Cheapest way to fly (family of 5) (restrictions, low cost, hotels, vacation)

[WSPHXPELON]

I'm from the East Coast and haven't been back in about 15 years. My wife and kids have never even been there. I've been wanting to take them on a family vacation for the last few years but have been putting it off for financial reasons...

What would be the cheapest way to get airline tickets from Phoenix to Philly for our family of 5? I don't mind buying the tickets WAY in advance or flying "standby" or any other gimmick.

Any suggestions would be appreciated...I'm not really the richest guy but would like to show my kids my old stomping grounds without breaking the bank (too much). Thx in advance.

[flyonpa]

No real tricks, But also look at other near by cities.

American Airlines (Old USAir) has a major Hub at PHL that pushes the prices up for alot of flights.

Look at flights to BWI (Southwest's Hub).

[beachmouse]

1- How's your credit? If you've got good to excellent credit and a longer time frame, pretty much all the airlines these days offer their own co-branded credit cards, and if you spend X on one of them within Y time frame of opening them, you can generally get 1-2 domestic round trip tickets per card out of the offers. And both you and your wife can each get your own card with your own sign up bonus, contingent on card approval and all. There's a huge number of web sites out there devoted to using those sign up bonuses for travel. (Just do your research because the best cards aren't necessarily the ones the travel bloggers get paid to promote)


2- the low cost and ultra low cost carriers like Southwest, Spirit, Frontier, and Allegiant. Southwest prices their tickets pretty all-in including checked bags. The others have low base fares but do big upsells on baggage (both checked and carry ons larger than a generous purse) drinks other than water on the plane, etc. You can find good deals with the ultra low cost carriers but you have to be willing to carefully read their rules and understand they make their profits from people with poor reading comprehension.

3- ticket prices have very little with how much it costs the airline to get you between two points, and how much they can charge passengers on a given route. Be flexible in the airports you're willing to use, and even a 3 hour drive might make it worth your time to use alternate airports, especially with that many tickets. Example- Baltimore-Washington (BWI) is served by a number of low cost carriers and used by a lot of leisure travelers. It's often easier to find cheap tickets from there than business travel-heavy Washington National or big international connection point Dulles. (And if you do end up at a far away airport, some airport hotels have park+ fly rates for a one night stay that are on par or better than airport parking proper)

4- Other ways of earning frequent flyer miles. Many airlines sell ff miles to third parties, who then set it up so you can earn miles through answering market research surveys, using their shopping portal or shopping app for stuff you'd buy anyways, etc. United is probably the easiest program to earn those bonus miles in, though I've had good luck with some others like Southwest as well. (United is hooked on this because at some points in recent years, selling miles was the only part of the company turning a profit.) I've gotten more than 100K in United miles in the past 3 or so years- good enough for four domestic round trip tickets if there's saver award availability- with the surveys and shopping portals route. Each airline will have some sort of 'how to earn miles' on their frequent flyer program info section that talks about options.

[rational1]

These days the standby passengers are the ones with tickets who can't get seats on an oversold flight. Besides, I have trouble imagining a family of 5 on standby.

Yeah, try the low cost carriers. But you may well find that the majors cost the same or only a bit more when all the costs are counted. Your biggest leverage is to be flexible about time and particularly date.

[beachmouse]

If someone offers to sell you a 'buddy pass' (airline employee friend & family standby ticket) it's the last remnant of the old standby system. And is a bad idea- they are not supposed to sell buddy passes and can get fired if they do, and with planes as crowded as they are these days, it can get messy trying to find only one or two seats for many routes during school holidays, much less standby seats for a family of five.

[projectmaximus]

Be flexible with your schedule. That would really make the most difference. If you can travel outside of holidays that will be much better. If you can fly on certain days of the week it will be cheaper than others. If you can take your trip with just one month's notice you may be able to take advantage of some special sales (Or in extreme cases, travel on one week's notice or even on a specific date for certain flash sales). And as mentioned earlier, if you are flexible with city...like flying into NYC or Baltimore.

That said, taking a quick look generally for upcoming months, you can fly under $250 pp from PHX to JFK nonstop on Delta and you can also take a dreadfully long/late flight on Spirit Airlines with layover in Dallas for $174 pp from PHX to PHL. But beware on Spirit you will have a lot of up charges that can add up to close to what the cost of the Delta flight option would be.

Good luck and hope you enjoy!

[shellymdnv]

Nowadays the way to find the cheapest fares is to be flexible, knowledgeable and ready to pounce on a good deal when you find one.

You need to flexible in when you want to travel and in where you want to travel. You need to get familiar with the airports that will fit your needs. On the east coast you have several that are close enough to Philly to give you several options. I would add the New York City and Washington DC area to your searches and also keep in mind that you may not have to fly in an out of the same airport to get the best deal.

The becoming knowledgeable part is probably the hardest because it is the most time consuming. I would start by researching the routes that generally offer the best rates, the best thing to do for this is to use a site like ITA Matrix or Google Flights. If you haven't flown in a while, you should know that some of the restrictions that were required for the best fare have gone away, for example you don't have to buy a round trip ticket from the same airline, you can sometimes find a better deal by buying two one way tickets from different airlines. Once you know the routes that seem to be the best, you should set fare alerts so that you know when the price has gone down. You should also check out travel deal sites that will alert you to a fare deal. Also sign up for sale alerts from the airlines that are the best for your route. At the very least you should sign up for Southwest since they often have fare deals.

Finally you need to be ready to pounce on a deal as soon as it comes out, some fare deals could last a few days others can be gone in hours so you need to be ready to buy your tickets at a moment's notice, plus buying a ticket is no longer the commitment it used to be, you can cancel your tickets for a full refund within 24 hours or some airlines will let you put your ticket on a 24 hour hold for free.

[TLC1957]

Southwest the 1st 2 bags fly free. They have a direct flight from Phoenix to Philly, I will be on it next week!

The nice thing with Southwest is you can see the fares for the entire month and select the cheapest option. They have open seating so you can sit where you want to. You can pay extra and get on the plane first.

Become a Southwest frequent flyer member (it is free) and you will get email with sale dates.

I checked BWI, and Newark and Philly was cheaper. Philly is easy to get into and out of compared to say Newark.

[Western Urbanite]

Are you planning on visiting multiple cities? If so, fly into one and out the other. Say you want to go to New York, Philadelphia, and DC. Fly into EWR or JFK, and out of DCA, BWI, or IAD.

[Beardown91737]

Cheap fares on Spirit and Frontier. American offers fares that compete (somewhat) with Spirit at times near the Spirit flight. The reason to go with something like that is Spirit has an add on cost to select seats so that the family can sit together or in two rows. Spirit charges $5 minimum for seat selection, and $10 or more if the $5 seats are gone. Also the bag check fees are $30 as opposed to $25 on the legacies and $0 on Southwest. Spirit also charges $50 to put something in the overhead compartment, and if it is bigger than a laptop bag, or diaper bag, you can't put it under the seat in front of you. Lastly they only fly one or two flights a day to a destination so when we got a cancellation it was a day and a half to get a new flight. Still, you can do better on Spirit if you are careful. I haven't used Frontier but it uses the same Ultra Low Cost model.

Southwest is cheaper when you book during a fare sale. They also don't charge for checked bags or when you change your flight. For those reasons I use Southwest frequently, but if you purchase less than two or three weeks in advance, other airlines are usually less cost.