Help from Buffalo or Syracuse flyers

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Hi all,

For anyone who has flown from Buffalo or Syracuse to Orlando, could I pick your brain?

We have only flown once before (Toronto to Orlando for our Disney trip this past January) and are looking at a possible return trip to the World in late August. To save some money, we're looking at flying out of either Buffalo or Syracuse this time around (since snowstorms won't be an issue in the summer).

What is a "good price" for airfare (round trip) for 3 adults out of those two cities? We can fly Airtran from Buffalo for $495.00 US (2 adults, 1 teenager) according to their website. I can't think it would get any better than that...or will it? Sunwing is $1400 CDN (which is the airline we used last month), and Air Canada is over $1200 CDN even with the seat sale.

I know its too early to book (at least for a little while, considering airlines like Southwest don't even have their late-August schedules posted yet), but I'm hoping someone can tell me.....

....how LOW do the fares sometimes go when flying from a border town?

 

[ottawamom]

Check out Southwest out of Buffalo. I have been watching the prices for a while now. If you time it right you can go for as little at $59 each way plus taxes (not significant). That entails midweek travel and maybe not the best time choice. We have flown out of Syracuse but for the price difference (5 of us fly) it is worth the drive to Buffalo. Buffalo is so close to Toronto. The service on Southwest is great I would definitely fly with them again.

Also once you book your flight on Southwest they do Not change the flight. Some other airlines do so you may want to watch out for that.

 

[disneyba]

We live in the Ottawa area and tried flying out of Syracuse last time. We actually preferred it to YOW or YYZ. Good airport (Hancock International) and good airline (JetBlue).

The price you quoted for three adults is good. You might do a bit better if you can take mid-week departure specials, etc. And I have noticed that the prices from Buffalo seem to be a bit better than Syracuse in general. You wouldn't likely get anything cheaper from JetBlue. There are several other airlines to try also, but JetBlue and AirTran are among the few that fly non-stop to Orlando. Never flown AirTran, so I can't tell you if they are good or not. But I would certainly recommend JetBlue at a similar price. Better than Air Canada, WestJet, or Air Transat IMO.

If you want to "price watch" for awhile, JetBlue seems to offer its better prices about 8 to 10 weeks out from departure date. You could also try one of the fare-tracker sites. There are several of them, but www.airfarewatchdog.com is a decent one.

Hope this helps. Have a good trip.

 

[FayeW]

Check out Southwest out of Buffalo. I have been watching the prices for a while now. If you time it right you can go for as little at $59 each way plus taxes (not significant). That entails midweek travel and maybe not the best time choice. We have flown out of Syracuse but for the price difference (5 of us fly) it is worth the drive to Buffalo. Buffalo is so close to Toronto. The service on Southwest is great I would definitely fly with them again.

Also once you book your flight on Southwest they do Not change the flight. Some other airlines do so you may want to watch out for that.

It surprises me to hear you say that there were significant enough savings to justify the drive to Buffalo. We have gotten $69-$89 flights out of Syracuse in the past, I think this last time was $99. each way. How long did it take you to drive to Buffalo? I will have to keep it in mind when we are looking at our next trip.

 

[cn123]

I am going down in April and flying southwest Buf-MCO and I got $67 flight. I havent booked mine coming home yet.. it's currently at $140. Im just waiting for it to come down a bit. For a family of 4 this is quite a savings compared to flying out of Toronto

 

[Ham Ham]

Depending where you live in Ontario also look at Rochester, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit.

 

[aanderson5]

We are flying from Buffalo, in August, for $230/person. This includes all taxes, fees, and exchange rate. I watched the flights through Cheaptickets, found flights that fit our criteria and then booked through the airlines. This got me a 10:37am flight arriving at 1:08pm with Airtrans, and a 5:30pm flight coming home with Delta. I know booking so early my flight will probably be changed but one can hope.

 

[ottawamom]

FayeW, Buffalo is about 2 1/2 hours west of Syracuse. Albany is the same distance east. Both offer Southwest flights. The thing I like most about Southwest is the reliability. They don't change flights once they have been posted on the website (unlike other airlines). Also you can regularly find inexpensive flights with them and they have direct flights to Orlando. It really becomes quite a fun game to see how low you can get them. For us with 5 flying it becomes worth the extra time to save money.

 

[iluveeyore]

Sign up for Southwest Ding for free (use Zip code 14225), and it will notify you of any specials - just showed to Orlando for March Break for $57 each way. Also remember SWA does NOT charge any change fees if your plans change, and does not charge for luggage. We have even booked with them, then saw cheaper flights so cancelled and re-booked, and they just put the money in a holding account for a year for future flights. Never a complaint with them, and we never pay more than about $180 per person or less round-trip. The price with Airtran is good, but you have to add $15 for each person's first suitcase, $25 for the second, and it's $75 charge per ticket for any changes.
Happy shopping!
Oh, and I always wait till at least a month before we leave to book flights, unless you find a really low rate ahead of time.

 

[disneynuts777]

Last August I paid 571.00cdn for three of us to fly out of Buffalo on air tran.
I booked the seats in April.
It also cost $100.00 in gas and 65.00 to park the car for 9 days.So really it cost me $736 and a 2.5 hour drive each way.
Well worth the savings and the time when to fly out of yyz was going to be nearly 600.00 p/p

 

[OatsZoo]

We fly on SW in September for $318 return for 2 adults. The great thing with SW is the price adjustments. Our original price was around $500 and then I price adjusted it up two weeks before we left. We now have a $186 credit we can use for our next trip this September.

We love to fly out of Buffalo. I like that the airport is small and close to get to from the border. Definitely sign up for the DING! to stay up to date on the deals. The lowest I've seen is about $59 each/each way. Sure beats the flights out of Toronto!!! I also like that SW has 3 direct flights from BUF to ORL every day, the sooner to Disney the better in my mind.

Good luck! I will be watching for SW to open up the flights into September 2009 very soon.

 

[dsneygirl]

$200 pp return all taxes in is what we usually consider a "good" deal. Last fall we paid $540 r/t for all 3 of us so we were ahead of the game. Parking is about $50-$75/week or a hotel with parking is about $100-$150.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Thanks, everyone, for all your insight!!

This time around, I think I'm stressing more about the airfare than I am about the trip.

 

[FayeW]

FayeW, Buffalo is about 2 1/2 hours west of Syracuse. Albany is the same distance east. Both offer Southwest flights. The thing I like most about Southwest is the reliability. They don't change flights once they have been posted on the website (unlike other airlines). Also you can regularly find inexpensive flights with them and they have direct flights to Orlando. It really becomes quite a fun game to see how low you can get them. For us with 5 flying it becomes worth the extra time to save money.

So it sounds like about 5.5-6 hours driving time. I'd be willing to do that. I thought we had to go to Toronto first and then cross over.

 

[wtpfan]

We have always flown Southwest Non-Stop. So far we have our flight there booked and are waiting for flights home to go down in price. A new flight from BUF to MCO has come up really cheap but it connects in Baltimore with about a 90 min wait. I don't know why, but I am so nervous about changing planes because I think they are going to lose our luggage.

My question is this:
Should I be worried about this? Has anyone flown Southwest connecting flights often? Do they have a great reputation for transferring luggage correctly on connecting flights?

 

[jmtf2004]

We have always flown Southwest Non-Stop. So far we have our flight there booked and are waiting for flights home to go down in price. A new flight from BUF to MCO has come up really cheap but it connects in Baltimore with about a 90 min wait. I don't know why, but I am so nervous about changing planes because I think they are going to lose our luggage.

My question is this:
Should I be worried about this? Has anyone flown Southwest connecting flights often? Do they have a great reputation for transferring luggage correctly on connecting flights?

The one time (and hopefully it will only ever be that *one* time) we stopped at Baltimore on the way home - it was SW. We did not have to change planes (so I can't really answer your question about luggage transfer). I figured the stop should have been no big deal, but for whatever reason they didn't count the passengers and people moved around after passengers deboarded, so they lost track of people. We sat there on the ground for an extra hour while they figured it out. My younger son had become ill starting while we were on the ME bus and was throwing up periodically - that hour seemed like an eternity
Also worth pointing out (depending on time of year) weather is a big factor too...*any* stop can be delayed by weather, not just luggage issues.
For us it is worth it to fly non-stop even if it is a few bucks more. I would rather spend a couple more hours at WDW, than sitting in an airport somewhere. Personally I would wait for SW to see how their prices compare. Flights do not seem to be getting so expensive this year. FYI, Jet Blue also flies into BUF non stop, and so does Air Tran. We used Jet Blue to fly home last time because it participates in the Resort Airline Checkin Service...It was a great flights and not having to handle our own luggage through MCO was worth paying a few bucks extra too

 

[boundfordisney]

SOUTHWEST WOULD BE THE WAY TO GO OUT OF BUFFALO THEY HAVE EARLY MORNING FLIGHTS WHICH GET YOU THERE EARLY MORNING SO YOUR VACATION BEGINS ALL THE SOONER FLIGHTS COMING BACK ARE GOOD AS WELL,WE HAVE ONLY USED SOUTHWEST SO CANT COMMENT ON OTHERS BUT I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMEND SOUTHWEST ITS THE ONLY AIRLINE WE WILL CONTINUE TO USE ON UPCOMING TRIPS TO WDW.

 

[jaysue]

We have seen SW as low as $57 each way depending on the flight schedule. Make sure you leave time for your stopovers and do not go by the airlines tight schedules.

For December, 09 holiday flights, Air Canada just this weekend wanted to extort $1200 per person round trip and Westjet $1050 per person round trip. We booked out of Buffalo for $490 per person round trip (all figures in C$).

Buffalo airport is pretty easy to fly out of - just have patience and show up early if you are traveling during the holidays because it is not a big airport and it does get crowded.

Cheers
jaysue