Flying from the East Coast - good prices?

[elphie101]

Help me DLR DISsers, you're my only hope!

I'm currently trying to plan a trip to DLR for April 2013, and of course my big obstacle is trying not to empty my bank account on the flights. We'll be flying out of Boston, so it's pretty much one end of the country to the other, and I'm just not sure what's a good deal and what's not. If anyone's done a cross country trip like this, even west to east coast, what's the range for a steal that I should jump on immediately? Any help is much appreciated

 

[KalamityJane]

We fly Oregon to FL quite often - I look for tickets in the 300-400 range.

 

[Happy 2 B Me]

Look for an airline at one of the smaller airports near Boston. I know that our friends that ahve a son in Boston area use Southwest for air from Portland Oregon to an airport near Boston. Doing this can save several hundred dollars for a family.

Have fun planning

 

[TEK224]

If you see anything in the $300 range, snag it! I'm in Philly and saw fares to LAX for late August for $300 and I waited. Ended up paying $400 when I finally booked. Fares went down some after I booked, but only about $40 for the flights I wanted.

 

[hootey]

Check Jet-Blue, they usually have a red-eye from Boston to LA everyday. The wife takes this coming home from Boston a lot, then picks up a connecting flight from LA to Seattle. She said the rates are usually about $300 or so per ticket, plus it is a direct flight. Jet-Blue also have DL vacation packages for several major cities, maybe Boston is one. It is worth several minutes to check......

 

[tdizzle]

Also check prices for different days. I'm researching a trip from Charlotte, NC to LA next spring and found that Tuesday departure was $75 cheaper than a Saturday departure.

 

[elphie101]

Thanks for the tips all, keep them coming!

I'm planning on leaving on a Monday night (so I can work most of the day) and hopefully finding a red eye back the next Tuesday

 

[KAYELIZ]

I booked Southwest from Providence(PVD) to Orange County(SNA) in May for our trip on October 5th and we paid $185.60 one way. Now, I think the same flight is $321, so be sure to book early. Flying in to LAX may be a little bit cheaper but SNA is closer. I'm not sure how much the return flight was; we're flying to Las Vegas from Disney and then back to PVD from there.

 

[Disney Dreams]

If cost is your first factor, fly in/out of LAX.

If convenience is, fly in/out of LGB or SNA.

- Dreams

 

[pipervali]

Sometimes the smaller airports actually are more expensive than the big ones, keep that in mind.

I booked my Philly to LAX RT nonstop tickets for this October back in the middle of March. I paid $255 total for each ticket. I checked all around before booking them, Baltimore, Lehigh Valley, Harrisburg, even Newark. Nothing came close to the Philly price. I think perhaps it may have been a 'special' to drum up interest in Virgin America's new service out of Philadelphia though, which apparently started in April of this year.

But I'd say if you see anything under $300 or close snag those babies right away!

 

[princesscinderella]

I'll second virgin America as we are flying all five of us from fort lauderdale to lax for $1250. I just checked and they have non stops out of Boston, plus they have the tvs available at each seat which is a must to keep my little ones busy during the long flight.

 

[ducky_love]

Hunt hard and be very flexible on dates. By just shopping all the time we are flying roundtrip from MCO for under $300 per person on Frontier.

 

[tink2dw]

For Southwest download DING it is their very best prices on flights!!!!

 

[Mazel]

I logged on to JetBlue one day and got a fantastic rate. Three of us are flying for under $350 each. Now I'm trying to plan the rest of the trip. We're flying JFK - LGB and I got a great rate from priceline by bidding for a car rental.

 

[lcasa]

I'd think just about $300 is a good fare. I subscribe to alerts from both Kayak and AirfareWatchdog when I'm looking for flights. And LA is usually cheaper than SNA or LGB but surprisingly not always.
They say most fare sales happen mid-week - so make sure you check tues-thurs. Fares tend to be higher on weekends when most people are searching ( I mean the day you look for the fare, not the day you fly on ).
San Diego can be even cheaper so you might want to expand your searches to include that. I do use Kayak a LOT - seems to find the best deal although you have to check southwest separately.

 

[marybaby08]

from MCO to SNA for me was cheaper than MCO to LAX for the week of Thanksgiving. I paid $144 one way with United and $149 return with southwest.
so about $300 should be good deal, they went up already.

 

[lovesdumbo]

For our Aug trip we are flying from Bos to San Diego on a Wed and home LAX on the Tues after labor. I am pretty loyal to Jet Blue. We are flying out on a 9:45 am flight and home on a 2:45 pm flight as this works best for my family. We are flying non stop. When I first started looking in April flights were $299 one way. when I saw them drop to $199 still in April I purchased the flights and kept my eye on them. They went up over $400 each way but then last week I saw that my flight to SAN dropped to $165 and home from LAX to $175 so I called Jet Blue and they issued credits that are good for a year from when the credit was issued. Then a few days later the flight home dropped to $155 so I got more credits. Now they are $504 & $295.

Good luck finding good fares. You can use www.yapta.com to track fares both before and after purchase