Plane tickets newbie - AZ to Washington, DC and AZ to Hawaii?

[aliceindisneyland]

We're hoping to squeeze two vacations in bookending the summer - Hawaii in June (but extremely flexible on this) and Washington DC then Pittsburgh in September.
I have not bought plane tickets in 11 years! Family of 4 living in Phoenix.

Just plugging in some general dates in June I'm seeing $500+ per ticket from Phoenix to Hawaii.

For September I'm seeing $360+ from Phoenix to Washington DC. For the trip east, we want to spend about 3 days in DC (sightseeing) then drive or fly to Pittsburgh (to visit my sister!) for 4 days. It's about a 4 hr drive from DC to Pittsburgh, so if the price was right I'd prefer to fly from DC to Pittsburgh. We'd fly home to Phoenix from Pittsburgh.

There's no way we can swing both trips with these prices! What is your best strategy or tip to save money on airline tickets?

I'm not sure how airline miles credit cards work (like if we could get one with a great sign up bonus) - are you locked into a specific airline, or are there cards that let you apply miles to any trip?

Any advice on cheaper days of the week to fly into these cities? Or area cities to fly into? We're not even sure which area of Hawaii we'd like to visit so we're open to less expensive airports/airlines! I noticed the cheaper flights to DC were showing as flying into Baltimore instead....

Help?! I'd table Hawaii for 2 yrs but DH feels the opposite and would put off Pittsburgh (it's not *his* sister! ) I'm hoping for wildly good deals so we can do both, while keeping next year's WDW trip on our budget track.

 

[kkmcan]

From what I've been reading on Hawaii airfare, the prices have greatly increased for summer travel compared to the last few years.

We leave out of Phx tomorrow on US Airways and we paid $401 pp nonstop. I thought that was a pretty good deal. I checked just about every day since beginning of Dec and booked our travel in mid Jan. I've heard that people have flown out of Phx for as low as $350 pp but those fares might be long gone. Or just not for our dates.

$360 Phx to Orlando seems to be pretty good if that includes all the fees and taxes. We paid $270 pp last year (May) Phx to Orlando. Plus we had saved up flight miles on our Capital One card for years and had enough to pay for all but $300 of our fares total (family of 4 also). That fare was a killer deal and when I jumped on it we didn't even have plans to go to Florida that year.

We don't use our Cap One card that much so that's why it took so long to save up. We tend to use our Disney Visa for just about everything and those points really add up.

 

[kkmcan]

I forgot to add that we never fly twice in the same year so it would be hard for us to swing those 2 trips in one year. We try to limit vacations that require flying to once per year or even every other year. The rest of our vacations are driving over to San Diego or Anaheim, which we love.

That gives us time to save up miles and haunt Kayak for the absolute best airfare.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

If these trips are for this year, you just don't have time to earn cc miles to pay for them.

The prices look about right for airfares now; it's unlikely you'll find any bargains for your June travel. It's a lot cheaper to drive from DC to Pittsburgh than fly, and with all the time flying takes these days, might even be faster!

If you are flying into DC, check all three airports; IAD, BWI and DCA (or search for WAS, which is the code for the three combined airports).

If you are planning on Hawaii for this June, I would book tickets asap.

 

[bunny]

I live south of Pittsburgh and would estimate that drive closer to 5 hrs than 4. I don't know how you feel about riding the bus, but the Megabus goes direct from Washington DC to Pittsburgh. It goes from Union Station to the Convention Center in Pittsburgh. It hasn't started booking yet for June so you may get lucky and get a really cheap fare. The fares go up as the bus fills. My neighbor is always taking this bus and says the buses are clean, safe, and have Wi-Fi. I believe it is 6 hrs with 1 short stop. Right now the end of May is running $22 per person. The website is megabus.com.

 

[aliceindisneyland]

Thanks for the helpful tips! One plane trip a year may indeed be our limit. Now to convince DH that this is the perfect year for Pittsburgh/DC!

 

[snoopy5386]

I've done the drive from central MD to Pittsburgh and it isn't a bad one (4 hours for me too). Once you figure in being at the airport 2 hrs early and then the flight time, it's close to the same amount of time as driving and driving is way cheaper.

 

[MAH4546]

Sign up for the AAdvantage World Elite MasterCard. You'll earn 100,000 miles, which is four round-trip tickets between Phoenix and D.C. (or eight one way tickets, routed PHX-WAS / PIT-NYC). You need to spend $10,000 to get the points, but you can do that by churning Vanilla reloads from CVS pretty easily. There is also a $450 annual fee, but you get a $200 credit for your first $200 in purchases.

It's generally not too difficult to grab domestic award seats in September.

So basically with minimal effort, you'll get four round-trip tickets to the east coast for $250 plus minimal taxes (maybe $10-15 a ticket, if even). And you'll get to use the American Airlines/US Airways airport lounges on your journey, to boot.

 

[msmama]

I agree that the drive from Pittsburgh to DC isn't bad (4-5 hours depending on where you're starting and ending). However, you may be able to find pretty cheap flights from Baltimore to Pittsburgh on SW. It's maybe a 30 minute flight. And the good thing about SW is that you can book just one way flights!

Especially when looking into DC, look at surrounding airports. Reagan is probably going to be more than Baltimore or Dulles which are reasonably close to DC.

I don't know much about Phoenix, but you could look at other airports within driving distance, too which might save money.

Although I'd be with your DH, I'd MUCH rather choose Hawaii over Pittsburgh!!