Episode 721 - Dealing with higher airfare

Authored by: choiski on Monday, May 17 2010 @ 08:58 AM CDT

I put together a calculator for comparing driving costs with flying here:

http://distips.com/flydrive.html

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Authored by: gmcmah on Monday, May 17 2010 @ 12:38 PM CDT

Guys and Annette, I know you all stayed on airlines and travel by car, but no one brought up the idea of AMTRAC... I have checked them out as well and have not found them to be cheaper then the airlines... Even though the rail lines run ads on the radio in the Washington DC area that it only cost $5.00 to move 1 ton of freight 500 miles... Wondering what Annette has to say??? George

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Authored by: Kfischler on Monday, May 17 2010 @ 02:07 PM CDT

The last few years, we cut back on souvenirs, but the kids grow every year, so we wind up buying new shirts. Instead of buying on property, we have found Disney Ts, coffee cups, and other items in the Disney section of the Kissimmee - area Wal-Marts and other stores. We stay off-site at a rental home and have our own car, it is not a problem to pick up souvenirs at these other sites for about 30 to 50% less than we would pay for a comparable item on property.

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Authored by: OrionPax on Tuesday, May 18 2010 @ 09:50 AM CDT

Hey Everybody long time no post!

This was an interesting topic and timing for this topic to come up. I've been watching for my upcoming trip to see where about the cost of flights would be. Now to give you an idea of what and where, we're flying from MSP (land of Van) in Feb 2011. 3 passengers and right now the only airline I can see prices with is Delta.
Now for comparisons, last years trip in August/September cost us $69 (fare not including tax) per person each way. So total was under $600. Note this was of course flying on Airtran, which really doesn't excite me considering their customer service experiences we've had with them.
Back to planning; for next years' trip if I were to book yesterday on Delta our fare would be about $450 per person each way. This would be more than double our cost of our flight from nine months ago.

I guess I'll be waiting a bit before I decide to book.

On another note, I thought I'd share a blog that I read that just happened to have a post about airfare as well today.
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2010/05/18/searching-for-the-cheapest-airfare-is-there-a-silver-bullet/

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Authored by: FigmentRules on Tuesday, May 18 2010 @ 11:29 AM CDT

Something else I consider is frequent flier points. Doesn't usually make sense from NJ, but sometimes if the best I can find is $400 each way, it does. Back when I was single, I'd just jump in the car and drive. Didn't even think much of it. But in those days I'd drive 19 hours straight down (on adrenalin) and then drive back with an overnight stop. The trip home is the ONLY downside to the road trip choice. :-(

For those in the northern NJ/eastern PA area, there are lots of airport/airline choices. Some of the airports I have flown out of, with good (cheap) results, are Trenton (long time ago), ABE (Allentown--AirTran, Allegiant), Philadelphia (Southwest!!!), and Newark (Jet Blue, Continental). Our preferred airport is now Allentown and we enjoy Allegiant. As of February, Allegiant flies into MCO, not Sanford so that helps if you enjoy either Magical Express (or the Emerald Aisle!)

Another extremely cheap alternative I have looked at, but not yet tried is Spirit Airlines out of Atlantic City. While it's a bit of a haul for me to get to AC, it is less of a haul than driving all the way to WDW.

After last week, I now have around 20,000 miles on British Airways frequent flier program! Anyone know if there are flights for that from the NYC or Philadelphia areas that use BA miles for flying to MCO? ;-)

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Authored by: hydrotony on Tuesday, May 18 2010 @ 05:31 PM CDT

About airports, there are two airports in Tampa area: Tampa International and Clearwater/St. Petersburg. Both have big jet airlines landing there. It's a 2 hour drive or less to Orlando from either one.

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Authored by: Amanda on Wednesday, May 26 2010 @ 06:24 AM CDT

Just as an FYI - Allegiant Air now flies into Orlando, not Sanford (this started in February, I think). We flew on Allegiant for $10 each way (!!!) last week and took Magical Express. Cheap options still exist... although I realize how lucky I am :)

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