Just a Vent.....Transportation Issues

[mytymom79]

SO I thought I had everything nailed down and our budget to a T than I went to book my flights and they jumped from $272 a person to $421 per person overnight. Arrr I know I should have booked them thursday when I seen the $272 but they have been $272 for awhile now and I thought I had time to go and enjoy my long weekend at the trailer. The real kick in the pants as a reservation agent for a major hotel chain I tell my clients daily HOLD IT NOW BECUASE THE RATES FLUCTUATE MINUTE BY MINUTE. I know hotels fluctuate and the rates are strictly driven by occupancy level ! I have been in this industry for years and I MYSELF DID NOT TAKE MY OWN ADVICE AND HERE I SIT......


It is just a kick in the pants, really and Detroit to LAX is still only $335 per person but I really wanted John Wayne afterall I would be the one navigating 4 seniors,a 14 year old and 6 year old through the airport.

I am really hoping if I wait a bit Frontier will bring back the normal rates for DTW TO SNA but who knows. We are not going till November 7th to the 14th !

Need some insight here....

Is LAX as scary as it seems ?
I can transfer back the last night and stay at one of our properties at LAX but really do I want to go through all that ?

This really does throw a curveball into our plans. Now I am so frustrated but I guess it just means a few more overtime shifts at work this summer to save up.

What would any of you do...wait for Better Rates for SNA(JohnWayne) or book the $335 to LAX now while I still have the chance ?


Please any input and opinions would be great !

Maybe cut our Disney days down to 5 days and on the last day we will do downtown Disney and hang out at the pool and relax. I am so confused.

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

Not sure where you are flying from, but we often get great rates on jetblue into LGB... and I love that airport as well as SNA... I know lots of people dont mind LAX, but I don't like it, it is dirty and tired and if you have a long wait, I'd rather be anywhere but there.

 

[cmwade77]

I much prefer the other airports, but I will use LAX, if necessary to get a better price, don't worry too much about it.

That being said, you have some time and flight prices WILL change before then, setup fare alerts on several of the deal sites. Get up EARLY on Monday morning or stay up LATE tonight, to just after midnight PST and you will most likely find a better price.

Another useful site is Kayak and select that your dates a flexible, you might find coming in a day earlier and/or leaving a day later could cut your airfare in half (or sometimes less than that), so you might need an extra hotel night, but you can stay at a cheapie hotel for one or two nights for $40-$50 or so, you can even get a decent hotel around that price using name your price on Priceline.

Also, if you can handle the risk of getting late night flights, use name your own price on Priceline for the airfare as well.

If the $335 can be refunded in full, I would book it, otherwise, wait, there will be cheaper airfare. We are going to be flying to Orlando in August from California and I am told we should wait until at least mid-june to get our tickets, it's annoying to wait and see airfare go up and down like this, but hang in there.

 

[mariezp]

We always fly American and I seem to usually find their lowest rates on Tuesday or Wednesday but I guess it's best to just keep checking everyday. I'm in the same boat but even a little worse. Ours is at $444 as of this morning. I think if you keep a diligent eye out that you will be able to catch the fare when it goes back down. We're going in November too only a little later than you are. Last year I got a great deal in June so hopefully our sale is right around the corner! It's the pits having to wait. Good luck!

 

[lk2500]

We always fly into LAX because it's cheaper and we get a rental car anyway.
The drive isn't all that bad down to DLR and we just always give ourselves tons of time when driving back up so it's never been a problem.

The only hold up might be the security lines when you fly out, but that's something you run into at most airports anyway.

Along the lines of your story - I waited too long to book my flights as well. They went up like $40 in a week. Then, I was logged on, chose my flights and seats, then waited 5 minutes to read the flight insurance rules.... well it wouldn't let me finalize the itinerary. I had to start over, and when I logged back in the flights had increased $50 each!! 5 minutes of reading cost me $200! Sheesh.....

 

[todzwife]

We have to fly into LAX because there aren't any nonstop flights into any of the other nearby airports. It's really not that bad. Yes, it's big but it's not hard to navigate.

 

[brenda1966]

I would probably wait. Do you think the prices jumped up because the flight is nearly full? Did you check the seating chart?

Since you are not travellling until November I would probably gamble and wait. I'd check the airfare often, especially Tuesd/Wednes when they often lower fares.

No, LAX is not that bad. I fail to understand why people hate it so much.

 

[specialks]

Did you check www.bing.com/travel? They have a price predictor. I know my flights I've been eyeing jumped $100 yesterday. Airfare commonly drops on Monday's or Tuesdays, so I'd probably wait. I personally can't stand LAX, but it's still just an airport and I don't know if SNA is worth as much as youd have to pay for it.

 

[lalasmama]

I'm a relatively new flyer, at least where adult-travel is concerned My first trip to DLR, I flew into SNA, because that's where we flew into when I was a teenager, and I needed *something* (anything!) that looked somewhat familiar!

This last trip, I braved LAX. I was expecting... something different! I think I'd only seen LAX on TMZ (if you don't know it, it's the paparazzi show, and they are always at LAX looking for celebs!), so I was expecting lots of paparazzi, and, really, where I came into wasn't too bad. Now, flying back out of LAX sucked! The gate was tiny, there were no restaurants nearby, and I felt like my gate area (gate 81, I think) must have been "the ugly step child"... especially because when we had landed coming into LAX, the terminal that we came into was very "ooo-la-la"--boutiques, restaurants, a real "Hollywood" feel! (I think that Hollywood feel is why I was sad that I didn't see any paparazzi!)

Lessons learned: SNA is my first choice. If I can't get in there, though, I'm okay with LAX! I still am scared to try LGB--the whole idea of boarding from the tarmac just confounds me!

 

[scoker]

Sign up for Southwests weekly e-mails. They have specials every week on Tuesday that are usually good Tuesday and Wednesday. They fly from Detroit to SNA and LAX I think. In January I got a roundtrip from Houston to San Diego for $175 from one of the email offers. That was an unusually low fair but getting something in the $250-325 range has been the norm for me.

I would probably hold out a little and cross my fingers. Buying on the weekend is usually the worst for prices.

 

[tinkermomma]

LAX is not scary in the least. Enormous? Yes, but scary? No. If you have a property right there you should feel very comfortable.

Book the $335 to LAX you will be fine. I promise.

 

[bumbershoot]

LAX is *fine* for the normal traveler. It's harder if you are driving, or picking someone up, but if you're just flying into and out of, and taking a shuttle or cab, it's FINE.

The way the terminals are done, you have baggage pretty much in the same area that you land, and there are shuttle stops at every terminal. It's like pods, if that makes sense. You land at your pod, and everything you need is right there. Just find your bags, get outside, find your transportation, all in the same pod area.

Flying out of there is about the same, though the part where that is a PAIN is if you need to eat while you're waiting for your flight, and you end up in a "pod" that doesn't have anything, or anything to your taste. So try to not get there with anyone hungry.


Now, whether I'd wait or not...I don't know. November's a long time away, and if your airline doesn't give credit (without a fee) for fare drops, or doesn't let you rebook (of course SW is the only one that does that easily without a fee), that would be painful if you noticed the cost had indeed gone down.


But just for your LAX question, no, it's not that bad.


AND, in fact, when we flew OUT of SNA on our last trip, we had a longer walk through the airport than we've ever had with LAX, so it just shows that you can't assume it's going to be the way you think. Our plane was a tiny one, one you walk out to, and the gate for that was alllll the way down the terminal from where we'd come in, and down stairs to boot! (we didn't know the plane was going to be quite that small, or that we'd be walking on the tarmac...if we had, it would have made more sense!)

Never had that long a walk at LAX, unless we *choose* to walk up to terminal 1 to be first on the Disneyland Resort Express bus.

 

[rramstad]

I had the same sort of issues on the flights I just booked for my family (mid July) and I'd highly recommend a few things...

Try the Google Flights system, it's really well organized and easy to play around with things and see a lot of prices as well as historical price data.

Absolutely consider LGB. From what I could see from SEA SNA was always more money than LGB. LAX was usually the cheapest, but I'm willing to pay $20 extra per ticket to get LGB instead and avoid the traffic.

Absolutely consider 1 stop. You might have already been looking at this, I dunno, but for example Delta through SLC will only add 1 hour or so to your travel time, and it might save you $100 per ticket.

Definitely set price alerts, definitely watch the flights, and definitely KNOW WHAT YOU WANT and WHEN YOU SEE IT BUY IT.

I like Kayak too.

 

[Kittyskyfish]

I'd book when the fare hits the mark you want to spend per ticket, so jump on the $335 pp if that seems a reasonable deal from your airport.

Are you taking a shuttle to DL? Reason why I'm asking is because if someone else is driving, then it's not going to matter too much if you are arriving and departing out of SNA or LAX because the most confusing part of any airport is navigating the service roads and that is in the hands of the driver if you use a shuttle/taxi etc. I travel LAX and DFW a lot and the scale of the airport is not so relevant because every terminal has its own transportation curbs, ticketing, baggage, gates, food...you're basically only going to experience a small sliver of the airport when you travel so you won't feel like a small fish in a big aquarium.

 

[lizabu]

It is so normal when you're this far out to see a jump like that. I've had flights I've watched for months and they can fluxuate a lot. Tues and Wed are the days the prices go down and 3-4 months prior is usually the time when flights are at their lowest. I would just hang in there a bit and see if the price goes down. I would be pretty confident that it will unless like someone said the flight is already full.

 

[BNM]

I would wait. We flew on frontier last time, as they were having a sale. Even after the sale prices were posted the flights were slightly cheaper some Wednesdays. I found a flight I wanted and watched it on kayak, they will tell you if there are more than nine seats left.

I usually wait until 3 months or so prior, to buy tickets. It is nerve wracking but USUALLY I've found prices to be really high six months or more out. That bing price predictor is useless unless you HAVE to buy within two weeks. They can't predict any farther out than that. Maybe I will take another look at the google flights when the time comes.

 

[abbie13_15]

We fly into LAX because it is a lot cheaper coming from missouri and they are the only airport that has direct flights. No direct flights to SNA. We have only been to LAX 2 times but both were just fine. Not busy at all (possibly could have been because it was really early and later in the day) and easy through security!!! Totally not what I was expecting. All experiences can be different though.