price diff btwn flying at less wanted time & staying over vs preferred flight?

[newholidayx2]

How much would the flight difference need to be for you to fly at a less wanted time and stay at WDW extra night VS taking preferred flight?
Im looking at Nov flights - if I take Fri morn flight its $600! if I fly down Thurs night (and stay at Pop that 1 night) Id be saving $50.

 

[Disneyolic]

You should find my answer very interesting!

We are a family of 5. I had been researching and researching to find fares for a Sat to Sat trip at the end of June. I was not liking the fares at all. Then I started to do some configuring in taking 2 separate airlines 1-way each. USAir had an $89 flight on a Friday evening, arriving at MCO at 11 pm. All the Saturday morning flights were extremely higher than that and we did not want to lose any more of our vacation.

So, I did the addition. We would have to add on an extra night at POR, an extra day of dining, and, oh heck, add on an extra park day (very nominal $ for that one).

Well, it turned out that we only had to come up with $46 out of pocket when all was said and done as compared with taking an early Saturday morning flight. Uhm....that was totally a no-brainer for us. To get a whole extra day for that price? You betcha baby!

 

[AllesonWonderland]

We had a similar situation. I was looking for Saturday to Saturday flights as well. When Southwest released our dates there was a glitch with the airport closest to us. While I was sitting on the phone with customer service I looked into an airport a bit further away. They had $49 seats but they were disappearing fast. Once I talked to DH and we justified the extra driving for the cheaper flights the only ones left were Saturday night departure and Saturday early morning return. I hated the idea of losing a whole day so looked into what else was available. We could fly back on Sunday, so that extended our time at WDW. The cost of the extra night at our townhouse was minimal, and I actually got a lower car rental rate for 8 days rather than a week. Ended up with $468 airfare for our family of 4...definitely worth the drive to the other airport. Airfare from our hometown would have been 4x that much, and from an airport 1.5 hours away would have been 2.5x our deal. Guess it always pays to explore all your options and be a bit flexible!

 

[jamounger]

I was able to get 49 each way from detroit but had to leave the afternoon before. This was 200 cheaper for my family than the other fares I was getting. We added a night at POP before going to the Poly and it cost 73.80 with AAA discount so I saved around 126 dollars leaving a day earlier in the afternoon.

 

[Befferk]

I am already looking at flights for 2/08 and I can save $180 by leaving a day early, minus an extra night at ASMo ($80 roughly) still saves us $100. I won't need any additional park days, we would love to have a day to just "be" at the resort and relax before we start our park days, or do our souvenier shopping at DTD early in the trip. So, save $100 to be in Florida versus Wisconsin in FEBRUARY for an extra day? Sure

Beth

 

[MrsNick]

To me a "savings" of only $50 would not be enough for me to take a flight that was at the wrong time or had layovers, etc. It would have to be a big savings for me to consider the inconvenience to DH, me and whomever else might be travelling with us.

I plan to take flights specifically on the vacation dates that DH and I take off from work, and also have to account for DH's lost wages if he lost a day at work, and my lost (and precious) vacation day that would be used.