Air Booking Anxiety

What happens with those airlines if your flight is affected due to winter weather?

All airlines will try to get you on a later flight. The issue is when an airline has no later flights. When they fly that route once a day. And the next day is full.

If they can’t get you there, they’ll refund you. So you’re refunded $200 and now flights on other airlines cost $1000 or more last minute.

That’s why you want to book with an airline that has more choices.

I had a Jet Blue flight do that to me once... it was a one flight in and out situation and it had us coming home at 4:30 pm and 2 months later it changed to coming home at 7 am. I was NOT happy.

They would have changed it for you. All US airlines will change if they’ve changed the flight, at no extra cost to you, IF there are other flights. You could have checked out JB’s scheduled chosen what worked for you, and called in to request to be changed to your desired flights.

With spirit and frontier, again, their hands are tied by their low numbers of flights from point a to point b. They might want to change a flight for you, but if it’s their only flight on that route for the day, everyone is out of luck.

I'm also looking at certain hours. I don't want to be driving to/from the airport in the dark so that might be why.

Definitely. Expand your flight times. If it’s that bad for you to drive at night, go early and stay at an airport area hotel. Or get a hotel for the day you arrive. Or both. Or take a shuttle or taxi or rideshare or car service.
 
We are regular SW flyers out of PVD- I checked for that weekend and the SW flights are pretty reasonable. I'm not sure you will even get a better deal on Frontier or Spirit once you start adding fees. Any chance you can leave Wednesday night on the 5:45 pm flight- get an extra start on your weekend and the flight is much cheaper so the extra cost for the hotel could offset the reduced airline flight.
 


Is it important for you both to sit together? That costs extra as well if you want to choose seats ahead of time.
 
THANKS!!! Hopefully he sees it the same way! haha I haven't found that Delta flight. Although I'm also looking at certain hours. I don't want to be driving to/from the airport in the dark so that might be why. I am still holding off on booking air. Eeek!
The 2 flights on Delta are both $182rt per person. I haven't flown Delta lately, not sure about bag fees. These might be the times that don't interest you.

3:50p-7:11p Return 7:00a-9:49a

7:50p-11:14p Return ^ same as above

I like checking this site: https://matrix.itasoftware.com/
Under where you put in the date, click your preferred time categorie(s) like early, morn, afternoon, evening, late.

GOODLUCK finding a great fare for Black Friday. If Jetblue comes down under $200, worth considering because price includes a full size carry-on luggage for each ticket.
 


did you check all the airports in the area: PVD, BOS,BDL (Hartford), MHT (Manchester)?

Jet Blue has soon pretty good fares right now out of Boston, I see $933 total for 2 people in "Blue" fare class where you can choose your seats in advance, cheaper prices depending on what time you want to fly.
Yeah, $933 for two people is crazy high and nowhere near "budget".
 
Yeah, $933 for two people is crazy high and nowhere near "budget".
Yeah, $350-$450rt seems closer to the 'budget' deal range for 2 ppl from BOS area.

For us $300rt each would be the absolute top ever, <$225 acceptable, $150-$180 = budget. Over the past several years we've paid Jet Blue $160, $180, $220 (Easter), $207 NY-MCO.

Our flight this December we paid $213 each, though we could've booked this exact flight in August when we saw it for $163 (our party wasn't 100% committed yet unfortunately).
 
Ive heard i may have luck with prices on both cyber monday and travel tuesday as well.

Frontier has 1 flight in and out of Boston each day, but Spirit has a few options.

If I choose the expensive add on bundle for Frontier it comes to less than $300 total round trip for both of us. With Spirit, it comes to about $500.

Southwest is $600, I cant seem to get on Jet Blue's website, Delta is expensive, etc., blah. I feel like the universe is conspiring against me! 😭
 
Well... after MUCH research, obsessing and deliberating... I ended up booking Spirit (we are now landing FL at 2:15pm and flying out at 3:51pm so we don't totally lose days to travel and we don't get picked up by ME at 3 am to go home). They just had the best price and time options for me this trip. I purchased the insurance to cover me if something happens. Thank you all for your help!!
 
You might want to check out Freebird (getfreebird.com). It's a type of travel insurance where if your flight gets cancelled or delayed by 4 hours they will rebook you on another carrier. I used it flying home from MCO-ORD on the Monday of Veteran's Day weekend. It was $19/person each way and I booked it since I was trying Spirit. At around 11am I got a text from them that my Spirit flight was going to be 3 hours delayed. About 20 minutes later Spirit's website showed the delay as 5 hours. I then replied to the text saying it was now a 5 hour delay. Freebird then sent me a link which had a ton of rebooking options. We ended up booking Delta thru Atlanta and got home that day. There was no additional cost to me. My Spirit flight along with the remaining AA/UA nonstop all ended up getting cancelled.

When I looked at the receipt for the tickets on Delta.com the total for 2 people was $2200. One segment was actually in first class. I think my Spirit days are over, but if i do fly them (or Frontier or Allegient) I would absolutely use Freebird. Their website has a good video showing how it works. I can confirm it is as easy as they say it is.

One tip on Spirit is to only check one checked bag and share. No need to pay for two checked or carryon bags when I bet you can get all your stuff in 1 checked and a couple backpacks.
 
You might want to check out Freebird (getfreebird.com). It's a type of travel insurance where if your flight gets cancelled or delayed by 4 hours they will rebook you on another carrier. I used it flying home from MCO-ORD on the Monday of Veteran's Day weekend. It was $19/person each way and I booked it since I was trying Spirit. At around 11am I got a text from them that my Spirit flight was going to be 3 hours delayed. About 20 minutes later Spirit's website showed the delay as 5 hours. I then replied to the text saying it was now a 5 hour delay. Freebird then sent me a link which had a ton of rebooking options. We ended up booking Delta thru Atlanta and got home that day. There was no additional cost to me. My Spirit flight along with the remaining AA/UA nonstop all ended up getting cancelled.

When I looked at the receipt for the tickets on Delta.com the total for 2 people was $2200. One segment was actually in first class. I think my Spirit days are over, but if i do fly them (or Frontier or Allegient) I would absolutely use Freebird. Their website has a good video showing how it works. I can confirm it is as easy as they say it is.

One tip on Spirit is to only check one checked bag and share. No need to pay for two checked or carryon bags when I bet you can get all your stuff in 1 checked and a couple backpacks.

Well I booked travel insurance when booking my flight... would I really need 2 types of insurance? I've never gotten insurance before for a flight. But warnings against Spirit coupled with New England weather in January led me to buy it this time for peace of mind. :) Also, that's exactly what I did... 1 checked bag for both of us to share. We're only going for 3 nights so I will put some money saving snacks in to go down and have room in there after for souvenirs. :D
 
Well I booked travel insurance when booking my flight... would I really need 2 types of insurance? I've never gotten insurance before for a flight. But warnings against Spirit coupled with New England weather in January led me to buy it this time for peace of mind. :) Also, that's exactly what I did... 1 checked bag for both of us to share. We're only going for 3 nights so I will put some money saving snacks in to go down and have room in there after for souvenirs. :D

It would depend on the type of coverage the insurance you bought provides. I like Freebird because it provides the ability to buy last minute, walk up fares at the flat $19 charge per leg. I don't know too many travel insurance policies that do.

Hopefully your flights are right on time and all this is moot! We are going January 11th to 20th so also hoping for good flying weather!
 
It would depend on the type of coverage the insurance you bought provides. I like Freebird because it provides the ability to buy last minute, walk up fares at the flat $19 charge per leg. I don't know too many travel insurance policies that do.

Hopefully your flights are right on time and all this is moot! We are going January 11th to 20th so also hoping for good flying weather!
From what I read, Spirit was tied for first place in On Time flights. Forbes also said they were trying to improve their image and was doing a lot of work on fixing what's broke.

Keeping fingers crossed!!
 
I agree with others regarding Spirit. But I do want to make a point about other airlines.

As a general point you may still run into reputable airlines that have low flight options often due to seasonal operation to a destination either by only running flights certain times of the year and/or certain days of the week. This can happen in both domestically and international travel. MCO is not normally a seasonal operation so I doubt you'd run into that issue there.

However, we have run into that with Delta and SWA; Delta was St Lucia and for SWA presently that is why we don't know if we're going to Grand Cayman, Turks & Caicos or Aruba all of which operate seasonally with SWA from my home airport. And any applicable agreements (if there are any) with other airlines aren't normally going to help with those situations anyways. I would always caution people to be careful regarding booking a seasonal flight at the tail end of the season or be careful if your destination only has flights once or twice a week. It's something that I'm thinking heavily about in regards to our destinations.
 
From what I read, Spirit was tied for first place in On Time flights. Forbes also said they were trying to improve their image and was doing a lot of work on fixing what's broke.

Keeping fingers crossed!!
When you fly such few flights, it is easy to be first in on time flights.
 
OP-I wish you good luck and fair weather for your travels. I’m a big Spirit opponent, and will not fly with them, however I will admit, that when things run smoothly, and there are no issues, they do a fine job getting you from Point A to Point B. (And I do have experience with them hosing us on both legs of a long weekend trip, so it’s not just hearsay).

I am glad you got the insurance, and I really hope you don’t have to use it, and everything goes off without a hitch.
 
Just as an example, the first time I went to Disney with a friend of mine from NJ, Spirit cancelled her flight half hour before we were to check out and did not give her any alternatives. Just a text message with, your flight XXX is cancelled, at 10:30 am while we were having a quick last minute breakfast. I managed to get her a come-home flight on Delta for $275, which imho is pretty good for same day flight.
 

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