Flying out of Minneapolis/St Paul?

[WonderlandsMostWanted]

Hey, anyone here have experience flying out of Minneapolis/St Paul to Orlando?

I've been watching prices for my trip in December, and they just seem to be going up already. There's a flight available for $249 round trip. Has anyone done considerably better round trip from here? Should I snag these now, or keep holding out and crossing my fingers for a sale?

(You'd think being a large, international airport we'd have more options/better prices.:mad:)

[Beast_fanatic]

I haven't flown out of Minneapolis, but I did want to agree about how disappointing the options are out of a major airport. We fly out of DFW and have few choices as well and until recently, we couldn't even fly Southwest.

Hopefully someone in your area will be along soon!

[kaerbear178]

I fly round trip San Diego to Minneapolis a lot and $200 is the best that I have ever seen for that and those are special sale rates from Northwest.
Call Northwest directly (or the airline that you want) and see if they have a phone special. I did that once when I made a last minute trip home and I got a cheaper ticket than what was on the website.
I WISH I could get $250 round trip tickets from San Diego to Orlando. It is hard to get cheap tickets into San Diego. The airport is downtown on the harbor and pilots have to fly right over the highrises and then land without going into the ocean. Since it's a difficult airport to fly into the prices are always high.:mad:

[TheRustyScupper]

1) I fly in/out of MSP all the time - business and pleasure.
2) Many flights are to our house in Orlando.
3) In fact, some workers actually recognize me.
4) The prices to Orlando are pretty reasonable.
5) There is decent competition.

NOTE: I fly Northwest, because I have so many miles with them. However, there are others available. Usually we get a Boeing-757, and once i a while an Airbus A-320. Both are good, and in good shape.

[WonderlandsMostWanted]

I fly round trip San Diego to Minneapolis a lot and $200 is the best that I have ever seen for that and those are special sale rates from Northwest.
Call Northwest directly (or the airline that you want) and see if they have a phone special. I did that once when I made a last minute trip home and I got a cheaper ticket than what was on the website.
I WISH I could get $250 round trip tickets from San Diego to Orlando. It is hard to get cheap tickets into San Diego. The airport is downtown on the harbor and pilots have to fly right over the highrises and then land without going into the ocean. Since it's a difficult airport to fly into the prices are always high.:mad:

I've taken that flight many times. I'm a MN girl, but I did live in SD for a short time a few years ago. I got lucky a few times with Sun Country flights and did Northwest once. I still love the view flying into the SD airport though. Scared me the first time, I thought we were aimed right AT downtown!

...ah San Diego... how I miss a good carne asada burrito. Sigh. :cloud9: And OB. And PB. And La Jolla. And... K, Ill get back on topic now. (And remind myself that at least in MN I get lilacs without having to pay for them or drive to the mountains. :)

[WonderlandsMostWanted]

My feelings on Northwest: Being a local girl, and being inundated with the constant barrage of striking, shady business practices, lay offs, etc, I have a hard giving them my business. I know several people who were directly affected by this companie's actions, and 90% of the time, it was completely unjust. I understand that a lot of people use them regularly, and if it works for them I hold no ill will, I just can't in good conscience give them my business.

I wish Southwest came here!

Thanks for all the feedback. We decided to add a day to the front of our trip for the cheaper direct flight with AirTran. We figure if the price does drop, we'll just call and get teh credit and we can use it on our next trip.

[Donalds Duckie]

Wow, I have been thinking that I had so few options to Orlando because I have to fly out of Austin Bergstrom Airport! It sounds like even major airports do not offer many options to Orlando. What's the deal with that?

Flying from Austin, I always fly Continental to Orlando. Continental has many flight options daily and the prices always beat what I can get on SW from here (and SW has HORRIBLE and few flight options to Orlando from Austin) or other airlines. Although not direct flights, its the next best thing since I fly 25 min. from Austin to Houston, a quickly layover, then off I go from Houston to Orlando!

I know Continental flies in/out of Minneapolis from Austin. You'd probably have to fly from MSP to Houston Intercontinental to Orlando (which wouldn't be so great) but you might check and see if Continental will take you from MSP to Ohio to Orlando.

I just booked my Sept. flight to Orlando on Tuesday morning and couldn't find anything under $200. (Yep, I went with Continental for $216 RT.)

Good luck and let us know how things turn out!

[WonderlandsMostWanted]

Continental doesn't have any direct flights out of MPLS. There are 3 airlines that do: Northwest, AirTran and Sun Country. As stated above, I'm not a fan Northwest, so unless they were at least $100 per person cheaper, I won't be giving them my business. Sun Country has always been good to me, but they're still running higher than AirTran, and they don't have the airline check in from Disney hotels, which is a big plus for me.

As for connecting flights: A, the AirTran direct flight is currently the cheaper than any connecting flights, and B, I'm flying out of the midwest in December. The weather plays a big part in that. I'm leary of having a layover in Chicago, and getting stuck there when I should be at WDW. I'm not a huge fan of layovers in general, and with a direct flight, all I have to worry about is the weather in MPLS when I leave, and that I can't avoid no matter who I fly. :)

Just trying to avoid as many potential problems as I can on the way to my happy place!

[WonderlandsMostWanted]

I am SO excited! I just got airfare, direct flight, for $187 per person round trip!!! Woo hoo! :woohoo:

Sorry, I just had to share that! It's nearly $100 cheaper per person that what we've been looking at, so I was stoked!

[Dopey's Girl]

I am SO excited! I just got airfare, direct flight, for $187 per person round trip!!! Woo hoo! :woohoo:

Sorry, I just had to share that! It's nearly $100 cheaper per person that what we've been looking at, so I was stoked!

Who did you end up booking with? I live in St Paul and refuse to fly Northwest. I have only flown with them a handful of times, and have never been happy with any part of the flight! They are the reason we don't have many options as far as carriers here...they have eaten up all of the competition.

I would love it if we could get some of the other low cost carriers in here. I'm jealous anytime anyone posts those great Southwest fares! I love airtran, and use them for nearly every flight...

I'm heading to WDW in September and paid about $225 for my flight, and am pretty happy with that...it's about the best I have paid in a while.

Congrats on the deal!

[WonderlandsMostWanted]

I booked a Sun Country flight, but I got the rate through Hobbit Travel's website. Apparently, they have a deal with SC and get REALLY good rates! They charge a $10 per ticket fee, but the total with that was $187. I think the fare before taxes and fees was like $155.

Like you, I basically refuse to use Northwest. I do love Sun Country though. Always a direct flight, they still serve in flight meals (inluded in the price, no extra charge) they're always friendly, good amount of space on the planes, newer planes, just all around good stuff. We were looking at AirTran, but I've been getting nervous seeing people's reports of a lot of flight changes, direct flights being changed and adding layovers, times changing, etc. Sun Country;s never let me down, and I'm happy to stick with them!