I Can't Book Yet...Why Did I Even Look?!

[kristenrice]

Next spring (April 30, to be exact), we are going to try and do the Expedition Everest Challenge. (I say "if" because it hasn't been officially announced) I booked our room using DVC points just to make sure we have a room. Since we will be taking the kids out of school, we are not only concerned with flight prices, but also with the times. In the past, we've typically traveled Sun-Fri over school breaks so departure/return times were irrelevant. For this trip, we will be leaving on Thursday and returning on Tuesday, with the kids back in school on Wednesday morning, so return times are a definite consideration.

We live approximately 10 minutes from the Grand Rapids airport, but prices typically drive us to Detroit or Flint. I have a working budget of $300 per person for airfare which is typically hard to come by out of GR. I have the SWA Visa which currently has about 15K points on it. That would certainly cover at least a one-way, possibly a R/T if I can get a decent deal. Since I don't have enough points to book all four of our tickets anyways, I am willing to fly a different airline.

So on a whim, I checked our dates on Delta from the GR airport. Ugh!...$282! On top of that, the GRR-MCO leg departs at 6:05am with a 49m layover at LGA, arriving at MCO at 12:05pm..PERFECT! Then, for the return, the flight departs at 1pm with a 1hr 11min layover in Cincinnati, arriving in GRR at 5:19pm...PERFECT!

I'm so upset right now! These flight times are perfect AND within our budget, but I can't book them yet. First, I don't have the funds available yet. We have a trip coming up in October so the vacation funds are tied up for that trip. Second, since we don't even know if the race is going to happen, I don't want to book non-refundable tickets. Third, I don't want to have SWA release their fares and find out I could have saved $200-$250 and earned points to my account for our 2016 trip.

I guess I'm not looking for any advice...just kind of venting. Now I get to sit and wait until SWA releases their prices and hope that those Delta prices don't increase by too much. I know that SWA prices are typically the lowest within the first few weeks after they're released which stinks because the EEC probably won't be announced by then.

I'm considering all sorts of options. We could all leave together from DTW or FNT and then me and the kids fly back to GRR on Delta and DH flies into DTW/FNT and drives the car back home. The main thing is that we get the kids home by 8pm on Tuesday night. The departure time/location isn't too big of a deal. I'd definitely prefer an early flight to maximize our time at WDW. If it's an early flight out of DTW or FNT, we can drive over the night before, leaving after the kids get out of school. We have a few options, but again, I'm working with a limited budget and have time constraints to deal with as well. Time will tell...all I can do now is wait.

 

[sam_gordon]

Next spring (April 30, to be exact), we are going to try and do the Expedition Everest Challenge. (I say "if" because it hasn't been officially announced) I booked our room using DVC points just to make sure we have a room. Since we will be taking the kids out of school, we are not only concerned with flight prices, but also with the times. In the past, we've typically traveled Sun-Fri over school breaks so departure/return times were irrelevant. For this trip, we will be leaving on Thursday and returning on Tuesday, with the kids back in school on Wednesday morning, so return times are a definite consideration.

We live approximately 10 minutes from the Grand Rapids airport, but prices typically drive us to Detroit or Flint. I have a working budget of $300 per person for airfare which is typically hard to come by out of GR. I have the SWA Visa which currently has about 15K points on it. That would certainly cover at least a one-way, possibly a R/T if I can get a decent deal. Since I don't have enough points to book all four of our tickets anyways, I am willing to fly a different airline.

So on a whim, I checked our dates on Delta from the GR airport. Ugh!...$282! On top of that, the GRR-MCO leg departs at 6:05am with a 49m layover at LGA, arriving at MCO at 12:05pm..PERFECT! Then, for the return, the flight departs at 1pm with a 1hr 11min layover in Cincinnati, arriving in GRR at 5:19pm...PERFECT!

I'm so upset right now! These flight times are perfect AND within our budget, but I can't book them yet. First, I don't have the funds available yet. We have a trip coming up in October so the vacation funds are tied up for that trip. Second, since we don't even know if the race is going to happen, I don't want to book non-refundable tickets. Third, I don't want to have SWA release their fares and find out I could have saved $200-$250 and earned points to my account for our 2016 trip.

I guess I'm not looking for any advice...just kind of venting. Now I get to sit and wait until SWA releases their prices and hope that those Delta prices don't increase by too much. I know that SWA prices are typically the lowest within the first few weeks after they're released which stinks because the EEC probably won't be announced by then.

I'm considering all sorts of options. We could all leave together from DTW or FNT and then me and the kids fly back to GRR on Delta and DH flies into DTW/FNT and drives the car back home. The main thing is that we get the kids home by 8pm on Tuesday night. The departure time/location isn't too big of a deal. I'd definitely prefer an early flight to maximize our time at WDW. If it's an early flight out of DTW or FNT, we can drive over the night before, leaving after the kids get out of school. We have a few options, but again, I'm working with a limited budget and have time constraints to deal with as well. Time will tell...all I can do now is wait.

Look at the bright side... more than likely Delta would have changed the flight times between now and the trip, so they would no longer be "perfect".

 

[Nutbean]

Look at the bright side... more than likely Delta would have changed the flight times between now and the trip, so they would no longer be "perfect".

Very good point. I finally found the perfect flights times within our budget with United and a week or so later they changed it (without notifying us) so we would be arriving at MCO 2 hours later than originally scheduled. So I cancelled and now we're back to the drawing board. Ugh.

 

[Altoqueenkelly]

Waiting is the hardest part of it!!!! ugh, I hate waiting - haha. Don't worry, just have faith that it will all work out