WWYD? Central IL Airtran Closing Flights Question ***Updated with Decision

[Traveliz]

By the way, you'll pay more in airfare costs by flying AirTran down and Delta back. Pricing is best when you used a single carrier and book round trip. AirTran down and Delta back would be considered two one-ways. Also, it would flag your reservation with the TSA resulting in greater screening and scrutiny...

I don't think the one way is more expensive is the way it is anymore...at least it hasn't been that way with Airtran for a long time...I book one way at a time all the time and check pricing constantly. Can't speak for Delta.

Liz

 

[crashbb]

I don't think the one way is more expensive is the way it is anymore...at least it hasn't been that way with Airtran for a long time...I book one way at a time all the time and check pricing constantly. Can't speak for Delta.

Liz

You are correct. Flying within the US (actually within Canada and the US), buying two one-ways is generally the same price as buying one round trip. In fact, many airlines price (and sell) round trip tickets as two one-way tickets.

There are a few potential snags (e.g. two sets of cancelation/change fees if you need to cancel/change), but base price is not one of them.

 

[wed100105]

OP Here.

I'm so disgusted with trip planning right now. I've searched countless options and am really discouraged. Part of our "problem" is that our arrival date isn't flexible. We booked through RCI so we need to arrive on Saturday, July 21. We live within 15 minutes from our local airport and would prefer of course to fly out of there second to Bloomington. I was hoping that Allegiant would announce Peoria to Sanford/Orlando flights. I even asked if they might do that on their facebook page and was given a reply that it wasn't a plan at this time, but thanks for the feedback.

I missed the $87 each way price out of Midway. Now I'm looking at flying down on Allegiant to Clearwater/ St. Pete and flying back up on Delta. I'm also incredibly discouraged by rental car prices. The cheapest I'm finding (with coupons and discounts) for a mid-size or larger is $400. The prices right now (not counting bags on Delta) would be $901 for the three of us. That's for nonstop to Clearwater/St. Pete from Peoria and one stop on Delta returning. Allegiant added flights to Sanford from Moline. I was hoping they would bring back the Sanford/Peoria flight.

I'm to the point that I wish we wouldn't have even booked our rooms. Flights and car rental prices are so high right now that I could cry.

I read an earlier post that Clearwater PIE airport is about 90 min from WDW. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[DebbieB]

OP Here.

I'm so disgusted with trip planning right now. I've searched countless options and am really discouraged. Part of our "problem" is that our arrival date isn't flexible. We booked through RCI so we need to arrive on Saturday, July 21. We live within 15 minutes from our local airport and would prefer of course to fly out of there second to Bloomington. I was hoping that Allegiant would announce Peoria to Sanford/Orlando flights. I even asked if they might do that on their facebook page and was given a reply that it wasn't a plan at this time, but thanks for the feedback.

I missed the $87 each way price out of Midway. Now I'm looking at flying down on Allegiant to Clearwater/ St. Pete and flying back up on Delta. I'm also incredibly discouraged by rental car prices. The cheapest I'm finding (with coupons and discounts) for a mid-size or larger is $400. The prices right now (not counting bags on Delta) would be $901 for the three of us. That's for nonstop to Clearwater/St. Pete from Peoria and one stop on Delta returning. Allegiant added flights to Sanford from Moline. I was hoping they would bring back the Sanford/Peoria flight.

I'm to the point that I wish we wouldn't have even booked our rooms. Flights and car rental prices are so high right now that I could cry.

I read an earlier post that Clearwater PIE airport is about 90 min from WDW. Can anyone confirm this?

Can you arrive a day earlier and book a cheap room only for that night? Would that save any money? Saturday flights are generally high.

 

[delilah]

Personally, as a member of a family that lives about 30-40 minutes outside the Indianapolis airport, I wouldn't think it would be worth the commute to go to Indy, unless you are totally desperate, or not very particular. We have seriously considered driving to the Cincinnati airport, about 90 minutes from here, due to a larger selection of non-stop flights and better departure/arrival times. My main problem with service to/from Indy is that sometimes we are routed through Detroit and/or Minneapolis, believe it or not. FYI, it is about as far from Indy to Minneapolis as it is from Orlando to Indy, so, that particular connection adds about 4 hours flight time to the trip. But, then, there are now fewer non-stops from Cincinnati, as well, so we break about even...

There are hotels in the Cincinnati airport area that are very nice, offer free parking while on the trip, and a shuttle to the airport. We actually stayed at one last week (but were visiting the Cincinnati zoo and Newport aquarium).

I don't remember which airline routed us through Minneapolis; it was either NWA or ATA, before they merged/went out of business. In any case, it was the last trip we took with whichever of them offered that routing. I had originally purchased non-stop flights, and the flights were changed, and were actually the best choice of several poor ones.

Now we take Airtran out of Indianapolis. They have their own issues, like poor customer service. Last Christmas season, it took about 2 hours in line for us to check our baggage for a flight, after printing our boarding passes and paying baggage fees on line 24 hours in advance. All they had to do was print the tags. Not sure what the problem was on their end. There was only one agent processing all the travelers with baggage, and one very large party had about thirty bags to check ahead of us.

 

[wed100105]

Can you arrive a day earlier and book a cheap room only for that night? Would that save any money? Saturday flights are generally high.

AS of right now, the Saturday flights are the same price as the rest of the week. Thanks for the suggestion though. I am still holding out in hopes that Allegiant opens up a Sanford to Orlando flight and that we could fly down to Clearwater on Saturday or Orlando (if they have Saturday flights) and then as long as we could fly back any day that second week back to PIA. The 6:40 AM departure from Clearwater just stinks.

 

[Elmo007]

Free Parking at an Airport? That is amazing. JFK gets $33 per Day. I often think its a bargain if I can get the offsite facility at $14 per day

 

[kirs10a]

I'm also very sad about the loss of the BMI/Orlando Airtran flight! We're 10 minutes from the Peoria airport, but flight prices there are over $300/ticket. With a family of 5, that's too much!

DirectAir flies out of Springfield and has a non-stop Lakeland/Orlando flight that they're running 1/2 price for booking through 1/16. It makes our 5 tickets: $751!!!!! I'm seriously considering booking through DirectAir, but I'm a little worried about what would happen if the flight was cancelled.....

Also--Lakeland/Orlando is 46 miles from WDW. They have car rental (pricey, and my DH doesn't want to drive @ all on vacation!) and a car service.....shared shuttle service would be $135/one way....

Does anyone have any input on DirectAir or the Lakeland airport??????

 

[kirs10a]

The SPI/Lakeland flights are Monday, Friday, Saturday.

Use the promocode:HALFOFF to book @ Directair.com

 

[Brian Noble]

It's been mentioned before, but think very carefully before flying Allegiant. They have a very sparse schedule, often only a few flights each week, and no interline agreements---meaning they can't just write your ticket over to another airline if they have to cancel a flight. So if something goes wrong with your flight, it could easily be days (and days) to get another. I'm going to guess that DirectAir doesn't have interlines either. At the very least, consider trip insurance.

As mergers and capacity reductions continue, there are going to be fewer options, and they will be more expensive. That's going to be the "new normal" for a good long while, I'm afraid.

 

[wed100105]

Well we made our decision this morning. Allegiant announced nonstop flights out of Bloomington. They had good prices since it's a new flight and I went ahead and booked. (I would have liked to have saved $60 by going to the airport to book the flights, but I was nervous that they would jump in price in the time it took me to get there after work with the kids.)

The great news is that we have nonstop out of Bloomington (about 1 hour away from home) for $533 including two checked bags.

The bad news is that they are only flying Sunday and Thursdays and we had booked our rooms through RCI for Saturday-Saturday. We are wasting an entire night at the Beach Club Villas because now we are arriving on Sunday instead of Saturday as planned. We thought about flying Peoria to Clearwater on Saturday and having someone pick us up at Bloomington when we returned; my husband didn't want to be dependent on someone to come get us.

All in all, this has not been a great experience all due to Airtran pulling out of BMI. The cheapest car rental price I can find for July 22 through August 2 is $450 on Hotwire for a midsize. (We need midsize or bigger.)

 

[Traveliz]

Well we made our decision this morning. Allegiant announced nonstop flights out of Bloomington. They had good prices since it's a new flight and I went ahead and booked. (I would have liked to have saved $60 by going to the airport to book the flights, but I was nervous that they would jump in price in the time it took me to get there after work with the kids.)

The great news is that we have nonstop out of Bloomington (about 1 hour away from home) for $533 including two checked bags.

The bad news is that they are only flying Sunday and Thursdays and we had booked our rooms through RCI for Saturday-Saturday. We are wasting an entire night at the Beach Club Villas because now we are arriving on Sunday instead of Saturday as planned. We thought about flying Peoria to Clearwater on Saturday and having someone pick us up at Bloomington when we returned; my husband didn't want to be dependent on someone to come get us.

All in all, this has not been a great experience all due to Airtran pulling out of BMI. The cheapest car rental price I can find for July 22 through August 2 is $450 on Hotwire for a midsize. (We need midsize or bigger.)

Ok I have had the flu -- how have I seriously missed the Allegiant announcement - nor none of my friends have called me -- and they all called me when Allegiant first came, when Airtran sold out, etc etc. Checking their site now. Like you not thrilled but its something.

Liz

 

[wed100105]

Ok I have had the flu -- how have I seriously missed the Allegiant announcement - nor none of my friends have called me -- and they all called me when Allegiant first came, when Airtran sold out, etc etc. Checking their site now. Like you not thrilled but its something.

Liz

My husband is very irritated by the announcement. We have Allegiant at PIA (literally 10 minutes from home) and PIA (Peoria Airport) didn't get the flight. Instead, now Allegiant is flying this one destination out of BMI. We are paying taxes for this brand spanking-new terminal and we couldn't even get the PIA-Sanford flights!

 

[Traveliz]

My husband is very irritated by the announcement. We have Allegiant at PIA (literally 10 minutes from home) and PIA (Peoria Airport) didn't get the flight. Instead, now Allegiant is flying this one destination out of BMI. We are paying taxes for this brand spanking-new terminal and we couldn't even get the PIA-Sanford flights!

Yes I live close to PIA too and assumed that is where the flight was going out of when checked their website - was surprised that there is one flight going out of BMI with Allegiant. Still hoping for something a bit better. Since Allegiant use to fly to Orlando out of PIA, I figured they would just pick that back up.

Liz

 

[wed100105]

Yes I live close to PIA too and assumed that is where the flight was going out of when checked their website - was surprised that there is one flight going out of BMI with Allegiant. Still hoping for something a bit better. Since Allegiant use to fly to Orlando out of PIA, I figured they would just pick that back up.

Liz

Yeah, I would much have preferred PIA. I'm going to be ticked if they start up PIA to MCO, too. I am so close to PIA that I thought about going there to buy the tickets to save $60. However, I could not figure out what time the ticket counters were open.

 

[WeLuvTink!]

Thanks for the heads up about Allegiant from BMI. We're really (REALLY!) going to miss Airtran from Bloomington, but $150 roundtrip, nonstop to Orlando is tough to pass up w. Allegiant. The departure time from Orlando isn't great (7am), neither is Sanford airport instead of MCO, but it's nice to have a cheap, nonstop choice from an airport just 45 minutes away.