Share your best bought or known fares roundtrip to Orlando!

[lmhall2000]

(Posted this under SW thread, but thought more might see it here!)

We live about 14 hour drive from Orlando...taking a trip in September (2nd week)..I am on the hunt for the best deal! I figure if we are willing to pay $500 a night for all Disney has to offer, why not eek out another $800 or so to try and get the 5 of us down there instead of blowing two vacation days driving for 14 hours, plus it wrecks my back!!

Have not searched for airline tix in over 5 years, I was a pro..staying up on Monday nights at midnight, having all the major airline pages up at the same time and watching those specials pop in...nabbed Atlanta to Barcelona (for a Disney cruise) for under $400 a ticket! Have flown Atlanta to London for under $200...and our best deal ever was Birmingham to Orlando for $38 round trip!! I know those days may be gone, but really need to maximize my savvy searching $$ deals.

Can anyone share the lowest round trip nabbed to Orlando in the past year? (From any market really) We can fly from Nashville, Huntsville or Birmingham...Southwest is looking like the best option...I will go on their website now and try to sign up for the coupon thing y'all are talking about.

Any other tips?
Thanks!!

 

[richmo]

From Philly, I used to be able to get $49 each way to Orlando; usually on Southwest, sometimes AirTran. These days, to be honest, I think the benchmark from here is about $100 each way...and if you're checking bags on an airline that charges for that (most except Southwest), I doubt you can do $100.

 

[lmhall2000]

From Philly, I used to be able to get $49 each way to Orlando; usually on Southwest, sometimes AirTran. These days, to be honest, I think the benchmark from here is about $100 each way...and if you're checking bags on an airline that charges for that (most except Southwest), I doubt you can do $100.

I think Rick Steves could take tips from us! We pack one backpack for each member wherever and however long we travel, max has been 14 days..but always always carry on only. I figure especially at Disney, what are the odds of people realizing I wore the same 2 shorts twice?

I was thinking if I got close to the $200 or below mark for each ticket I would buy. Right now it is sitting at $287 as the lowest. Miss those magical olden days! It is a slower time of travel, so hopeful something will pop up!

 

[Rpsemont]

Watch airfares not only for Sept, but also for April, May, June...
We fly from Hartford - Watching the fares all the time has taught me that if I can get a a fare for <$100, I should grab it.

When I went last October (25-31), I bought one way on August 10th and then didn't buy the other until October 1st. For our december 13-20 trip I got the best prices on November 20th.

There's two things to know about getting the "best price"
1) recognizing when it's offered
2) being on line and seeing it at the time

All that being said, I really only watch SWA, because I know I can change it if a lower fare comes out.

Good Luck!
Anne

 

[sue Z]

the cheapest ive ever gotten was this yr going to WDW on SWA i grabbed a $104 one way fare from Boston to MCO via St Louis this was the only flight they had that arrived in Orlando before 130p icandeal with a change in St Louis rather get in then to have to waste a day of layovers else where > my actual OOP cost was $14 and some change thanks to a Gift card for $100 as I got EBCI as well leave Boston at 725 am

going back to Boston i got a one way fare on Jet Blue for $94 another cheapest fare ive ever found

 

[rdevine10]

For this upcoming trip I got from Long Island to mco for 700 round trip total for 4 people on southwest. I thought that was an insanely good price! Typically we are around 200 per person. In 2006 I got 4 tickets to mco for under 600 on AirTran. We got bumped both ways (what a disaster with a 2 and 5 year old) and got 8 roundtrip tickets out of it. (Was not an voluntary bump). That was clearly my best deal, but I was miserable earning them!!!!

 

[n2mm]

We leave next month and we are paying $116 roundtrip ($58 each way) out of Reagan(DCA) Wash. DC to Orlando. THis is on Jetblue, so no luggage fees or seat assignment fees. A pretty sweet deal IMHO.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

If you wait SWA will have their birthday sale the second week in June which usually covers travel from Aug to Nov. usually the fares start at whatever birthday number they are celebrating and this year its 41. And it conicides with how many miles. For example $41 for flight up to 500 miles from departure airport. Then 501-1300 miles is around $100 and so forth.

Also don't forget about flying into tampa. I have found many flights into TPA that were much cheaper than MCO. The drive is 70 minutes from TPA so if you look at it like this. It take 40 minutes to get to WDW from MCO and subtract that from the 70 minutes it takes to drive from TPA you are only spending an extra 30 minutes to drive from TPA. Plus TPA is a much quieter airport.. YOu can return the rental car and be at your gate in 20 minutes!

If you are SWA Rapid Rewards member you can rack up flight points by shopping online. There a huge number of stores you can shop at through the rapid reward retail site that give you point per dollar. Staples, Sears, Bestbuy, HP is offering right now 3 points per dollar spent, take a look and rack up the points for yourself. https://rapidrewardsshopping.southwest.com/?chan=c&med=lk&cont=RPP

 

[mhnewcomb]

We don't fly often, but our October SW flights are $190pp each way from Nashville to Orlando...SHEESH! Is that because we are a hub here? And SW is the only way to get to Orlando nonstop?

Thanks for the birthday tip, though...I'll be checking in June and rebook if there is a better fare from here.

 

[lurkernj]

In 2008 we got $118 roundtrip from ewr. In 2010 $158. Both of these were Continental (now United). I still see them occasionally around $190, not bad.

Since those trips, we've been doing the sw visa deals, so basically free. But now we have to drive further to go out of Philly since they have direct, I'm not complaining.

 

[AskSiri]

We're going in late September (BHM-MCO), round trip for $117pp.

Before we jumped all over this deal, $117 was how much it cost just for one person for a one-way trip to Orlando, so I feel like we really ran into some luck.

We booked Southwest, by the way.

 

[kkmcan]

I know we are all the way across the country from you but I thought I would post our Southwest fares. We weren't planning an Orlando trip until I spotted the fares that they had one morning. We jumped on it and now we are going!!

$112 one way Phx to MCO non stop!!!

Then we had to wait for SW to open the summer dates. Best deal I got by waiting and checking every morning and evening was $156 MCO to Phx with a tiny layover in ABQ. This deal I spotted right before bedtime one night.

Still, that was a screaming deal. Right now they've got $250 each way! Plus we had saved up all of our Capital One rewards and used all of those and ended up paying approx $300 for all 4 of us to fly roundtrip!

Lesson is keep checking and be ready to jump on a dropped fare. That $112 fare hasn't come up again.

 

[went503]

Best deal I got was out of dulles for $59 each way. But I just scored out of Reagan National $89 each way and I can find that for both JB and Soutwest from Dulles or Reagan National.