how far would you travel to the airport

[capecoddisneyfamily]

How far would you travel from your local airport to save money?

 

[sam_gordon]

Depends on how much money. Our next two closest airports are about 90-120 minutes away. If I could save $75/ticket ($375), I'd consider it depending on flight time (if it's an early depature or late arrival, an added hotel room takes away the savings). The next airport would be three hours away. I'd need to save AT LEAST $100pp, probably closer to $150 to do that.

 

[sue1013]

Depends how much would be saved. For us our local airport is 20 minutes away. Within 1 1/2 hours I have 4 airports I could use. If the savings is at least 300 I consider it. If we go out of our home aiport someone can easily drop and pick us up. One of the further we would have to pay for parking depending on how long the trip is that can add up. In April we are going to drive an hour but the ticket prices were a difference of 500. Parking will be about 200 savings of 300.

 

[vicki_c]

0 extra miles!

We have 3 airports within reasonable driving distance (25 minutes, 45 minutes-1 hour and one 1-1.5 hours depending on traffic). We only fly from the closest one - I don't even check fares from the others.

We have deals that were good enough or excellent (Southwest mostly) from the closest one, and when you add in the extra complications from traffic around here, it's not really worth it to even look further out.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

I've only flown out of a non-home airport (home airport is SYR) to my destination once, and that was because I was flying with friends that were in the non-home airport location (BUF). The price difference would need to be very substantial for me to consider it.

 

[greenclan67]

Well in Northern Ontario, our closest major airport is Toronto. We have a small airport 1.5 hours from here, but would have to connect in Toronto regardless, and it is about $3500 to fly from there to Orlando! Toronto is already 6.5 hours for us to drive. So we always drive the extra to fly from Buffalo, which is about 8 hours for us! We also check Grand Rapids, Flint and Lansing! They are all between 8 to 9 hours to drive! We always say by the time we drive to Buffalo, spend the night, spend the next day at the airport and flying, we are over half way to Florida, should just drive, but we only have a company vehicle, so would have to rent!

 

[RainbowsMist]

We're driving from Nova Scotia to Boston = 11 hours!!
With a family of five we're saving $1500-$4000. $1500 savings would be getting an extremely rare good fare...I have yet to see for our upcoming March trip. I would say realistically we're saving $2500

 

[2binak]

I'm pretty frugal, but I wouldn't travel out of an airport other than our home airport. We have other choices 90-120 minutes from us and DH & I have flown out of them in the past but it really didn't save us much of anything by the time you figure in gas, parking, tolls & time.

Now that we have DD, our time is worth alot more. I'd rather spend the money and drive 15 minutes to the airport and be on our way than be stuck in the car for 75-105 minutes before we even reach the airport.

 

[gibsontrio]

We are driving from Louisville KY to Cinncinatti OH ( I believe its about 2 1/2 hr drive) to catch a non stop flight. There are 2 closer airports (louisville and lexington) but neither has cheap morning flights, and both had layovers. I had enough fun with layovers this year so driving is worth it to me!

 

[Blanche_Neige]

We are a family of 5 in Montreal on average it would cost us 3500$ to fly to MCO. We actually paid that the first time we went down.

But since then I discovered Burlington, VT 2.5 hr away and the flight are about 1100$ for all of us

This year we hae decided to take a last minute trip to our happy place, so all the flight prices went up $$$$$$ so we decided to drive down, but earlier today found a great deal from Boston to MCO, so we are driving to Boston

2 trips in one since my DS is a HUGE Red Sox fan and never been to Fenway before

 

[SuzanneSLO]

We drive about 4 hours to a major airport but we do it do that we can get non-stop flights. Sometimes we save money, sometimes not. But we got so tired of delays from our local airport that we jsut got into the habit. becuase we are on the west coast, it usually adds 2 days to our trip. -- Suzanne

 

[maxiesmom]

A couple of times I have drove to an airport which is an hour and a half away. If there is a bunch of us going, and you save $60 a person, it adds up pretty fast!

Detroit would be about two and a half hours from home. And for a great deal I would consider driving there too.

 

[goofy2008]

0 miles, we drive to 150 miles new york to fly out on christmas night,,
Paid more for parking, more gas,, more snacks,, more drinks,, extra meals..
pay the extra now, 30 mins from our Airport..

 

[cepmom]

we live about 15 miles south of Logan Airport and we routinely drive to Providence to fly instead (about an hour drive with no traffic) We like to fly Southwest and SW out of Logan doesn't offer a lot of nonstops, but we also like PVD a lot more than Logan; it's smaller,easier to navigate through and parking there is pretty cheap. We park at Preflight parking for $50 for the week. Parking at Logan is a lot more than that, Logan Express for 5 of us is more than $50 total, same for Harbor Express to Logan. So we spend a little more time driving to PVD, but for us, it's totally worth it.

 

[dudspizza]

My buddy recently drove 4.5 hours to Sioux Falls to fly Allegiant to Las Vegas. He lives 30 minutes from MSP. I wouldn't drive that far, but would consider driving to Duluth, which is about 2 hours away or Rochester, which is also about 2 hours away.

 

[Detailor]

We typically fly out of one of three New England airports - one that's about 35 minutes form home but can tend to produce the most expensive fares, one that's 2 hours to 2 1/4 hours away and one that's 2 1/2 to 3 hours away and generally produces the most cost-effective fares. We probably fly out of the airport, of the three, that's furthest from home about 2/3rds of the time.

Dick Taylor

 

[Ted in Halifax]

We drive usually from Halifax to ... Portland 9 hours or Manchester 11 hours this usually saves our family of 4 or 5 somewhere around $1500 after gas and park and fly. This is usually to get to MCO. In June we drive from halifax to Providence, 13 hours (worse case) to fly to PHX.

 

[littleaussie]

We leave in 2 days and are flying out of an airport 4.5 hrs away. Our home airport of GFK is almost $500 RT pp, with 7 of us it is $3,500. FAR wasn't much better so we bit the bullet and are flying out of MSP for under $200 pp. It is an afternoon flight so we don't have a hotel and parking is under $75 for a week. It is just gas down and back and the extra travel time. Our return flight puts us in MSP at 10 a.m. so we can drive home that day.
Not ideal at all but we are saving roughly $1800 to do it.
Last fall there were some fantastic specials out of our home airport and I am kicking myself that I didn't jump on those. From now on, though, we are going to plan our trips around airfare specials out of GFK or FAR.
If it had just been 2 or 3 people flying, I would have paid the higher rate out of our home airport. But 7 people adds up.

 

[thewesterberg]

We're in Duluth and most often we end up driving the 2.5 hours to fly out of MSP. Except when Allegiant out of Duluth offered $85rt to Orlando last spring... I jumped all over that one! I love that Allegiant is direct (but since it goes to Sanford, then we have to factor in the car rental.)

 

[ToddyLu]

DH an dI would have the choice of flying out of New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile or Pensacola. New Orleans is always cheaper and has a SW non stop flight, GPT would be our next choice with connections in ATL or MEM. Mobile is always $150 more per person and Pensacola--well if we drive to PNS we might as well keep going until we get to Orlando.

The last couple of yrs we have flown out of New Olreans, which is 110 miles and 2 hours away with traffic. We arrive 2 hours early and then have a 1.45 minute flight. So it takes us about 6 hours to get to Orlando, 9-10 if we drive. It saves my sanity to fly, since DH takes an Ativan before we fly...