Looking for flights... advice

butterfly18237

Earning My Ears
Joined
Nov 4, 2006
Looking for flights.. anyone have any advice.

Looking Aug 5th,6th- 12th,13th,14th

Looking to fly Philadelphia to ORlando
or Baltimore to Orlando

there are 5 of us.
 
Check out Frontier. They are a "budget" airline but I have had good experiences with them. It's cheaper from Baltimore.

Spirt flies from both - a little cheaper from Baltimore.

Look up their on-time performances. Issues DO happen so you won't find a perfect airline.
 


Check Southwest first, then I head to Google flights which consolidates the best options from every airport within a radius you pick. Google flights do not include Southwest. Figure in luggage costs if not flying SW, unless you have the airline's branded credit card.

For example, I live 20 minutes north of Lexington, KY. The Cincinnati Airport is 55 minutes away and Louisville is an hour and 5 minutes. Those are my home airports. For Disney, I look at MCO first, then include Tampa, Melbourne, and Daytona (Sanford if Allegiant is an option). For our trip in April, flying to Tampa from Louisville and renting a car is saving us $300 over flying to Orlando, even including Frontier before bag costs. October 2017 had insanely cheap prices from Louisville to Melbourne($60ish), the return was on SW for around $100 out or Orlando. The one way car rental cost $65-we saved that on a grocery stop alone.
 
Where are you driving from? If you can go another 50 minutes south of bwi, direct flights from Dulles (IAD) are more numerous and cheaper.
We are driving from Wilkesarre/Scranton PA. So ive looked around our area. We have gone out of BWI before. But this time everything just seems so much more.
 


Check Southwest first, then I head to Google flights which consolidates the best options from every airport within a radius you pick. Google flights do not include Southwest. Figure in luggage costs if not flying SW, unless you have the airline's branded credit card.

For example, I live 20 minutes north of Lexington, KY. The Cincinnati Airport is 55 minutes away and Louisville is an hour and 5 minutes. Those are my home airports. For Disney, I look at MCO first, then include Tampa, Melbourne, and Daytona (Sanford if Allegiant is an option). For our trip in April, flying to Tampa from Louisville and renting a car is saving us $300 over flying to Orlando, even including Frontier before bag costs. October 2017 had insanely cheap prices from Louisville to Melbourne($60ish), the return was on SW for around $100 out or Orlando. The one way car rental cost $65-we saved that on a grocery stop alone.

We thought to take Allegiant, but wondered how to get from Sanford. Where do you drop the rental car off at? and how do you get to the hotel?
 
American and Southwest are the main non-stop carriers out of Philly. Frontier is an option too, I have never flown them. They make me nervous with limited flights per day and my husband is 6'4", so their smaller seats are a no-go. I'd keep an eye on flights on American if Southwest is too expensive. We flew to PHL-MCO in August a few years ago and found a good fare in late March.

Our original plan was Saturday to Saturday, but we ended up going Sunday to Tuesday because it was so much cheaper to fly. Sounds like you have some flexibility with dates too, definitely take advantage of that.
 
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We thought to take Allegiant, but wondered how to get from Sanford. Where do you drop the rental car off at? and how do you get to the hotel?

We've never taken them as SW or Delta is always cheaper once all the fees are added up.
From Sanford(or any other airport that's not MCO), do a 1 way car rental from the airport to the Disney Car Care Center(there are others in the Disney Springs and other Disney hotel areas also). I normally take the car to the hotel, drop everything including the family off, return the car, and take the free shuttle back to the resort. If in the Disney Springs area, Uber was around $7 to get me back, but I could have walked to the DS bus stop and taken the resort bus.
 
American and Southwest are the main non-stop carriers out of Philly. Frontier is an option too, I have never flown them. They make me nervous with limited flights per day and my husband is 6'4", so their smaller seats are a no-go. I'd keep an eye on flights on American if Southwest is too expensive. We flew to PHL-MCO in August a few years ago and found a good fare in late March.

Our original plan was Saturday to Saturday, but we ended up going Sunday to Tuesday because it was so much cheaper to fly. Sounds like you have some flexibility with dates too, definitely take advantage of that.

We pretty much have to fly to disney on Sunday or Monday. but coming home we are more flexible.
 
We've never taken them as SW or Delta is always cheaper once all the fees are added up.
From Sanford(or any other airport that's not MCO), do a 1 way car rental from the airport to the Disney Car Care Center(there are others in the Disney Springs and other Disney hotel areas also). I normally take the car to the hotel, drop everything including the family off, return the car, and take the free shuttle back to the resort. If in the Disney Springs area, Uber was around $7 to get me back, but I could have walked to the DS bus stop and taken the resort bus.

The rental cars I look into are well over 300.00. Not something in our budget.
 
Lehigh Valley airport almost never works out cheaper than Philly. Plus, as you found, they have only a few non-stop destinations. We live less 10 minutes away and I've flown out of there less than 5 times in almost 20 years. Allegiant is the only non-stop to Orlando, but it is into Sanford. Parking is cheaper in Philly, and the flights are so much cheaper that it is never worth flying out of ABE for us. I'd rather drive an hour to Philly.

You'll be able to find something decent on Monday the 6th. Some trips American is cheaper and some trips Southwest has been cheaper. Most recently we flew Southwest (Nov. 2017), but in 2015-2016, we went to Orlando three times and flew American each time.

Give it some time. I've been waiting until late March or April to find decent summer airfare. I have no idea if that is the best time, but it seems to have been ok for our last couple of trips. Good luck!
 
Lehigh Valley airport almost never works out cheaper than Philly. Plus, as you found, they have only a few non-stop destinations. We live less 10 minutes away and I've flown out of there less than 5 times in almost 20 years. Allegiant is the only non-stop to Orlando, but it is into Sanford. Parking is cheaper in Philly, and the flights are so much cheaper that it is never worth flying out of ABE for us. I'd rather drive an hour to Philly.

You'll be able to find something decent on Monday the 6th. Some trips American is cheaper and some trips Southwest has been cheaper. Most recently we flew Southwest (Nov. 2017), but in 2015-2016, we went to Orlando three times and flew American each time.

Give it some time. I've been waiting until late March or April to find decent summer airfare. I have no idea if that is the best time, but it seems to have been ok for our last couple of trips. Good luck!

Thanks, I got nervous because a lot of Southwest wanna get away were sold out. The ones left were a lot more than we wanted to spend, or times were goofy.
 

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