What's a good price east coast to west?

[Anal Annie]

Has anybody flown east to west coast lately? We haven't since 2005 and I'm having a cow over todays prices. The cheapest I've found (lately) is $347.50 on United. But we really don't like the plane that United is using for the flight (very cramped seats). Any thoughts? Is that about as low of a price as I'm gonna find? I realllllly don't want to fly on that type of plane. But I really don't want to pay $50-100 more pp either. I am looking to book for August....do you think fares will fluctuate much between now & then? There's still time for a sale, right? Odds? The Kayak.com fare chart predicts the price will rise soon.

 

[cmwade77]

That sounds about right for a round trip flight, but remember to check nearby airports as well. I am not sure where you are flying to, but if it's near Disneyland you will find LAX, LGB, SNA, ONT and BUR are all easy possibilities, you can also fly to San Diego, but transportation up from there may be higher.

 

[Anal Annie]

I was afraid that might be as good at it gets. I was hoping for closer to $300 so by the time we tack on the luggage fees we'd be at $350ish. We're coming from the DC area so I have several options for our departure airport. And yes, I have been checking surrounding airports in LA - problem is that after DL / CA we are going to Hawaii for 10 nights so we'll be heading back home from there....and I would say most of those flights are going to come back through LAX not LGB or SNA or whatever. So if we book rt through say LGB then we'd have to collect our luggage at LAX and hustle ourselves over to LGB. Doesn't seem worth the hassle. A one-way home from Maui to DC is more $$ than booking round trip!! Pricing it all out "multi-city" also comes up much higher than by separate legs. Go figure.

 

[cmwade77]

If that is the case, I would suggest using Kayak to find the best price on a thee legged flight. We did this at Christmas from LA to Salt Lake to Orlando and back and saved about $500 per ticket and managed to get all non stop flights.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

IAD is my home airport and a RT between IAD and the west coast for around $350 is a good price. I doubt if fares on UA for this route will decrease for next August. I would be buying now if my travel date was firm.

It's possible there will be an aircraft swap on UA between now and August, so the plane type could change.

 

[Anal Annie]

IAD is my home airport and a RT between IAD and the west coast for around $350 is a good price. I doubt if fares on UA for this route will decrease for next August. I would be buying now if my travel date was firm.

It's possible there will be an aircraft swap on UA between now and August, so the plane type could change.

I was waiting to buy air until we got our ressies booked. I may try a mix of UA going and Virgin Amer. coming home...UA is $174 going and VA is $194 returning. According to seat guru.com the VA plane has an extra inch of seat pitch and is 19.7 w VS 18 w so the rt would cost $20 more than rt on UA but it would be a lot more room. Sadly the VA flight heading west is like $259 so it's like $85 pp more. We have never used VA but I hear they're good and I think for $20 pp I'd be willing to give 'em a try.

Meanwhile the darned flights between LAX and HI go up by the day. I wasn't able to finish booking our DVC until Monday and I'm so frustrated because the flights do nothing but go UP. Last week there was a rt on Delta between LAX and HNL for $454. The past 2 days it was $516 and today it is like $592.

This is making my stomach turn.

 

[Anal Annie]

If that is the case, I would suggest using Kayak to find the best price on a thee legged flight. We did this at Christmas from LA to Salt Lake to Orlando and back and saved about $500 per ticket and managed to get all non stop flights.

I have been watching kayak, airfare watchdog and fare compare. They're all pretty much the same... And booking "multi-city" has been consistently higher by $100-200 so I think I'm gonna have to piece meal it all together.

 

[LuvGoofy6]

I noticed the same thing. The flights I wanted from South Dakota to Santa Ana (Disneyland) have gone up 100pp in the last couple of weeks. We are leaving in June and I am hoping it goes back down. I watch Kayak as well but have also been using another site which may be useful to you. It lists the best price for all airlines and if you check 'see calendar of lowest fares' it will show you the difference of a day or two. In my case the difference between one day was $153 a ticket. The site is: http://matrix.itasoftware.com Good luck to you!

 

[Anal Annie]

I noticed the same thing. The flights I wanted from South Dakota to Santa Ana (Disneyland) have gone up 100pp in the last couple of weeks. We are leaving in June and I am hoping it goes back down. I watch Kayak as well but have also been using another site which may be useful to you. It lists the best price for all airlines and if you check 'see calendar of lowest fares' it will show you the difference of a day or two. In my case the difference between one day was $153 a ticket. The site is: http://matrix.itasoftware.com Good luck to you!

Thanks. I'll check it out but our dates are pretty much fixed now that we've booked all of our accommodations (4 n at VGC / DL then 7 nights at Aulani and then 3 nights on Maui). Part of our problem is we're trying to head west on a Saturday. Saturdays are always higher. But that's what we need to do to have a full 2 weeks AND get DH back to work on time.

 

[Armadillo4]

IAD is my home airport and a RT between IAD and the west coast for around $350 is a good price. I doubt if fares on UA for this route will decrease for next August. I would be buying now if my travel date was firm.

LAX is my home airport and I fly to IAD about twice a year to visit family. I usually end up paying $400+ because I'm flying during the holidays--i.e. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Memorial Day. If I ever find a fare less than $400, I think it's great! But I do realize that fares less than $400 are pretty common for non-peak travel dates. If it makes you feel any better, I once paid $590 for an LAX-IAD R/T during Christmas. I had no choice with my dates and I booked fairly late. So $347.50 sounds awesome to me in comparison.

Note: I just did a calendar search via the Matrix ITA tool and see fares for $298 through mid-May (IAD-LAX) on UA, AA and Virgin. It's an indication of how low the fares might be, but the airlines may not be as willing to do that during the summer months.

 

[Anal Annie]

LAX is my home airport and I fly to IAD about twice a year to visit family. I usually end up paying $400+ because I'm flying during the holidays--i.e. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Memorial Day. If I ever find a fare less than $400, I think it's great! But I do realize that fares less than $400 are pretty common for non-peak travel dates. If it makes you feel any better, I once paid $590 for an LAX-IAD R/T during Christmas. I had no choice with my dates and I booked fairly late. So $347.50 sounds awesome to me in comparison.

Note: I just did a calendar search via the Matrix ITA tool and see fares for $298 through mid-May (IAD-LAX) on UA, AA and Virgin. It's an indication of how low the fares might be, but the airlines may not be as willing to do that during the summer months.

Yes, I am getting sale alerts right now on travel through May 15th on most sites / airlines.... So I am wondering if I "wait it out" if something will break on the summer airfares too? I am used to booking pretty early, usually right when the schedules are announced...but then we're usually going to FL and I know even at our 7 mo. window we'll be able to book SOMETHING...but with DL and Aulani the availability issue of getting in at 7 mo. made me not want to book air first. Now I almost feel screwed since I watched them go up over night. Virgin America was about $433 rt the last time I looked...trying to decide if I should book them both ways or book UA heading west & VA heading home. I hate making these decisions. I prefer to keep all of our miles on 1 or 2 airlines if I can rather than spread out over 4 (which is what this trip is starting to look like).