Episode 425 - Airfare

Authored by: ADP on Friday, June 20 2008 @ 07:45 AM CDT

Great show guys!
One tip that really works well for our family when pricing airfare. By the way, we use Southwest and Air Tran out of Indy religiously. After booking our airfare I go back to their websites every so often and re-check the price of my airfare. On occassion, the price will have dropped. Both Southwest and Airtran are very good at giving you a credit for the difference to use for future travel. At times this has literally saved us hundreds of dollars. You must use the credit within a year from the time you booked the flight, but for our family its no problem. I've even received credits for flights I've booked when I received a DING from Southwest on a flight I booked before the DING. It works great!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: jcodirewolf on Friday, June 20 2008 @ 09:44 AM CDT

I personally book direct flights when ever I can (and yes I'll pay a premium for it.) The reason is because the more moving parts to travel plans the more danger you run of having an issue. Missed connections for you; Missed connections for your bags (if you check a bag); mechanical problems; late/missing crew; weather; finding out that you have 20 minutes to get all the way across DFW (which is a huge airport and I had to leave and re-enter the sterile area) These are all things that have happened to me. I feel at least if you are at an end point you can go home or leave the airport. When you are in mid-trip you are so much more at the mercy of the airlines/airport. I often goto Gainesville when I fly to MCO, and I always go up to Gainesville first, since it's a 2 hour drive to MCO. If we go to Gainesville and even stay one night in Orlando, then we are a good hour and 1/2 closer to the airport (less places for traffic to cause us to be late.)

The other way to look at it is the % of time. If you are going to Orlando for 10 days (~240 hours) and you spend 12 hours traveling (6 hours on each end) that is 5% of your vacation. But if you are going to for a long weekend (~72 hours) that is 17% of your time. Same trip but a direct flight at 8 hours (4 hours on each end) it to 3% and 11%. And you can translate that additional time into real money, by figuring out the per hour cost of your vacation. If the direct flight isn't costing more than the per hour cost you should take it.

johno

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: gwcahill on Friday, June 20 2008 @ 11:21 AM CDT

That farecast tip was awesome!

---
What time is the 4 o'clock parade?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: OrionPax on Friday, June 20 2008 @ 04:21 PM CDT

I have to 2nd that farecast link as being a great resource. I'll be watching that now that I know about it.

Ok I just have to say great timing on picking this subject, I just saw a headline that United is now going to start requiring a minimum stay for domestic flights. Will this be a new trend? Would this hurt people like our Fab 4/5 etc. that do weekend trips to WDW? I guess time will tell.

I have to add another tip here, this may seem kind of odd but one thing I have noticed when traveling from MN is that it is actually cheaper to fly when using direct flights. This was particularly true with my recent trips to Cancun, Orlando, and San Fran. and other past trips to Phoenix.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: OrionPax on Friday, June 20 2008 @ 04:49 PM CDT

Hey I thought the Fabulous Annette Owens was also on this podcast?

credit where credit is due :-)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: GarrettJD on Saturday, June 21 2008 @ 11:49 AM CDT

Great show. Here in Memphis we don't have too many good choices as far as flights to Orlando. We usually book NWA because they are the only ones who offer a direct flight to Orlando (with Memphis being an NWA hub.) Southwest doesn't operate out of Memphis so that's not an option, and the nearest alternate airport to us (Little Rock) has terrible flight times to Orlando with Southwest. Airtran is the only thing keeping prices down here in Memphis, but all of their flights are connecting flights, and they have majorly scaled back service in the last year or so.

We would consider driving, but it's about 14 hours. Wish we lived within a day's drive....

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: FigmentRules on Saturday, June 21 2008 @ 07:48 PM CDT

Very interesting show! I have a couple of comments for folks flying from North Jersey. Alliegant Air (www.allegiantair.com) flies out of Allentown, PA., to Sanford. The airport is quite nice and convenient to I-78 and US-22. It's only 15 miles into PA from the bridge at Phillipsburg/Easton on US 22 west. There are $79 one-way fares from days in July through the end of the year. One caveat, they could just go out of business and then you're stuck. That's happened to me a few times with smaller airlines flying from Trenton and Allentown, so beware. Also, a colleague from work is flying the Allentown/Sanford route in about a week. They just told her Friday, 6/20, that the formerly 7am flight is now a 7pm flight. She's going on a cruise from Port Canaveral. Luckily, they don't board until the next day.

I usually fly Continental out of Newark even though it can cost a bit more and I only live 30 miles from Allentown. My reasons are many flights, the frequent flyer program, and I prefer to fly into MCO. I used to live in Orlando, travel a lot and over the years have grown to appreciate MCO as one of the most efficient and pleasant airports in the world.

See everyone at MouseFest! I already booked our flights--on Continental. Now I'm trying to decide where on property to stay!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: TiggerRay on Sunday, June 22 2008 @ 02:11 AM CDT

Combined with the increased airfare, added fees, restrictions as to what can be taken on board and dealing with the TSA security it has just become less stressful for us to drive. Now the airlines are decreasing the number of flights to O-town. It really only adds 1 day on both ends of the trip. Driving saves us about $600 roundtrip...plus we have our own car to get around. This doesn't even account for the things we'd have to buy when we arrived...things we can't put on an airplane.

Flying on these trips is losing it's appeal with us.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Jeanine on Monday, June 23 2008 @ 12:27 AM CDT

While I use farecast myself, there are some limitations to its usefulness: They only show predictions for roundtrip flights between major airports and they only start predicting a few months before your departure date. The biggest problem I've found recently is that the new batch of airline fare increases make the historical data it uses inaccurate, so it almost always tells me to wait for a better price as the fare continues to escalate...until right before the trip, at which time it hysterically starts telling me to buy, when the fares are astronomical. It's a nice tool for guidance, but I wouldn't rely too heavily on it.

Yapta is a similar program, in which you can tag specific flights and it will keep you updated as to whether it's going up or down. They say it's useful so you can call for a flight adjustment if your flight goes down after purchase, but I've always found the change fees so prohibitive, as to never make it worthwhile on AA.

The interesting point to watch is what happens to Priceline/Hotwire? For awhile now, they've been largely irrelevant for airfare because comparably cheap flights were usually available directly through the airline webpages. Now that the fares are increasing (currently around 2x what they were about 2 years ago from the West Coast,) those sorts of opaque booking sites may see an upsurge.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: CKlein413 on Saturday, July 12 2008 @ 12:07 PM CDT

I realize I'm about a month late here... but I have to also mention Yapta. I realzie when booking it may not help, but they do track fares, so should your fare drop enought that you are owed a credit, they let you know (https://www.yapta.com/).

I also have to confess, I like the e-mails showing me how much a flight's price has gone up since we booked... makes me feel like I did good booking earlier & seeing how much I've saved myself by planning ahead.

[ Reply to This | # ]