SouthWest booking to 3/3!

[jimmiej]

I checked all the possibilities for us out of Austin or San Antonio. The best total for 2 of us was $444 out of Austin. I proceeded to book my flights & by the time I hit "pay," the cost had gone up $80!!! No way!!!

I discovered the Orlando-Austin leg was still the same (base price $92), so I booked that flight. It hasn't been lower than that in the last year so I grabbed it quick. Now I'll have to wait some more & hope the Austin-Orlando leg goes back down.

Along with many of you, I am not totally satisfied with the flight times. This is an 5 day, off-year, budget trip for us, so I'm trying to squeeze every dollar & every WDW hour I can get.

The return time I wanted (at my price) was "unavailable." If it opens up, I'm going to try to change flights. I can do that, right, as long as I'm willing to pay any difference in price?

 

[pamole]

Rpsemont -- I'm trying to leave on 2/16, the Wednesday before Pres. Week, and return on Sunday. I know I may get stuck with a higher fare for Sunday, but Wednesday seems early for the good fares to be blacked out, don't you think?

For a # of reasons, we really don't have a lot of flexibility ... except traveling back Sat., which would mean 1 less day at WDW, or Mon, which isn't any better, of course.

But thanks for the tip about booking it before it sells out completely -- I may take my chances with Wed, but book the Sunday now, especially since I can get a "fun fare" at the time I want.

 

[pamole]

I know I just said we don't have a lot of flexibility, but here's the thing .... the trip is for DD's 5th b-day. It's going to be a surprise, and our plan was to have her open a box with the tickets and a shirt that says " It's my 5th birthday and I'm going to Disney World"; then leave on the mid-morning flight (which I now notice is no longer N/S ). We had planned to get to WDW mid-aft., to allow for a quick stop into MK just to see the castle, get the "awe-struckness" out of the way, then PS's at Chef Mickey's for a b-day dinner, then 3 full days for parks, and an afternoon departure on Sunday.

Now that I look at Tuesday and Saturday flights, we have our pick of flights at the lowest fares! The added wrinkle is that DH needs to be in work on Tues, so we couldn't leave any earlier than the 5:15 pm flight, meaning we wouldn't have any Disney time on our arrival day, but we could stay later on Saturday to make up for it.

That's the problem with having to wait so long to book SW -- I've already got the trip so planned, I feel like I'm making major changes if I adjust by a couple of days (which I know in my pocketbook is the right thing to do!)

Help!!

 

[Fonzy13]

Agree with Braque. Rates out of Albany are insane. I may just fly out of JFK for $132 RT.

 

[Rpsemont]

Pamole - did you figure it out? You could fly down on the non-stop Tuesday night. I know it get's in late, but you could do priceline for a hotel at the airport and probably get something nice for about $40. You could maybe do the same thing Sat night and fly back early Sun morning. Than you could grab cheap flights now, if they later offer discount fares for Wed, you could change back to your original plan. If you consider this, I would not do the priceline bdding for the airport until just a few weeks before you leave when you know for sure that you won't be adjusting your flights.

BTW, When DD was 5, we did a suprise trip (it was our second). we woke her up and said today we're going! She started crying. Said she wanted to say good bye to her teachers and friends. She came around, but that morning I had visions of being the only person at the airport with a child crying "I don't want to go to WDW!LOL!! Anyway, if she's in kindergarden or pre-school you may want to give her a gift Tues Morn. Then she could go tell everyone that for her birthday she's going to WDW.

Good luck with your decision and plan.

 

[pamole]

Thanks, Rpsemont, as you can see, I am toying with the tues-sat option; it's just hard to adjust when I've got the whole trip planned out in my mind already (shame, shame on me -- I didn't mean to do it, really! It just snowballed!) Thank goodness I still have 5 months to adjust my thinking!

Anyway, as far as the cheap hotel, we're getting such a good rate at PC (with AAA, its $272 for 4 nts), its not worth being offsite for our 1st morning. Maybe we can get an early PS at CRT on Wednesday morning to make the change worth it! I was planning on trying to go on Thurs., but this way DD would get to have breakfast with Cindy ON her b-day!

There is no better way to turn 5 than that!