Are you finding the prices insanely high? Am I doing something wrong or what?

I checked out some Florida pricing (want to go to the space center! I mean, the children want to go :-)) and it was around a grand a ticket so I knocked that on the head. No idea if that is typical but it seemed an awful lot to me.

I checked out prices for 3 of us to go to Vancouver in the summer, direct from Manchester, was 1800 all in with Canadian affair (so Air Transat).

Not bad, but yes, the florida prices in particular are high.

2 years ago we were paying a little over £500pp to get to Chicago from London. Now it’s at least £750 and that’s with a change. Strangely the tickets from Cardiff haven’t gone up, so it’s now become economically viable to fly from there, whilst not being any cheaper!

As a general rule, are Heathrow/Gatwick cheaper then?
Never fly to the states for work and don’t buy my own tickets so this is all a bit of a learning curve for me 🙂

Went last summer Edinburgh-DC, NY-Edinburgh, both ways via Heathrow for £550, cost pretty much exactly the same this summer doing Edinburgh-NY and back. Both times with BA.

I booked flights with BA through Trailfinders from Edinburgh to Denver via LHR – San Francisco via LHR back to Edinburgh. £750. Bike goes free. I don’t think that’s too bad a fare. I think I paid around £600 to fly to Portland OR about 6 years ago. The bike was an extra on Continental, about $60 each way then, I think the last time they wanted $200 each way.

Hub to hub is generally cheaper. So yes, from the UK Heathrow and Gatwick is usually cheaper for a non-holiday based destination.

whatnobeer – when this summer?

Not bad, but yes, the florida prices in particular are high

Hmm. So any mileage in flying somewhere else and getting an internal flight or a full tank of gas, half packet of cigarettes, waiting for dark and putting on the sunglasses? (i.e. Hertz).

I checked out prices for 3 of us to go to Vancouver in the summer, direct from Manchester, was 1800 all in with Canadian affair (so Air Transat).

I flew with them this year to Calagary on my ski trip. If you can, have a look at their “Business” class. It’s not real business class but the service was much better and when I booked it wasn’t actually that much more expensive. They are a surprising good airline considering the price.

Hmm. So any mileage in flying somewhere else and getting an internal flight or a full tank of gas, half packet of cigarettes, waiting for dark and putting on the sunglasses? (i.e. Hertz).

No and no. Stick to the same company / alliance from origin to destination to avoid getting stuck when flights don’t connect. Also, car hire away from airports is cheaper so look for downtown branches for better deals.

We’re off to Florida at Easter. Direct flights from Manchester were around 1500 pounds each. Via Chicago (all with American Airlines) was 700 each. That’s a lot of meals out/Mickey time etc., and we’ve paid for a lounge in Chicago so the stopover is more comfortable.

Booked two flights last week, Gatwick to Vegas out, San Fransico to Heathrow home. Paid £711 each, which was through Expidea with BA. No idea if that’s expensive having never booked flights to the US before.

Stick to the same company / alliance from origin to destination to avoid getting stuck when flights don’t connect

Very sound advice. Many times I’ve been ‘saved’ by being booked on the same company/alliance, most notably a delayed flight in to LAX for transfer to Vegas. American Airlines ground staff were truly epic in their service. (Which is a shame, as their on board service left a lot to be desired, as per!)

Also, car hire away from airports is cheaper so look for downtown branches for better deals.

Not everywhere – not in Chicago certainly. Every hire place has an outlet there and they hire insane volumes of cars, so the competition drives the prices right down. It was much cheaper than away from the airport.

whatnobeer – when this summer?

Middle to the end of May this year. There were a few cheaper fares available too depending on where you changed. Think Dublin was a wee bit cheaper but than Heathrow.

We used Holiday Autos UK to pre-book car hire in LA last year – amongst the cheapest I found online and a very healthy Quidco cashback too. The actual vehicle was then picked up at LAX from Hertz. Quite fun really – we paid for a ‘class’ of vehicle rather than a model so I just wandered around the lot and chose the one that looked the most interesting.

If you need child seats consider buying them from Amazon and getting them delivered to your hotel (just warn the hotel in advance) rather than adding them to the rental – it could work out cheaper.

Regarding rental, would pre book a deal of course but what I was thinking was if it were cheaper to fly to a ‘non tourist’ destination then drive down to Orlando area. Might be able to turn it into a ‘possible’ rather than a ‘no way’ (as I’ve got to buy 5 tickets) for maybe a day or twos driving either end of a holiday. I’m sure I’ll regret that idea though 🙂

Buying the seats is an interesting idea! Having seen the premiums being charged I can well believe its cheaper.

Yeah, wish we’d bloody thought about it before we went though – especially as we were there for almost three weeks and were staying with family anyway (and he is an Amazon Prime member too). It occurred to me halfway through the holiday unfortunately 🙁

2 x child seat 3 years + @ 6.99 each = 13.98 USD (per day) – 18 days so 251.64 USD!!!!

Middle to the end of May this year.

Yeah we are going in the school hols which could be our problem 🙁

I fly to Chicago regularly and rarely pay more than £600 – booked 2 flights last week for £575 each on United.

We’ve flown loads and similarly never paid more than about 520 ish.

Going to Chicago in September best I can get is £570 if I went next week it would be £530 which I dont understand.

Because they have loads of capacity for next week and have 6 months to sell seats in September?