For those who fly to CA for Disneyland

[klo1335]

Hi guys,
Experienced WDW vet here in the very beginning stages of planning a DL trip in summer 2018. We live in Philadelphia and the price for flights is what seems to be the most expensive. We typically drive the 14 hours to Florida when we do WDW. Please help someone who isn't very experienced booking flights .

Thanks!

 

[bdiddy]

We are flying from Ohio to DL for the first time in a few weeks. In all the research I did, the supposed best time to buy flights is 45 days out but I ended up getting them about 60 days out and I'm glad I did because they tended to only go up and up. What we paid $1500 for is now at almost $3000. I was so close to booking through Frontier because the four of us could have flown for just under $1000 BUT when you think about all the additional fees and then everything I read about the seats and space being awful and having to pay for things like water on the plan, I just didn't want to deal with that on such a long flight. If we were flying close, maybe but I didn't want to take the chances. So with Southwest it ended up being a little more but we don't have to worry about any of that. And Southwest is like one of the only airlines that still lets you take 2 pieces of luggage free and 2 carry-ons.

Oh and I also read that Tuesday afternoons were the best time to buy but after stalking websites for about a month I didn't find this to be true. It seemed very random. I would just figure out which airline you most likely want to go and start watching flights. Check them every day, multiple times a day and you may start to see a pattern. Also, check a flight to the same place like 45 days out, 60 days out, 90 days out....on the same day of the week you would go and you can get an idea of how the prices may fluctuate.

This is the first time we've flown in 8 yrs and I am no expert but that's what I did! Just kept checking and checking! LOL....and then one day when the prices seemed ok and didn't change I decided to just book it!

 

[wahoostampingirl]

We just got home from a CA trip. We flew from VA to LAX and flew back home leaving from San Diego (we had driven down to San Diego after our Disneyland trip). My husband was the one in charge of plane tickets and ours was a little complicated since we were returning from a different airport and I had some pretty strict requests (no super early or late flights, no huge layovers, aisle seats for at least 2 members of our group, leaving from the airport closest to us). I believe he booked about 50 days out and he had been obsessively checking flight prices for a few weeks before that. We flew out on United and back on Virgin America and it was around $2000 for the 4 of us. We could have found something slightly cheaper if I had been a little more flexible. But, I was happy with our flight and we didn't run into any problems other than a slight weather delay on our flight out of San Diego (which was caused by fog in San Francisco). I will say that the Virgin America plane had more leg room and was a comfier flight overall, which is important on a 5 hour flight, but we didn't have any problems to speak of with United. Both airlines only allow one carry on and a personal bag on the flight. We all had a carry on and then we checked one larger bag for our whole family to our destination.

 

[sashasmommy]

You may want to consider looking at Southwest if you can. If you book a Southwest ticket and then they lower their fares later, you can change your flight (to the same flight) for free, assuming there are still seats available, and they credit you back the difference in price. The catch is that if you paid in money, that credit is only good for one year from the time you originally purchased the tickets. If you are not planning to fly again in that time, this will not help you. If you book with points (Rapid Rewards points either earned by flying or by SW credit card), then you get the points back and there's no time limit on when you can use them. They have a deal right now where you get 40,000 bonus points for signing up for a credit card as long as you spend $1000 in the first 3 months. The fee is $69 a year, but they give you extra bonus points on your anniversary that basically makes up for it. I'm not a person who signs up for random credit cards just to get some money off, but since we fly almost exclusively Southwest, I looked at it hard and realized that I could get a better return on it than my cash back on my current credit card. And we use our credit cards to pay for everything, and just pay it off each month. Anyway, just a month ago when we signed up, the sign-on bonus was 60,000 points, so it's worth maybe waiting a while to see if you can get a better deal later.

 

[jrjankowski8]

We are going to DL in September from NYC (JFK) and went with JetBlue, being around $211 per ticket that includes one bag and carry on. Southwest flies direct out of BWI, which I know isn't that close to you, but might give better options at cheaper rates.

 

[tarheelalum]

Try to fly into orange county Airport ( code is SNA) It's much closer and far more pleasant of a airport to deal with. Car rentals and uber/taxis will be cheaper than LAX. Getting to and from LAX is pretty awful. And I agree with prior posters, Southwest airlines is the way to go if at all possible.

 

[DLgal]

Use Google Flighs. Use the flight tracker feature.

If you are coming in the summer, expect to pay $400-500 per round trip ticket. Try to come early June or late August for the best fares. Mid June-Mid August will be high no matter what you do.

Southwest isn't cheap cross country at ALL. Your best bet will be Jet Blue to Long Beach (if Jet Blue is an option). LAX is often the cheapest to fly into, but check SNA, LGB as well as LAX.

Fly on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday. Those are the cheapest days to fly.

 

[mlnbabies]

We have flown into LAX from Dallas 3 times. Each time we booked about 6 months out. We flew on Southwest twice and Virgin America once. Both SW flights were booked at 6 months. Every flight we have booked has been less than $150 round trip per person with taxes and fees. Virgin was booked at 2 months out. For our trip in Dec., I booked with Alaska Airlines for $660 for 4 people.

 

[Meldev]

We fly from Pittsburgh to LAX - flights are not bad price if you can find a direct flight - 100 days out has been the lowest i've seen as I booked with SWA then called to get the lower fare.

I've found flying into SNA to be far more expensive than flying into LAX - at least via SWA.

 

[lmhall2000]

Spirit Air Spirit Air Spirit Air

Flying five adults and have a rental car for a week for under $600 for ALL!

I didn't use the $9 fare club, flying first week of August, but am using the fly on Tues/Wednesday only. I have seen fares as low as $39 one way from Houston to LAX.

Sign up for their deals. Now, here is the catch...even though I am a MasterCard Spirit holder and am only charged $28 for a checked bag, we never check bags. We only pack what we each can fit in one bag 18x14x8. Which consists of 3 outfits (plus the one we are wearing), undergarments, socks, one small quart bag of makeup/sunscreen/saline solution/toothpaste, all under 3 ounces each. We wash a load of clothes after 3 days and wear those the second half of our week trip. Any snacks/stuff we need, we buy there.

I have flown my daughter home from college ATL-HOU for $24 each way...we only fly Spirit. But with the longer flight, it is worth the upcharge for comfort seats...3.5 hours is my max in the economy seats.

 

[jrjankowski8]

Use Google Flighs. Use the flight tracker feature.

If you are coming in the summer, expect to pay $400-500 per round trip ticket. Try to come early June or late August for the best fares. Mid June-Mid August will be high no matter what you do.

Southwest isn't cheap cross country at ALL. Your best bet will be Jet Blue to Long Beach (if Jet Blue is an option). LAX is often the cheapest to fly into, but check SNA, LGB as well as LAX.

Fly on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday. Those are the cheapest days to fly.

Just looked up Southwest for BWI to LAX early September (Fri-Thu) and it was $149 each way direct.

 

[monorailrabbit]

There is an app we use called Hopper (has a little white rabbit for the logo) and it has saved us BIG $$. It doesn't track Southwest, so we had to compare those on our own, but you can mark your dates and mention if they are flexible and it will constantly check all major airlines for you as well as predict if the price will go lower or higher. We have used Hopper for 2 years now for both WDW and DL (we will in Nebraska, so fly to both) and we have found it helpful and accurate every time! This year it told us flights for October were expected to drop drastically in April, and you bet they did! They bounced right back up a few weeks later - would have missed it if not for Hopper. We had a really bad experience with SW last year and it left a bad taste in our mouth, but we still check with them simply for the free bags and found a really good deal for December. We snagged tickets for $89/person on Delta out to LAX from Omaha through hopper (returning though on United - gag) and $102 from OMA to MCO in December on SW! Can't beat it!

 

[GlitteryOtters]

I fly from Detroit regularly & my main suggestions to save money are 1) be flexible on which airport you fly in/out of 2) be flexible about which airline you fly with and 3) be flexible on dates/times. I have found that, if I am flexible on dates, Southwest is typically my best bet from Detroit (routinely 33 to 50% cheaper than my other options) & I've found that sometimes the price difference between LAX & Orange County is negligible (under $10 per ticket each way), but other times I've found LAX is $50 to $100 cheaper each way per ticket (making the extra $10 in shuttle cost not bad--and I know people complain about the traffic from LAX, but I grew up in Southern CA, so it doesn't bother me as much as the non-natives). Also, closely monitoring prices helps as sometimes there is a couple day long sale with a huge price dip which you can catch if you monitor the prices and time your purchases for after the price drop. Good luck!

~Meg

 

[Catvondita]

Honestly it is expensive. We live in NYC and can never seem to find a cheap enough flight out to Cali without waking up at the crack of dawn or having a really long layover. The best advice I can give is check flights every day and clear your cookies, once you see a flight that isn't too crazy expensive just book it. We've been stupid and waited after seeing a cheap flight and then when we checked again prices went back up.

 

[Helene_C]

I found nonstops from DC to LAX for $300 RT for August on Alaska Air. Flying into the other Disneyland-area airports would have required a layover - I'd much rather a longer drive on arrival than a connection.
If you're not seeing good options out of Philly, consider NY and DC/Baltimore airports. We drove (2 hours) to Philly once because it saved us $200 per person (x4) on our airfare and avoided a layover. Well worth the drive and parking fee.

 

[Chubby]

I'd also say be flexible in your airport you fly out of. We are in Syracuse, NY and I usually jump on tickets as soon as they get released as they only go up from there. We're going in August and paid $800 roundtrip out of Buffalo with JetBlue, both are direct flights. It's double that today. Jetblue has always been cheapest for us to WDW as well. The drive to Buffalo obviously adds on time but it's still cheaper (and about the same time) than flying out of Syracuse with a layover.

 

[DLgal]

Just looked up Southwest for BWI to LAX early September (Fri-Thu) and it was $149 each way direct.

The OP is coming in SUMMER. September doesn't count. Southwest summer fares are among the highest for cross country flights.

 

[Jedimom]

Try to come early June or late August for the best fares. Mid June-Mid August will be high no matter what you do.

Southwest isn't cheap cross country at ALL. Your best bet will be Jet Blue to Long Beach (if Jet Blue is an option). LAX is often the cheapest to fly into, but check SNA, LGB as well as LAX.

Fly on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday. Those are the cheapest days to fly.

Also, check nearby airports on departure. I'm in NE Wisconsin and checked Milwaukee (2 hrs away), Chicago (3.5 hours), and St Paul (4.5 hours) for the departure and SNA, LGB, LAX, BUR, ONT for the arrival. The cheapest I got ($300 RT per person, wooohoooo!) was surprisingly the closer flights -- flying out of Milwaukee and into SNA via Southwest. But if I had to, I'd have been willing to make it work with other airports.

And to confirm what DLgal said --- we are flying out on a Wednesday, back in on a Tuesday, last week in August, and have a layover both ways (unavoidable). I had two layovers on the way there but just kept checking flights twice a day for a month and one day was able to switch to a one layover flight.

The flight there is going to be brutal -- it departs at 5:30 AM which just might kill the kids, lol. Haven't decided if we'll spend the night before in Milwaukee or just leave the house at 2:00 AM. Ah well, it'll be worth it!

 

[bdiddy]

The OP is coming in SUMMER. September doesn't count. Southwest summer fares are among the highest for cross country flights.

We are flying Southwest in 11 days and I paid about $180 per person per flight. Plus taxes etc and I even got the early check-in which was $120 extra and final bill was $1500 some which I didn't think was that bad for 4 people to fly from Ohio to LAX. I bought the tickets in mid-May but I had been stalking tickets for all airlines since at least March. And other than Frontier and Spirit, Southwest was far less expensive than the other major airlines.

Just checked...before the extras the flights for the four of us was $1299. I thought that wasn't too terrible I guess.

 

[tasha99]

We almost always fly into Long Beach, as it's a tiny airport and a major Jet Blue hub. There are direct flights from JFK and ones with layovers from PHL. Our uber was about $30 to DL last month. I've also flown into Ontario, but I had family to pick me up. John Wayne and Lax are much bigger airports, and all things being equal, I'd avoid them . Long Beach is shockingly small town (with almost non existent tsa lines--2 minutes to get through. )