Ugh! My Airfare Keeps Going UP! Suggestions???

[kristenrice]

My mom and I are going to F&W in October to celebrate our birthdays. She has never been to F&W before and I am so excited to introduce her to it.

We are going on a fairly tight budget. I have $1000 allotted to cover transportation, food and my half of the lodging. I was hoping to keep my airfare under $300 and thought I could do it when I found decent flights on Delta for $285. Now that I have the funds available to book it, the price is up to $354!

The flight I want is a 6:05am departure from GRR, arriving at MCO at 12:25pm with a 1 hour 9 min layover at LaGuardia. The return is at 5:00pm, landing at 8:59pm with a 45 minute layover in Cincinnati. This itinerary is now $354. The return flight is the same, but it is the outbound flight that is the problem. There are currently two options at that price. Option #1 is the same 6:05am flight to LGA, but with a 3 hour, 15 minute layover, landing in Orlando at 2:30pm. Option #2 departs GRR at 1:25pm and lands in Orlando at 7:10pm with a 35 minute layover in LGA. Neither of these options in particularly appealing so I don't really know what to do. Should I wait and see if the itinerary I want goes back down? Or should I just take the long layover at LaGuardia? Neither me nor my mother have ever been to New York, or LaGuardia, so it would be an "adventure". She said she is onboard with whatever I decide.

WWYD?? Is LaGuardia that bad? Should I spend the extra $70 and go over my budget to take the better flight? FWIW, SWA is not an option as there are no non-stops and the WGA fares are over $430.

 

[sam_gordon]

Have you checked to see what happens with price if you cut your trip short a day or two (or extend a day or two)?

 

[ibob52]

Book the flight that you want ~ even though the price is higher ~ now.

I missed my opportunity to get a flight (with better times) ... Because

I did not want to spend the extra money ($40-$50) now that same flight is $110.00 more.

IMO ... I will not even look twice at a flight with less than a hour of layover time.

1 hour of layover is only enough ...

if my connecting plane arrives on time & there is a reasonably fast exit from the plane.

I know others will say a 45 minutes layover is enough time for them & I agree it

is enough time for them ~ but ~ I like to walk a bit to stretch my legs & back

(the agony of growing older) as well as visit the facilities ~ before the next flight.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

The 35 minute connection at LGA is too short, especially if you are an inexperienced flyer. While I wouldn't consider sitting around an airport an "adventure," a longer connection time is safer.

Don't count on a price reduction. It's more likely the fare will increase. I would book now.

 

[loveshak22]

Have you thought about opening a credit card with a signup bonus that would cover the ticket? There are several out there and you have plenty of time to make this work.

Typically for this to work you have to have good credit and spend $3,000 within the first three months of opening the card. That basically means putting everything on that card - cell phone, utilities, cable, groceries, etc. If you can do that, most cards offer 40,000 or 50,000 bonus miles that hit as soon as you meet the minimum spending. With most of these cards your first month annual fee is waved, which means you have a year to decide whether you want to keep the card or not.

If you opened the card tomorrow (look at Chase Sapphire Preferred, Capital One Venture Card, Barclay Travel Mastercard), spend the $3,000 in 3 months then you'll have the points by late August and then can use the points for your airfare.

Even worst case scenario, you can open a Disney Visa Premier card and get a $100 sign up bonus for spending $500 in three months. The Premier card lets you use your points towards a statement credit for airline purchases, which is automatically a $100 off your plane ticket right there and then if you book the Disney vacation on that card you can finance it for 6 months at zero interest (but you do have to pay a minimum payment on the vacation package). Plus, between now and October you'll get 1% back on most purchases (2% on gas, groceries, and Disney purchases) to redeem for a Disney gift card for the trip.

Hope that helps with options! Check and see if Delta still has the Delta Amex as well. That may have a lower spending requirement for the sign up bonus.

The only other key is making sure to pay off your balances every month or else the credit card interest will devalue any rewards you get from the credit card.

 

[kristenrice]

Have you checked to see what happens with price if you cut your trip short a day or two (or extend a day or two)?

Unfortunately, our dates are not flexible...I wish I could extend it a few days though.

 

[kristenrice]

The 35 minute connection at LGA is too short, especially if you are an inexperienced flyer. While I wouldn't consider sitting around an airport an "adventure," a longer connection time is safer.

I agree! I wasn't seriously considering that itinerary, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyways. My "adventure" would be the one with the 3 hour layover.

 

[kristenrice]

Have you thought about opening a credit card with a signup bonus that would cover the ticket? There are several out there and you have plenty of time to make this work.

Typically for this to work you have to have good credit and spend $3,000 within the first three months of opening the card. That basically means putting everything on that card - cell phone, utilities, cable, groceries, etc. If you can do that, most cards offer 40,000 or 50,000 bonus miles that hit as soon as you meet the minimum spending. With most of these cards your first month annual fee is waved, which means you have a year to decide whether you want to keep the card or not.

If you opened the card tomorrow (look at Chase Sapphire Preferred, Capital One Venture Card, Barclay Travel Mastercard), spend the $3,000 in 3 months then you'll have the points by late August and then can use the points for your airfare.

Even worst case scenario, you can open a Disney Visa Premier card and get a $100 sign up bonus for spending $500 in three months. The Premier card lets you use your points towards a statement credit for airline purchases, which is automatically a $100 off your plane ticket right there and then if you book the Disney vacation on that card you can finance it for 6 months at zero interest (but you do have to pay a minimum payment on the vacation package). Plus, between now and October you'll get 1% back on most purchases (2% on gas, groceries, and Disney purchases) to redeem for a Disney gift card for the trip.

Hope that helps with options! Check and see if Delta still has the Delta Amex as well. That may have a lower spending requirement for the sign up bonus.

The only other key is making sure to pay off your balances every month or else the credit card interest will devalue any rewards you get from the credit card.

Oh, believe me...that Delta AMEX card taunts me...but we have plenty of credit cards (too many, in fact) so that is not an option at this time. It's a great idea though, and one that I recommend to my friends and family.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Getting an airline branded credit card is a good suggestion. Unfortunately, this probably wouldn't work for an October trip. By the time you get the points for a frequent flyer ticket, it's very likely none will be available.

 

[JanaDee]

You have different options.
Book now at the current price, as it will only go up.
Choose another airline.
Choose different flight options to bring the cost down.
A 3 hour layover is no big deal, but a 35 min layover is much too short.

 

[kj2mom]

I can't help with the layover, I always look for non stop but I will say I waited to get my flights, I watched tickets every day at multiple airports to try to find the best times/prices. I had spreadsheets with prices/times and just couldn't make the decision. I waited soo long that I came close to paying double what I would have paid if I had just committed when I first saw a super low price (the first one was in the $600 range for the three of us and I ended up paying over $1,100). I literally paid the price for waiting.

 

[loveshak22]

Getting an airline branded credit card is a good suggestion. Unfortunately, this probably wouldn't work for an October trip. By the time you get the points for a frequent flyer ticket, it's very likely none will be available.

That's a good point! With the travel rewards cards that let you do the statement credit you have a lot more flexibility!

 

[Paging Tom Morrow]

Take a look at either flying out of Detroit and/or flying into Tampa or Jacksonville. We have changed our travel habits and now routinely fly into Jacksonville and rent a car for our trips. While we add the extra drive, we have found that we save significant money -- even after factoring the costs for the rental.

 

[bianca]

Here is what I'd do with your budget. Drive in from GRR area the day before you want to depart and stay at a hotel in Canton, just 20 minutes away from DTW. Canton is safe and it wouldn't cost much. Drive the next morning the 20 minutes to DTW and fly on Spirit where each leg of the trip is no more than $100. Spirit is also about the only one that consistently offers non-stop. We take #801 down to FL and #892 back home ....... Every time. It's a 2 1/2 hour flight. Pack one large bag to check between the two of you and carry a substantial carry-on. You don't HAVE to pay for seats, but we always get the big ones. Heck, just this morning I booked our FREE Spirit flights for our January trip and paid $90 round trip for Hubby and I with the big front seats.

Add it up: Hotel in Canton is no more than probably $80. Parking for a week at Quik Park by the airport is $40 (with coupon from Smartphone), $400 for flights, $100 max for seat assignments, $70 to fly 1 bag there AND back and a hotel in Canton when you return late ....... $750-800. It can be done.

There are also ways to save more money with Spirit, but it really only helps if you fly frequently and it doesn't sound as if you do.

 

[kristenrice]

Well, the 7am non-stop out of FNT is back available for $130 one-way, non-stop. I'm looking at possibly renting a car one-way ($50), getting a hotel on Hotwire ($60) and booking that flight to Orlando. The return is $180 on SWA and doesn't land until 10pm so we may stick with Delta ($150 w/ a stop) back into GR. Still working out the details...

 

[kristenrice]

The airfare is purchased and I am glad I waited. Here's what I ended up doing...

There is a non-stop, round-trip out of FNT to MCO which departs at 7:15am and returns at 7:30pm which effectively adds an entire day to our trip. I had decided to take the day off after we come home, just in case we ended up on a late flight and I'm glad we did. We won't be home until around midnight. The cost of the round-trip is $318, but since it is on SWA, I decided to use gift cards to save some money.

I used Sunshine Rewards to access CardCash to earn a 1% rebate. Then, I bought $570 worth of Target gift cards at 8.5% off for $521.55, which earned me $5.21 from SR and another $5.21 for using my PayPal card. Then, I went to Target.com and bought $600 worth of Southwest e-cards (3 x $200) and had my RedCard as my default payment which gave me a total of $570 and I used the Target gift cards to pay for them. I received the gift card codes within a few hours and I bought the tickets on the SWA site. I had to put the remaining $36 on my SWA Visa, but that's OK.

So, the final cost for the $636 airfare was actually $559.55...and if you count the $10.42 I earned in rebates, it brings it down to $549.13.

Of course, since we live about 90 minutes away from the FNT airport, and our flight is as 7:15am, I decided to book a hotel for the night before. I turned to Hotwire and booked one of their "mystery" deals...a 3-star hotel for $55 + fees. We got the Wingate by Wyndham in Grand Blanc. My sister stayed there back in October and she said it was really nice hotel so I am excited. All total (hotel + airfare + parking at FNT), we are paying $678. Compared to the $808 it would have cost to take the Delta option out of GRR, I think it is worth the "hassle".