll check into them. Otherwise, I'll sit and wait to see what AirTran does, or maybe Southwest out of Buffalo.

 

[deltachi8]

Syracuse Airport is usually expensive. However, Delta sometimes has good fares

 

[Mouse Skywalker]

Boy, I wish I knew when Southwest was going to announce their fares.

 

[JudithM]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm relatively new to the area, and didn't know that Syracuse had an airport.

Hancock Airport in Syracuse is just off the NYS Thruway at the I81 exit. It is not hard to find.

 

[welovedis]

Just wanted to say hello to a fellow Rochestarian!

We used to always fly of of ROC, but have flown from both BUF & SYR (Hancock) and have had no big problems with any airlines 9SWA, Airtran, US Airways).

I'd definitely download DING and watch it very closely, also subscribe to the Airtran mailings and you might see a good fare. We used to like taking the PM Airtran flight out of ROC, nonstop to MCO and we'd get in around 7pm, the airport would be so quiet, no lines at the resort checking in--it is nice if that fits your schedule.

We're going with SWA this time around because the flight times/flights fit our schedule--7am out of BUF, NS to MCO, arrive around 10:00am! Coming home we are NS again, arriving in BUF in the early eve.

GL finding your flights!

 

[ladyv]

We fly out of Rochester. Travelocity does not have all of the airlines in their system.....you'll never find them tell you an airline price for Jet Blue, or Air Tran.
I'd look up the airport you want to fly out of and then see what airlines service that airport.
I've actually found that if you go to the airlines web site directly, you can sometimes get a better deal than that which is quoted on sites like travelocity or expedia.
We flew Jet Blue for our honeymoon, but I'll admit that it wasn't the cheapest flight....we picked it for their extra leg room and TV's at every seat.
Out of Rochester, Air Tran can have some really, really great deals - I saw $63 each way the other day....just search their web site.
Also, Independance Air is soon coming to Rochester in the new year, so they might be having a "sale"
I've also seen that it is cheaper to fly out of Buffalo than Rochester or Syracuse, but I'm not convinced unlesss it's a flight to the west coast or out of the US.
I seem to remember this add on program for Internet Explorer that would search a ton of travel and airline web sites and then come back with the lowest price...I uninstalled it because I don't use IE anymore....let me see if I can find the name of it......aha! It's called Sidestep and it looks like they've upgraded and you can do a search on their web site instead of downloading their program. www.sidestep.com

 

[Mouse Skywalker]

Hey, thanks for the advice everyone. It's great to hear from fellow Rochestarians! I'm going to wait for Southwest, and also keep my eyes out for Air Tran and others. Keep your fingers crossed. We'll be so ready for some warm weather and no snow by April!

 

[cheerful chickadee]

fellow Rochesterian here too! We're flying Airtran April 29 - May 9th 2006, ROC - MCO. We got our tix at $99 each way, $200 before taxes, both non-stop flights. We paid $667 for 3 tickets. Is flying into Tampa an option? When I looked at airtran I noticed that flying from Rochester to Tampa (TPA) was approx. $100 less than flying into Orlando. If that's not an option I would sign up for any airtran or jetblue newsletters that offer deals and sales or wait and go through southwest from Buffalo airport since they are known to have great fares.

 

[Mouse Skywalker]

It's great to see all these Rochesterians on the DIS. I thought about flying into Tampa (and I'll think about it some more). However, I figured that renting a car or getting transportation from Tampa to Orlando would eat up any savings I get on the airfare. I'll let everyone know how my flight search ends up.

 

[sarahsmom73]

I flew SW the week after easter from ALB to MCO for $49 each way last year

 

[lisareniff]

We are from Rochester as well. We don't fly too often but thought I would add to the discussion (take it for what it's worth!!)...

We like the non-stop flights but we usually go during the Feb break with the weather is nasty and delays are more frequent. It's also nice for the flight to be 2.5 hours vs. 4 hours (or more). So that means Airtran out of ROC (2 flights) or SW out of BUF (2 flights). I don't think there are anymore. Transmeridian used to fly non-stop out of SYR but went out of business last month. The impression I have is that SYR is more expensive then ROC (that is more expensive then BUF). We have flown Airtran the last couple times.

Having the late non-stop flight is allowing us to go a day earlier and have the next day a full WDW day. With your short trip it might be nice as well. You are traveling during a peak time (school break), but you do have some flexibility which is good. I would expect the lower fares to sell out and be left with the high fares.

I would wait until SW comes out with their fares and grab one. ...or maybe Airtran will have a sale around then too.

 

[welovedis]

For all of you from the Rochester area, I'm part of a Disney group on yahoo (DisneyFans-RocNY) if you'd ever like to join up on discussion or meet with fellow Disney fans. We usually meet up at a local Bill Grays or someplace like that--some families w/kids, some couples, some DVC owners....just an FYI!

 

[Mouse Skywalker]

Thanks for the reply WeLoveDis. I'll check it out. We just moved to the area in January. So we're still getting to learn our way around. So are you going to be meeting up Saturday morning at 7am at the Auditorium theater for Lion King tix?

BTW: I like your Cure Autism Now ribbon. I'm a neuroscience researcher at UofR.

 

[ladyv]

Mouse Skywalker - I'm a network admin at the Rush Rhees Library at the U of R! How funny!