My family and I are going to Florida for a trip in April. Looking to go April 9th-19th and I’d be flying with my husband. Only issue is all flights are $900-$1300+ for the two of us to fly. Not a single fare website has been even close to being accurate on their “low” prices- I find something stating a flight will be $600 round trip but when I call these fare sites it’s double the prices they are asking. We cannot afford that much per flight. We were hoping to stay under $300 per person but now I don’t know what to do. I know people flying to Italy who are paying practically nothing in comparison to what I’m seeing to simply fly to Florida!!! My boss just flew to Texas in the summer and got tickets for a little less than $200 per person. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there a time when flights are at an all-time low? What do we do?
Summer is not high season in Texas. However, April is peak (spring break) season in Florida. That’s your problem. Airlines use dynamic pricing now. If demand is high, prices will be high.
You don’t mention where you’re coming from, but prices fluctuate greatly based on routes and airlines. Comparing your trip to Florida and someone else’s trip to Texas or Europe on entirely different dates is incredibly foolish. You’re also talking about flying to FLORIDA during spring break/Eastertime, do you really expect to be finding deals?
Picking your dates before your flights is your first problem. Browse for the cheapest airline/dates then book accordingly.
Reed said:
Picking your dates before your flights is your first problem. Browse for the cheapest airline/dates then book accordingly.
My family already rented an air b&b which is the issue there.
Reed said:
Picking your dates before your flights is your first problem. Browse for the cheapest airline/dates then book accordingly.
Can you cancel? Otherwise set price alerts, keep an eye on sales, and wait.
@Rowe
We cannot. We paid in full and all. I guess they didn’t think flights would be so expensive, when a year ago we could get flights cheaper. I know prices change daily, but still. I’m going to keep checking trustworthy fairs and such. I also heard doing stops instead of one ways can lessen the cost too if a flight ticket.
@Robin
Is there another airport you can fly out of? Sometimes I’ve found incredible differences in prices just by driving an extra hour or two to a different airport.
@Robin
It really depends on the dates. Think you’ll have to explore the options and play around with them until you have some luck. Not sure what doing stops means, skip lagging?
You haven’t given any kind of details to let people know if flights are actually expensive. April in Florida is peak season, so if you’re only able to fly from a specific airport on specific dates, $450 per person RT could be entirely normal. But saying that websites haven’t been accurate, because rather than booking online, you’re then calling someone and getting a different price doesn’t make much sense either (why are you calling at all in 2024?) so it seems like there might be even more details that would explain the ‘expensive’ price.
Your dates coincide with Passover, Easter, and Spring Break, all of which induce massive travel to Florida annually. These prices are typical.
Texas is hot as balls in summer. No one wants to be there. You’re headed to Florida during spring break. Where are you going? Some of the major cities have multiple airports you could fly into that would give options.
@Denny
We are going to Cape Coral, but really any airport would work there because my dad would be picking us up. He’d be driving from Orlando (he’s a truck driver) so he’s just meeting us down there rather than flying since he’ll be working out of state already.
@Robin
Check the airports in Orlando (since your dad is coming from there), Tampa, Clearwater, Sarasota, and Fort Myers. All of those cater to the major airlines and/or the discount ones. Look at Frontier, Spirit, and Allegiant. They’re not the most comfortable and have additional charges (you’ll need to pack very wisely), but will save you money if you book right and follow their rules.
@Denny
I tried Spirit but I don’t think they fly out of Albany, NY.
Robin said:
@Denny
I tried Spirit but I don’t think they fly out of Albany, NY.
You’ll probably have to drive to a different airport. Frontier flies out of Newburgh which isn’t too far from Buffalo and into Tampa, Sarasota, Orlando, and Ft. Myers.
You can use Google to search flights to anywhere in Florida like - Google Flights. Obviously it depends where you’re coming from, but it looks like those dates from Denver are in the $3-$600 range.
Nobody is paying practically nothing. Italy costs more than Florida. When you see the lowest advertised flight it’s generally on the least wanted flights. There is probably a double connect. Go directly to the airline site, enter the date and sort them from lowest to highest price. The days of $300 flights are over. You don’t list where you’re flying from so I can’t direct you to an airline. For me, American makes the most sense. You have to play with the dates. On a recent trip to Buenos Aires, leaving on a Monday cost $3,500, leaving on Tuesday was $19,000, and leaving on Wednesday was $6,000. This was for first class but you get the picture. We left on Monday.
US airfare is so expensive flying to Europe is cheaper than going to Florida.
Skylar said:
US airfare is so expensive flying to Europe is cheaper than going to Florida.
Honestly, not far off. You’d be headed into peak season for Florida, and mostly off-peak for a lot of destinations in Europe. Plus the US has allowed airlines to consolidate into a fairly small cartel that carefully manages supply and competition to keep prices high, whereas many of the big transatlantic routes have real competition from many operators.