Will the fares EVER go down???

[amykissangel]

I just wanted everyone's opinion...I know the airlines are going through a rough time right now, but five years ago it cost $195 to fly from Green Bay, WI to Orlando. Two years ago, it cost $275. When I looked at prices for THIS May, they were over $375.

Am I looking at the wrong places? I checked Orbitz and Travelocity, etc. Do you think these prices will ever go down? In your opinion, would it be more of a hassle to pay that much, or cheaper to drive to Chicago, park, and get a $200 plane ticket from there? Thanks guys!

 

[JimboJones123]

I just wanted everyone's opinion...I know the airlines are going through a rough time right now, but five years ago it cost $195 to fly from Green Bay, WI to Orlando. Two years ago, it cost $275. When I looked at prices for THIS May, they were over $375.

Am I looking at the wrong places? I checked Orbitz and Travelocity, etc. Do you think these prices will ever go down? In your opinion, would it be more of a hassle to pay that much, or cheaper to drive to Chicago, park, and get a $200 plane ticket from there? Thanks guys!

you can always risk hotwire or priceline. they can usually cut those costs. I take the hotwire price and drop another 30% when I try priceline. if it's 375, you may get like 225 or less even. no guranteed times though. also try sidestep or even discount carriers out of the airport like airtran or Southwest. they don't post on some of the big travel sites.

 

[jozzmenia]

I usually check travelocity or kayak.com then go to the individual website of the airline with the lowest rates. i usually fly allegiant air or airtran. spirit, southwest, and midwest airlines are usually cheap too i think. we're going for $138 a person (after taxes) roundtrip from michigan. :sohappy:

 

[amykissangel]

I usually check travelocity or kayak.com then go to the individual website of the airline with the lowest rates. i usually fly allegiant air or airtran. spirit, southwest, and midwest airlines are usually cheap too i think. we're going for $138 a person (after taxes) roundtrip from michigan. :sohappy:

4real? My cousin would have to fly in from MI...the Lansing/Grand Rapids area. Is that from Detroit, or from elsewhere? Thanks!

 

[KrazyKemp]

Try:

www.sidestep.com

They look through every online booking agency (hotwire, travelocity, etc) and find the lowest fares.

I love it!

 

[Tinkrbell]

I just wanted everyone's opinion...I know the airlines are going through a rough time right now, but five years ago it cost $195 to fly from Green Bay, WI to Orlando. Two years ago, it cost $275. When I looked at prices for THIS May, they were over $375.

Am I looking at the wrong places? I checked Orbitz and Travelocity, etc. Do you think these prices will ever go down? In your opinion, would it be more of a hassle to pay that much, or cheaper to drive to Chicago, park, and get a $200 plane ticket from there? Thanks guys!

Did you look at fares if you fly out of Milwaukee? I'm going down in October & paid about $480(with tax, etc.) for two tickets on Midwest Airlines.

 

[amykissangel]

I just tried some options that everyone posted about, and the cheapest - ABSOLUTE cheapest I can get for next year (in FEBRUARY, of all times) is from Chicago, and it's $350. The ones from Green Bay to Orlando are...get this...$700, per person. I should be able to rent a jet for the $3000 we'll pay for four people to go. This sucks. Seriously.:hurl: Someone un-depress me.

 

[Magister]

To answer your original question from the title, yes the Airfares will go back down sometime. All it takes is another airline to offer the same route. It might not go back to the heady < $200 days of our youth(eheh) but it will head back down.

 

[amykissangel]

That helps a little. Thank you. I'm slightly less depressed.

 

[RonAnnArbor]

Actually -- NOT TRUE -- all of the current travel advisors are indicating that airfare will NOT go down anywhere in the next several years. They have been in debt for so long, that the market is finally stabilizing toward the break-even point. Locations like Orlando will never suffer from lack of ridership, and you will not see the bargain fares that you once saw for popular destinations. You can find some cheaper prices from the great lakes area from Midwest Air, and occasionally through Continental. From Detroit Spirit also offers some discounts. But gone are the days of cheap airfare. On occasion (like totally off peak) you might be able to find some lower airfares, but even those are not going to be in that cheap range you once used to pay. I used to be able to travel from Detroit to Las Vegas for 129 roundtrip year after year. Try finding one now for under 400.00 or more. The price of gas, labor, and ongoing debt to payoff bad business for the major airlines will continue to keep the airfare at a higher price than we are used to. Asking if the airfare is going to go down is similar to asking if our car gasoline prices are going to go down. They are not. Hopefully, they will stay about where they are now. In WI, you are in a limited carrier market. You can look at flying out of Chicago, or biting the bullet and making the 5-hour drive to Detroit. I live in Detroit and I often book airfare out of Cleveland, where it is a bit cheaper than Detroit.

 

[80sRockKevin]

Try:

www.sidestep.com

They look through every online booking agency (hotwire, travelocity, etc) and find the lowest fares.

I love it!

I second this suggestion. This is where I found my airfare for November. I'd also like to thank WDWMAGIC member robynchic for suggesting that site in another thread. It was a huge help.

Kevin

 

[MadMax11]

Pretty sure they don't have a Boston-Orlando flight...

but Southwest offers incredible internet specials of $87/person one way from/to Houston/Orlando.

 

[GoofyFan1]

$349 each way for JetBlue, flying out of Burlington, Vermont:fork: If I drive 6 hours to Rochester, NY, I can get a fare for $169 each way. Here's the interesting part....Both flights have to go out of NYC/JFK. Rochester is 260 miles from NYC, while Burlington is 253 miles away, yet JetBlue had no explaination for the price descrepancy. Personally I don't think a difference of close to $200 is fair or warranted, even in a free market society.

PS: These were Christmas time fares. I got flights with JetBlue for $99 for our July Trip.

 

[jozzmenia]

4real? My cousin would have to fly in from MI...the Lansing/Grand Rapids area. Is that from Detroit, or from elsewhere? Thanks!

we're flying out from lansing but back into detroit. but u can generally find really cheap lansing fares to orlando at allegiantair.com

Good luck!

 

[disneydaft]

Have yo looked at flights flying into Tampa or even Miami?

You could probably save quite a bit by flying to a less popular destination. You could then rent a car at Miami or Tampa and drop it off in Orlando.

 

[LaughingGravy]

Best I recently found using suggestions above was $237 RT each person and there are 4 of us, not including any extra air fees not mentioned until checkout. (estimate rounding up to $250 each)
I calculated RT fuel and tolls to be $300-$350, plus a free overnight at a relative's large house confirmed for the trip up and back around the 1/2 way point of the 18 hr. drive each way.
Our reservations are on Disney property, so parking fees are a non-issue.
Dining plan is free. Last trip, that saved us approx. $1200.

It means I have to take off 2 days at each end of the vacation from work for the travel, but that's $650 in savings and no one has to worry about picking us up/dropping off at the airport. Good thing there's a portable DVD player, tunes, and the license plate alphabet game.

I also hate being treated like a criminal before I get on a commercial plane these days. My name is a common 'apple pie' kind of name, but it's on the security watch list. No, it doesn't contain "Al".

I haven't done a good old fashioned road trip in the "Family Truckster" in a long time.

"Now, I owe it to myself to tell you, Mr. Griswold, that if you are thinking of taking the tribe cross country, this is your automobile. The Wagon Queen Family Truckster. You think you hate it now, but wait till you drive it."

Later on....

"We're ten hours from the fun park and you want to bail out. Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much fun we'll need plastic surgeory to remove our smiles. You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of you're *. I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! "


If you've not seen the original Nat'l Lampoons' Vacation, you owe it to yourself to see it unedited before driving to WDW from any great distance.
Some definite adult subject matter, so make sure the kiddies are in bed.

 

[isitingood]

Airfares

As long as gas prices keep going up so will the airfares. Everyone thinks that airlines get a special price for fuel but that is untrue because oil companies know that that the airlines have to have the fuel to fly so they don't give them a discount. I bought my plane tickets on priceline and bought 3 RT tickets from Seattle to Orlando for $900.00. And that was United Airlines, Priceline was by far the cheapest but they all differ so keep checking all the sites:wave:

 

[DznyGrlSD]

I'm flying roundtrip out of Omaha (Im from Sioux Falls) to Orlando for $245

 

[ErickainPA]

You could also see where it's cheap to go to by plane and than check the price from that place to Orlando.

 

[mkt]

I also hate being treated like a criminal before I get on a commercial plane these days. My name is a common 'apple pie' kind of name, but it's on the security watch list. No, it doesn't contain "Al".

The TSA needs to go :fork: