SW for Spring Break (MDW to MCO)

[Cinderumbrella]

SW is releasing our Spring Break fares this week. I’ve never traveled that time of year but I know flight prices will be higher than we are accustomed to for Chicago to Orlando.

Can experienced Chicago Spring Break travelers offer their experiences with price? Do I need to book the first day or will flight prices come down during one of their big sales? In my experience with non holiday travel, it’s never been cheaper to book the first day, but I’m just not sure about Spring Break since most of the area is off the last week of March and the airlines sure know it!

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

I don't have an answer for your question but I am in the same situation. Unless the opening airfare is crazy priced, I plan to buy first thing Thursday morning. We are also going March 23-30 for Spring Break and I really want to leave MKE around 10am to get in early afternoon on a non-stop flight. Our family does not do well getting up super early for a flight leaving at 6 or 7am and I don't want to waste the day leaving late. I am more flexible on our return flight.

I would rather just buy right away and if the flight cost goes down on a sale, I will rebook and bank the funds for the next year's trip.

 

[Cinderumbrella]

That’s just it, there’s no next year’s trip for all of us. I’m just trying to get a ballpark for what’s “good” and what’s “ridiculously high” for people who normally travel out of Chicago for Spring Break week.

 

[yellowfish78]

Spring Break...is fun. LOL I'm booking Thursday as well - right now from Cleveland prices are anywhere from $550 to $900 for decent flight times on non-SW airlines. If I can get a flight for under $550 per person, I'd call that a bargain. So maybe price flights today with an airline that offers a nonstop and compare.

 

[NotUrsula]

By Spring Break Week, do you mean Easter Week, or whatever week the majority of public schools in Chicagoland are closed? Generally US airlines plan to jack prices for actual holidays, but don't do that for school calendars, because they are all different. Pricing is based on simple demand if it isn't Easter week; they keep tabs on how many people appear to be looking to buy.

One thing you really should be careful about doing is clearing your cookies when searching for fares; it actually does make a difference. Also, price Tampa &/or Jacksonville; they are both less than 2 hours' drive from Orlando and may offer better fares that work out to less even with a car rental thrown in. NOT flying on Friday or Sunday will pretty much always get you a better fare when you are heading to FL from a cold-weather location.

(We usually fly to MCO on the same flights as come out of MDW, but pick them up in STL; our price during March when it is NOT Easter Week is usually about $350-380/ea, but we almost always buy each leg separately and try to book one of them on points if we can. We run a lot of our everyday expenses through a SWA-branded CC to build them up.)

FWIW, we have decided NEVER to visit WDW during Easter Week again; the wait times and restaurant crowds were too annoying for us. We have AP's, and we had to be in central FL that week this year anyway, so we thought a couple of days at WDW would be fun. SO wrong about that. (We were really there to help my DS move over Easter weekend, and we actually left Orlando for Tampa on Friday morning with a sense of relief!)

 

[Cinderumbrella]

Spring Break week for Chicagoland (last week of March).
Legacy carriers are between $500 and $600 currently for nonstop.
I’ve never paid above $250 for a MDW to MCO flight on SW in non holiday times (and usually under $200).

 

[soxyes]

We've been flying to MCO over spring break for years - 10 or so. I've never seen airfare quite this high. For March 2019 (and not Easter week), the best prices I've found are about $600 RT.

In the past, if spring break was over Easter, we've paid $4xy, but never even $5xy. To see them over $600 is crazy. I'm hoping that SW has more reasonable options.

 

[katallo]

Good luck with your search. Flights from BWI are very expensive (over 325.00 r/t). Best weekend fares have you arriving after 8pm. i have never seen anything like this.

 

[Cinderumbrella]

Every time I went to check out, prices had adjusted up again.
I give up. I’ll try for the October sale or switch to Presidents Week.

 

[MaggieBags]

Cinderumrella - Same airports, same spring break here too. The increase also happened to me while I was booking. I booked my own with points, then went back to book my family. Had to do it twice with an increase of $20 per ticket but we got them booked. Flying Monday - Monday however. I started with the "low fare calendar" and went from there. We are also off the following Monday so I had a little wiggle room. Had hoped to have a day at home before returning to work/school. Also had to take the 6am flight out. Ouch. Couldn't believe how many were sold out at 6am! $386 a ticket.

Hope President's Day week works better for you!

 

[deide71]

Same week here, but no flexibility in dates...I had to book 3/23-3/30. MSP to MCO $440 R/T. I had enough points to book 2, and I have companion pass so I only needed to pay for one ticket out of 4, but ouch! We usually end up connecting at MDW but those flights were really high...$600-$700 R/T! We are connecting in Baltimore and the flight times are terrible.
Looking at the calendar that is literally the most expensive week of the month.

 

[Cinderumbrella]

Cinderumrella - Same airports, same spring break here too. The increase also happened to me while I was booking. I booked my own with points, then went back to book my family. Had to do it twice with an increase of $20 per ticket but we got them booked. Flying Monday - Monday however. I started with the "low fare calendar" and went from there. We are also off the following Monday so I had a little wiggle room. Had hoped to have a day at home before returning to work/school. Also had to take the 6am flight out. Ouch. Couldn't believe how many were sold out at 6am! $386 a ticket.

Hope President's Day week works better for you!

I had started at $146 each way but it just kept adjusting up. They are at $186 right now. We always take first nonstop out and last nonstop home so the times didn’t bother us. But honestly, they aren’t ideal dates so I’ll just keep checking. President Week is about $275 RT right now.

Did you do EBCI? I saw it was now $20 to Orlando but didn’t get far enough to see what it was from Orlando

 

[cmarsh31]

I'm sure Chicago is WAY better than Albany... but just a warning that my Southwest flights for President's week have never, ever gone down from opening day prices. I think the little hopper app actually laughs at me when I check to see if they're lower.

 

[Cinderumbrella]

I'm sure Chicago is WAY better than Albany... but just a warning that my Southwest flights for President's week have never, ever gone down from opening day prices. I think the little hopper app actually laughs at me when I check to see if they're lower.

Chicago has something like 25 flights per day to Orlando so we are fortunate to have so many options to keep prices down. I’m not making any final decisions today.

 

[Brandilla]

Just bought our spring break tickets. We have only flown twice, and most recently was in February where flights were like $180/pp nonstop out of Detroit, so I definitely have sticker shock this morning! My flights cost me $1,000 more than I was hoping/expecting to pay . I had just under 20,000 points and thought I'd at least be able to pay for one with points, but no. They were too much. I ended up paying $460/pp. I could've saved $100 each by taking a later flight, but it would've gotten us to out hotel around 11pm and with kids, it just wasn't worth it to me. Happy to have them booked, but now going to hope really hard that they have a sale and I can get some credit back!

 

[Brandilla]

I had started at $146 each way but it just kept adjusting up. They are at $186 right now. We always take first nonstop out and last nonstop home so the times didn’t bother us. But honestly, they aren’t ideal dates so I’ll just keep checking. President Week is about $275 RT right now.

Did you do EBCI? I saw it was now $20 to Orlando but didn’t get far enough to see what it was from Orlando

Not who you asked, but for me, it was $20 to MCO and $25 home (Detroit). So would be $180 round trip for my family of 4. ouch!

 

[Kidanifan08]

We just booked 3/28-4/6 for our Spring Break DCL cruise. IND to MCO $488 pp R/T with WGA! EBCI was $20 pp each way. The outbound was originally less than $200 pp, but jumped up to $244 while I was trying to finish booking, which was irritating. Oh well, nobody is priced better at this point. This is definitely the most we have paid for Spring Break to MCO ever.

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

I booked MKE-MCO this morning for 03/23 - 03/30 and it was a mess as others have noted. I was booking tickets 2x2 one-way in 2 different browsers and kept having to redo flights as the price would change before I could purchase. I had to re-do the arrival flights 3 times and re-enter payment and address info each time. I was so stressed!!

My flights down were $229/259 and return was $189/259 since the price kept going up during booking. At least we had $153 in travel funds each to lower the cash outlay. I got the flight I wanted on the return trip but my flight down I had to choose a flight getting in to MCO after 3pm on 03/23 but its no big deal. I am just glad I got flights under $300 and was able to fly out of MKE instead of driving down to MDW.

 

[Cinderumbrella]

I booked MKE-MCO this morning for 03/23 - 03/30 and it was a mess as others have noted. I was booking tickets 2x2 one-way in 2 different browsers and kept having to redo flights as the price would change before I could purchase. I had to re-do the arrival flights 3 times and re-enter payment and address info each time. I was so stressed!!

My flights down were $229/259 and return was $189/259 since the price kept going up during booking. At least we had $153 in travel funds each to lower the cash outlay. I got the flight I wanted on the return trip but my flight down I had to choose a flight getting in to MCO after 3pm on 03/23 but its no big deal. I am just glad I got flights under $300 and was able to fly out of MKE instead of driving down to MDW.

I was just pricing out MKE but the cost savings just aren’t there for us. Tampa flights were worse than Orlando.

Flights I was looking at 2 hours ago are now up to $240+ each way. Such a mess

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

I was just pricing out MKE but the cost savings just aren’t there for us. Tampa flights were worse than Orlando.

Flights I was looking at 2 hours ago are now up to $240+ each way. Such a mess

I wasn't happy about the prices but for us, MKE is easier than MDW. Sometimes we drive to MDW but that is an extra hour+ car time that we would rather avoid. I takes us 45 minutes to get to MKE and over 2 hours to get to MDW in low traffic! We are also set on the dates because both DD20 and DD17 have spring break the same week (which doesn't usually happen with college and high school) and DD20 will be in an internship next summer and unable to take a vacation.

Good luck on your flights! I am hoping to get a room discount at WDW to help make up for the flight costs.