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I have the luxury of having a job that will allow me to live anywere within my respective territory, which is the Eastern US. I am now living in FL and have been for many years. I am sick of FL and being more centrally located in my territory makes more sense for my job. My question(s) is are any of you constantly flying out of CLT for work? How is the cost of doing such? My job pays decent and my wife works (DINKs), but I have a marketing budget that I have to fall under. I know US Air pretty much has CLT on lockdown and my experience is that tends to drive up prices. I guess that is one nice thing about FL is that it is very cheap to travel. Other option would be northern VA/DC/MD and maybe even ATL.
From what I have heard/read housing will be much cheaper than Northern VA and I guess slightly less than FL. How is the condo & townhome life in downtown? We are both in our 30's and enjoy having fun on the weekends. Is it worth living in downtown with plenty to do or does it fizzle out at night & and on the weekends? I would have to be near a happening area in order for me to convince the wife.
The triad might be a better option for you far as air travel tickets are generally lower at PTI and RDU than at CLT
Even if the plane is going from Greensboro to Charlotte to lets say Orlando it would be cheaper to go to PTI than just fly that same flight out of Charlotte.
Fares out of CLT have dropped in the past couple of years. One reason is US Airways has adjusted their fares since the merge with America West. Another reason is competition. AirTran and Jetblue both fly to CLT now. In addition to flying to their hub cities they also offer point to point flying in several markets, Boston, Orlando, Chicago Midway, & Baltimore come to mind there may be more. So CLT has gone from one of the most expensive markets to one with the biggest drop in airfares. If you have the luxury of planning your flights ahead of time you should be able to find a good fare. However if you must book last minute fares will probably still be high.
RDU has Southwest and really cheap average fares. Greensboro used to be much cheaper than CLT but no so much anymore. An advantage CLT has over GSO and RDU is the number of cities served non-stop. US Airways serves almost every major city on the east coast and many secondary markets.
Here are a couple of web sites that may help you research
faremeasure.com and flytecomm.com/cgi-bin/trackflight
OP, I am in the same position as you. Around your age, no kids (I am single though), and travel for work. I travel a lot in state but I do fly at least every other week and yes, it is much more expensive to fly out of Charlotte. The trade-off is that the cost of living and variety of things to do here is fantastic. I was recently given the option of also living anywhere from Miami to Pittsburgh and still chose to stay here. Sunny is right, the rates are somewhat cheaper from the Triad, but there is no way I personally could live there as a young person with no kids.
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