Airline Question

[antngoof89]

Is it possible to fly one Airline to Orlando and a different airline back home? I've never booked my own flight before, so I'm confused a little, but right now Delta is cheaper to fly to Orlando than Southwest for me, and it'd be ridiculously cheap to fly back on Southwest for me. If I can do it this way it's gonna save me $150 in Airfare. That's a plane tickets worth out of Southwest!

[faline]

You do not need to fly round-trip on one airline. You can purchase one-way tickets on two different airlines. There are often good reasons to do this.

Last year, I flew to Orlando on JetBlue out of Boston and flew from Orlando to Manchester New Hampshire on Southwest. It made financial sense to do so and since I had transportation to and from the airports, I had the freedom of using two different airports as well.

[antngoof89]

That is fantastic news! Do you happen know if the rumor about airfare being cheaper closer to the flight day is true? I'm currently looking at 218.20 to Orlando and 160.00 back. I don't see it getting much cheaper than that.

[faline]

Hard to know. If gas prices keep increasing the way they're predicting, it's likely that airline fares will go the same way - up.

There are times when airlines have sales on rates if the flight hasn't sold out but, again, there's no way of predicting that.

These days, one typically needs to find a price point that one can live with and hope that the right decision was made.

If you're going to travel again within the year, both Southwest and JetBlue have some version of a travel bank that will allow you to rebook at the lower rate and use the credit difference toward a later flight.

[antngoof89]

I have a $70 credit towards Southwest and am most of the way towards a free flight to MCO with my Rapid Rewards so I'm very familiar with that. However, the trip to Orlando is about $300 with Southwest and only $218.20 as of today on United. Even after bag fees, it's going to be cheaper on a major Airline, plus more options of flight times. I can then apply that $70 credit towards the return trip which is $110 a person on SOuthwest and get both of our flights at $150. Less than $400 for tickets is better than I expected actually. Do you know if I apply a credit towards the flight and it goes down, do I get an additional credit from Southwest? I'm thinking about booking the trip to Orlando today and wait a few weeks on the return trip since I have a little more flexibility due to the credit.

[Fangorn]

With Southwest, if you use credits to book and the price goes down, you can rebook at the new price.

A note of caution about waiting - with that big of a difference between the going and returning Southwest fares I'd expect one leg or the other (or both) to change quickly and with no warning. Personally, if I were able to, I'd grab the return fare on SW now, and not wait.

Steve

[NJGIRL]

You can do it. We have done two different airlines before. In fact we have done two different airports before also.

[lighteningqueen]

That is fantastic news! Do you happen know if the rumor about airfare being cheaper closer to the flight day is true? I'm currently looking at 218.20 to Orlando and 160.00 back. I don't see it getting much cheaper than that.

YES, watch everyday you will see it drop ours did..Southwest.. It would be as high as 300 then low as 61.00 we snagged that in Jan and left 3 weeks later. So watch it daily and late at night sometimes right after midnight they update. I know late hours to do so but when its money it counts to look at all times of the day. Be flexible on times also. I had to change morning coming back as we were to lelve at 8am that would be us sitting out at DME at 5 in the morning and then would have had to check bags the3 night before with the DME check in at POP. It takes patience but can and will be done. OOne afternoon the price changed 3 times on flights going down. We also decided to fly down on Friday afternoon cheaper than Sat and then flying back we got Sat cheaper than Sunday but both ways 61.00 each.. Couldn't drive it for that from Texas and we live in the middle of it. We also checked Austin verses Dallas everyday. It was cheaper this year to go Austin. Dallas never dropped their rates stayed above 250 one way, We can go either way for us so Austin it was. Consider that for a bit more gas to save hundreds.. WORTH IT!!!!