Tips for booking flight Feb. '06

[goofyfordisney]

I need some tips on how to get the best air fare deals for my trip in Feb. '06.

We will be traveling from the West Coast (San Jose, CA) 2/11 (Sat) and returning on 2/18 (Sat)--our dates are somewhat flexible at this point because we have booked room only for now. We just want to be in WDW during my mom's 70th birthday (2/13).

When would you suggest we look at booking our air fare? Is it better to wait or book early? Are there any good fare watcher programs out there that I should know about?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Shelby5514]

Sorry, I don't have any tips for you. I too am trying to find decent airfare for Feb. I'm anxiously waiting for Southwest to open their schedule. I just wanted to say HELLO as we will be in 'the world' the same time as you, 2/11 thru 2/18! Only 110 days left!

 

[Lisa345]

Goofy,
I don't really have any tips other than to say that we have had our airfare booked since April and the price has not dropped by more than $25 since then. We do fly Delta from Sacramento so we don't usually get a great discount option. There have been some specials for 2005 down to $185.00. Hope you find a great deal!!

 

[CowboyCO]

I use Travelocity when my dates are flexible. You can click on the button for flexible search or serach for lowest fare in a specified period of time and plug in for an entire month. They will pop up a clander for each airline so you can look at the fare dates. It will also compare other airports to compare deals. For example -- For Denver to ORlando, I found $330 RT per person for 4 people, or $1,320. It also showed me a comparison fare from Denver to Jacksonville (2 hour drive) for $160 RT for 4 people, or $640. I decided to take an extra day of vacation and fly into JAX the night before and get a hotel in Daytona. ($100) I would be renting a car any way, and the rate was same for the weekly rental on the car, so the extra day was free. I saved $580 and we'll get to stroll on the beach for New Years Eve! An added bonus is that rather than trying to get checked into our Disney hotel and scramble over to the parks before they close from flying directly in, , we can get a good night's sleep and get up up first thing , drive over & spend most of the first day in the parks!

 

[CowboyCO]

BTW -- I booked my fares in May, and haven't seen a lower fare since! (I'm anal about it -- always want to know i got the est deal!

 

[CowboyCO]

Just for fun did a quick fare search using Travelocity and bestfares and most low dollar flights (around $204 RT) have to be taken by Feb 03, 2006. Delta, hoever does offer a $198 dollar fare from San Fran to Tampa around those dates you re looking for. Based upon the great competition from Oak, San Jose and San Fran, I would recommend signing up for Travelocities - low fare alert and then continue to check daily until they push back those travel dates two weeks or so. (Probably within a couple of weeks!) The good news is that you are going at a relatively slow time and seats will be empty. The early deals should be very good, as they are showing for the week before you want to go! You just got to wait! Don't be afraid to pull the trigger on a low fare, they rarely get better the closer you get to your travel dates if you book as soon as they are announced!

 

[Joan S.]

Hi, If you can get to an airport that SWA flies from that could be your "cheapeast flights".However they have not released dates yet beyond Feb.3rd. This board has a whole thread on people who are waiting for SWA(and those that have given up!).It SHOULD be any day now! We all just KEEP CHECKING SWA hourly! Here in the NorthEast we have a Feb. Vacation that coincides with Pres. Week(Feb.18-26). Also if you can avoid flying on a weekend, you usually can do better fare wise. Good Luck! Joan

 

[goofyfordisney]

Thanks everyone!

Shelby: Hopefully we will avoid the Pres. Day crowds by going a week earlier! Hope you have a great trip!

CowboyCO: Thanks! I will check out travelocity for their fare watcher.

It looks like the real cheap airfares are a way of the past!

I kind of wanted to avoid SWA because coming from the West Coast it looks like there are sometimes at least 2 stops! I would really hate to do that!


Thanks again for your help!

Anyone else have any advice?

 

[pumpkinboy]

Delta/Song out of SFO is looking like your best non-stop, at ~$336. They fly nice planes and have great service generally. Or for about $310 you can take a nice one-stop flight on Frontier or Delta.

My fav' site for checking these sorts of things out is Orbitz. You can search within 80 miles of either end of your trip and see if you can do better flying into or out of a different airport. From my experience, I'd much rather fly out of SJC than SFO, just as I'd rather fly into MCO rather than an airport further away from WDW (like TPA). But you can get some pretty good savings flying out of other airports, so why not see all of the options.

Personally, I'd recommend the Song flight out of SFO, as it is non-stop, straight to your destination and price-competitive with the one-hop flights. SWA could get you a better deal, but you would definately need to make a stopover, and you would still need to wait for the schedule to be released (perhaps this week, tho).

Good luck!

 

[beccasmom]

One of the reasons we went to WDW last February was because the flights were so cheap - something like $135.00/rt out of PHL. I forget when those fares were offered, but I believe it was in November last year. We did not fly SW because USAirways matched their fares - as they normally do here in PHL. But I agree that SW is probably your best bet - or JetBlue if you have that option. Find the airlines that match your criteria and sign up for their e-mail updates. Download DING on your computer. Join Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia, etc. for fare updates. And check yourself everyday, doing it at different times of the day. And when you see a fare you can live with, book it because they go fast!

 

[keishashadow]

Don't forget to sign up w/the Airlines that service your area for email sales/promotions/rewards...a great help.

SW has only been flying out of PIT since the summer, but AirTran consistently beats them w/low fares several months out. Ding startled me everytime it went off on my computer - I've recycled it.

We went to FL the same time period last year...I booked fares the 1st or 2nd week of Dec. got good sale rates. We returned the Tuesday after Pres. day, fares were expensive from the Thursday prior to the week after (for some strange reason though, Tuesday had a inexpensive fare so we grabbed it!).

 

[beccasmom]

SW is now having a fare sale as well. The dates are not beyond 2/3 yet, but keep checking - here is the link -

http://www.southwest.com/hotfares/hotfares_air.html

 

[Drizzo67]

We usually fly Song out of New York. They have recently added service to the West Coast. Check them out. Their prices are reasonable and the planes are really nice. Plenty to do during the flight - rent movies, games, play trivia, watch TV, listen to music and even watch the flight pattern on your screen. Each seat has its own screen.

We are going Feb 11 to the 18 and the crowd level is low at the beginning of the week and picks up towards the end - just before Presidents Day.

 

[goofyfordisney]

Thanks for all of the help so far!

 

[bscs]

BTW -- I booked my fares in May, and haven't seen a lower fare since! (I'm anal about it -- always want to know i got the est deal!

You sound like me. We booked in April for our Feb.06 trip. My dh and I check every couple days at the prices and to laugh when we see how much the prices have gone up. (we're horrible aren't we?)
Hurry up and book early as possible or book at the very last minute at your own risk.