The struggle to find a flight home for the holiday season is new to me. It's hard enough finding a reasonably priced flight, let alone one that doesn't leave from a cornfield in the middle of the night.
Anyone have any suggestions or tips? I used to fly for a living, but I'm out of practice. However, I will share what I have learned in my many "regular", non-holiday travels:
1. Watch your connecting flights, especially if you are connecting at a busy airport. If you don't give yourself at least an hour, good luck with that.
2. Bring food. The airlines don't do this anymore, at least not for free, so you are going to get hungry, and when you do, you'll be glad you brought it.
3. You can sneak Chapstick in your pants pocket, provided you are not rail thin and keen on skin tight ensembles. Don't tell anyone I said this.
4. Atlanta Hartsfield Airport is like Dante's 9 Circles of Hell. Avoid it at all costs. I do, anyway.
My entire family lives there.....and my friend is having a baby like, this week. I would like to see all of them. So you see, it is more than just the food calling me back!
i took Amtrak home last year... it was a very long trip but very cheap and exceptionally comfortable... i had an entire row to myself, and just watched out the window till night time. if you had someone to travel with, it would be worth the long time it takes... going alone got a bit dull, but i had books music and a sketchbook so i more than survived.
I've found Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia the best way to find flights. When they present your pricing options, it will specify whether it's a non-stop, direct, or connecting flight.
Although it's not "home", I'll most likely be flying down to Raleigh, North Carolina to visit my parents for Christmas. I absolutely loathe flying, but Amtrak hasn't been much better... It comes down to the question of whether I want to be moderately miserable for eight hours, or very miserable for two hours.
i went chicago to Kansas city... it was about 9-10 hours... it was supposed to be 7 but we were slow for some reason... that was the worst part... otherwise it was really comfortable
Amtrak is not really an option between LA and Cincinnati. Well, I guess it is if you want to spend 3+ days on a train and pay as much or more as a flight! If I had this kind of time, I would do it though.....I hate flying too.
I think I might actually take SkyBus.....anyone else flown with them yet? They seem like an American EasyJet, except maybe not so stylish.
Try cheapflights.com...if you book 21 days before your flight you should get the best deal on the internet(check out all the different search engines. ie. kayak, cheapo air, blah blah blah) If you have less than 21 days call the airline direct and you probably will find a better deal then the NET!!!!
Take the redeye flights they usually are cheap as well!
-Do not: wear clothing that mocks the government or bring your g/f who has a skin tone that is similar to that of an arab or smell like a 2 stroke engine or smell like a phat bag of weed...its a sure bet that you will get the full cavity search or at least the air blaster!!!
Seems like traveling is getting more complicated everytime I travel by plane. This past June flew to Arkansas for the Fay Jones Thing
and we had to fly to Dallas then backtrack to Arkansas...of course
with a change of planes and a two hour lay over.....same thing coming back with an added delayed departure time.
Wife went to Rio in September and it was 25 hours door to door...
and when she landed coming back into the country, of course she
had had to pack what she had bought at the duty free shop in
Rio and pack it into her baggage, because it was not allowed to
be packed on board. So of course she had a big bottle of Absoute
and a Johnny Walker Red. Her bags were busting at the zippers but
somehow she managed to get them safely tucked away.
Oh ya she spent about 6 hours in the Miami Airport between delays
and layover time.
ha - the girlfriend I was talking about w/ the darker skin, was a few years back(in college) - the stripper...I have moved on. bigger and better things...I mean better and less sluttier things!!!
-I usually shower before traveling...however its the ride to the airport where I begin to smell...again!
my tip: expedia, travelocity, hotwire, etc. are fine for planning trips but after I decide on flights it's often $10+ cheaper to buy straight from the airline. And I think a lot of the search engines are built on the same backend so searching around among those isn't going to get you anywhere.
I've never had a problem connecting in ATL but the last time I flew there the pricing was predatory. I bought 2 months out and a direct flight was $500 while the exact same flight continuing to Nashville was $220. So I just booked it and skipped the ATL-Nashville part of the flight (not for the faint of heart, the airline claimed that they would cancel my remaining legs but they didn't).
Washington DC | Is getting out of, traffic wise, Reagan Int. in really that bad? I have a family member that almost refuses to pick me up unless I go to Dulles. How bad can it be?
must be one of those holidays i'm forced to recognize every year...
but yeah, tix are really expensive this year. in previous years, i've been able to fly cross country/overseas fairly cheaply. it's been fun watching prices go up and service bottom out. we need an easyjet
with a decent school christmas break, you should able to avoid the christmastime-crunch of those unlucky enough to have full-time jobs (who only get a few days off for the holidays). You should be able to find roundtrip tickets from anywhere in the USA to anywhere else in the USA for under $400. I use Orbitz to scope out my options and then go to the website of the respective airline because it'll be somewhat cheaper.
i just used orbitz to check LAX-CVG for dec 16 - jan 1 and was very surprised to see the cheapest fares (on NWA) for $546. that's really frustrating, considering LAX-New York for the same dates is $336. I guess Cincinnati must be a nasty overpriced market. I just checked student universe and they will fly you to Cincinnati on those dates for $486, direct on Delta. Good luck.
you guys ought to all get the same plane so as to not to destroy the environment quite as much. probably ought to all move to the same town to make this easier.
Tumbleweed's advice is solid. Also, if you are swapping airlines do NOT check a bag. And lastly, avoid going through Philly at all costs--they have something like the worst on-time record and a notorious air traffic control that all the pilots bitch about. That's a bad sign... Philly is worse than Chicago, about on par with Atlanta I'd say.
one of my s.o.'s cousins is a baggage handler. scary stories.
chicago used to bring in twice as much traffic as they had berths, so planes would sit on the tarmac for hours.
one of the scariest flights i've ever had:
flying from pittsburg to watertown, NY (which had about 3' of snow)
plane was small enough (and pre-9/11) that we were basically in the cockpit, nosedive to the runway (or at least hoped it was the runway, snapped around and landed sans problems. all 5 of us on the flight crapped our pants.
Truth be told, I've never had to make a connection through atl, but I can see how traveling 100 million million miles across the concourse to the train to then travel another 800 million billion miles by tram to the baggage claim to get your bags and then check in on another airline and then travel the 700 million billion trillion miles to that gate can be a exhausting experience, knowing by the time you've made your connection you're now 80 million years older. Yes, the ATL airport is that big.
Thanks gang. Chase, it's nasty getting into CVG. Delta is awfully convenient for business travelers but it has a hold on the market that jacks up the prices for average people. It's really annoying knowing that I can probably get to New York for cheaper.....
Also, the "big christmas break" thing isn't helping too much. Ah well. Back to SkyBus.
Wonderk....just hope you don't end up with a super sized nascar fan next to you or a screaming baby....they are both 10's in the world of bad when flying.
This thread is reminding me of all the reasons I hate flying, as if I needed any reminders.
When I flew back to Chicago last month to move the rest of my furniture to NYC, I had to catch a plane out of Newark. So after work, I grab a subway train, a commuter train, and then a monorail to get to the airport terminal. After a couple hours of sitting around in the terminal, United Airlines announces there's a problem with the deicer on our plane that will prevent it from being able to continue on from Chicago to Denver, so they needed to get us onto a different plane.
Problem was, they didn't have an extra plane at Newark, but they had one at LaGuardia. So, they load us all up on this plane, we sit on the taxiway at Newark for over an hour waiting for our turn to take off, then we're in the air for less than 15 minutes as we fly from Newark, New Jersey to Queens.
(Upon landing at LGA, the zombie-like flight attendant even went so far to announce on the PA, "United Airlines welcomes you to New York LaGuardia Airport. The local time is now..." before realizing none of us needed to be reminded of where we were, nor of the local time.)
Of course, we then had to sit around LaGuardia for another hour or so while they did the whole setup, safety check, etc. on the new plane. We finally took off for Chicago about 30 minutes after we were supposed to have landed at O'Hare.
this is one of the many reasons I'm glad I moved back to the east coast - I no longer have to shell out wads of cash for plane tickets home and blow all my hard earned vacation time on visiting family...
DubK sorry that you've joined us un/fortunate millions that has to return home for the holidays. Sometimes I believe its all a ploy by the airline companies...granted spending the holidays in the bed your grew up in a priceless feeling. Anyhow - I digresss.
here are my hints.
1. the closer it gets to the actual holiday the more expensive it is. Try flying on Christmas day (its usually much cheaper...and the place is a ghost town)
2. Or fly after the holidays, you'll sure be travelling in the opposite direction of most people.
3. If you do have to travel consider not carrying any bags, or limit it to something with a soft travel bag that can store easily. It is more likely that they will loose your luggage....carry on as well (chances of it being taken off the cabin as the storage tends to be over capacity)
4. tell them you can't come, and spent xmas/thanksgiving at a restaurant...the impersonal feeling diminishes over time.
Hey, I'm going to Canada. The airlines all inflate the prices plenty since it's international even though it's a shorter hop than going to most places in the US. Then to add insult to injury the CAD is worth more than the USD for the first time in my life. This is going to be one heck of an expensive x-mas. At least I've got enough miles to get 1st class upgrade. They blacked out everything for the free flight.
Worst connection airport ever is ORD. Terrible. I avoid it like the plague. DET isn't much better. ATL is ok, but I don't fly Delta too often so I haven't been there recently.
For work I always try to fly direct and often avoid the big airports. Use PVI instead of BOS, etc.
Best connection airports are DEN and DFW.
Oct 23, 07 9:31 am ·
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Flying home for Christmas?
The struggle to find a flight home for the holiday season is new to me. It's hard enough finding a reasonably priced flight, let alone one that doesn't leave from a cornfield in the middle of the night.
Anyone have any suggestions or tips? I used to fly for a living, but I'm out of practice. However, I will share what I have learned in my many "regular", non-holiday travels:
1. Watch your connecting flights, especially if you are connecting at a busy airport. If you don't give yourself at least an hour, good luck with that.
2. Bring food. The airlines don't do this anymore, at least not for free, so you are going to get hungry, and when you do, you'll be glad you brought it.
3. You can sneak Chapstick in your pants pocket, provided you are not rail thin and keen on skin tight ensembles. Don't tell anyone I said this.
4. Atlanta Hartsfield Airport is like Dante's 9 Circles of Hell. Avoid it at all costs. I do, anyway.
tell your family you dont love them anymore and spend xmas in sunny California
dubK
you can have Greaters and Skyline shipped....why go home for xmas?
My entire family lives there.....and my friend is having a baby like, this week. I would like to see all of them. So you see, it is more than just the food calling me back!
holy crap a thread about Christmas...
i took Amtrak home last year... it was a very long trip but very cheap and exceptionally comfortable... i had an entire row to myself, and just watched out the window till night time. if you had someone to travel with, it would be worth the long time it takes... going alone got a bit dull, but i had books music and a sketchbook so i more than survived.
yeah, the train sounds cool and romantic.
lletdownl, where did you travel from/to?
I've found Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia the best way to find flights. When they present your pricing options, it will specify whether it's a non-stop, direct, or connecting flight.
Although it's not "home", I'll most likely be flying down to Raleigh, North Carolina to visit my parents for Christmas. I absolutely loathe flying, but Amtrak hasn't been much better... It comes down to the question of whether I want to be moderately miserable for eight hours, or very miserable for two hours.
i went chicago to Kansas city... it was about 9-10 hours... it was supposed to be 7 but we were slow for some reason... that was the worst part... otherwise it was really comfortable
Amtrak is not really an option between LA and Cincinnati. Well, I guess it is if you want to spend 3+ days on a train and pay as much or more as a flight! If I had this kind of time, I would do it though.....I hate flying too.
I think I might actually take SkyBus.....anyone else flown with them yet? They seem like an American EasyJet, except maybe not so stylish.
ride your scooter.
Try cheapflights.com...if you book 21 days before your flight you should get the best deal on the internet(check out all the different search engines. ie. kayak, cheapo air, blah blah blah) If you have less than 21 days call the airline direct and you probably will find a better deal then the NET!!!!
Take the redeye flights they usually are cheap as well!
-Do not: wear clothing that mocks the government or bring your g/f who has a skin tone that is similar to that of an arab or smell like a 2 stroke engine or smell like a phat bag of weed...its a sure bet that you will get the full cavity search or at least the air blaster!!!
Seems like traveling is getting more complicated everytime I travel by plane. This past June flew to Arkansas for the Fay Jones Thing
and we had to fly to Dallas then backtrack to Arkansas...of course
with a change of planes and a two hour lay over.....same thing coming back with an added delayed departure time.
Wife went to Rio in September and it was 25 hours door to door...
and when she landed coming back into the country, of course she
had had to pack what she had bought at the duty free shop in
Rio and pack it into her baggage, because it was not allowed to
be packed on board. So of course she had a big bottle of Absoute
and a Johnny Walker Red. Her bags were busting at the zippers but
somehow she managed to get them safely tucked away.
Oh ya she spent about 6 hours in the Miami Airport between delays
and layover time.
Holiday traveling is for people who enjoy abuse!
weAREtheSTONES
what about your g/f who looks like a stripper...
hey stones might wanna hop in the shower b4 travelling.
...eases the pain...but you'll still want to book early for the holidays...
ah, ATL ain't that bad, its just H-U-G-E but then again I know it like the back of my hand. In fact I list it as my hometown on Facebook.
My personal connecting airport from hell is JFK, LAX ain't much better either.
i'd like a flying home for christmas
$700 to go to Cincinnati...no thanks. That is one nice weekend in Mammoth
ha - the girlfriend I was talking about w/ the darker skin, was a few years back(in college) - the stripper...I have moved on. bigger and better things...I mean better and less sluttier things!!!
-I usually shower before traveling...however its the ride to the airport where I begin to smell...again!
my tip: expedia, travelocity, hotwire, etc. are fine for planning trips but after I decide on flights it's often $10+ cheaper to buy straight from the airline. And I think a lot of the search engines are built on the same backend so searching around among those isn't going to get you anywhere.
I've never had a problem connecting in ATL but the last time I flew there the pricing was predatory. I bought 2 months out and a direct flight was $500 while the exact same flight continuing to Nashville was $220. So I just booked it and skipped the ATL-Nashville part of the flight (not for the faint of heart, the airline claimed that they would cancel my remaining legs but they didn't).
Washington DC | Is getting out of, traffic wise, Reagan Int. in really that bad? I have a family member that almost refuses to pick me up unless I go to Dulles. How bad can it be?
weAREtheSTONES
bigger and better in the stripper sense?
I nixed the whole stripper girl...totally...not the type of girl I want to bring home to mom! It was fun while it lasted!
do you know how to post pics on archinect?
lletdownl, i have also gone kc-chicago by amtrak. it was autumn and it was beautiful. i highly recommend it.
dammit, I wanna date a stripper!
I just bought my tickets to LA yesterday.
Damn. Double damn.
I just bought my tickets to LA yesterday.
Damn. Double damn.
christmas?
must be one of those holidays i'm forced to recognize every year...
but yeah, tix are really expensive this year. in previous years, i've been able to fly cross country/overseas fairly cheaply. it's been fun watching prices go up and service bottom out. we need an easyjet
did someone say winka doubledam?
with a decent school christmas break, you should able to avoid the christmastime-crunch of those unlucky enough to have full-time jobs (who only get a few days off for the holidays). You should be able to find roundtrip tickets from anywhere in the USA to anywhere else in the USA for under $400. I use Orbitz to scope out my options and then go to the website of the respective airline because it'll be somewhat cheaper.
i just used orbitz to check LAX-CVG for dec 16 - jan 1 and was very surprised to see the cheapest fares (on NWA) for $546. that's really frustrating, considering LAX-New York for the same dates is $336. I guess Cincinnati must be a nasty overpriced market. I just checked student universe and they will fly you to Cincinnati on those dates for $486, direct on Delta. Good luck.
you guys ought to all get the same plane so as to not to destroy the environment quite as much. probably ought to all move to the same town to make this easier.
SF?
Tumbleweed's advice is solid. Also, if you are swapping airlines do NOT check a bag. And lastly, avoid going through Philly at all costs--they have something like the worst on-time record and a notorious air traffic control that all the pilots bitch about. That's a bad sign... Philly is worse than Chicago, about on par with Atlanta I'd say.
gawd, don't ever check a bag.
one of my s.o.'s cousins is a baggage handler. scary stories.
chicago used to bring in twice as much traffic as they had berths, so planes would sit on the tarmac for hours.
one of the scariest flights i've ever had:
flying from pittsburg to watertown, NY (which had about 3' of snow)
plane was small enough (and pre-9/11) that we were basically in the cockpit, nosedive to the runway (or at least hoped it was the runway, snapped around and landed sans problems. all 5 of us on the flight crapped our pants.
Truth be told, I've never had to make a connection through atl, but I can see how traveling 100 million million miles across the concourse to the train to then travel another 800 million billion miles by tram to the baggage claim to get your bags and then check in on another airline and then travel the 700 million billion trillion miles to that gate can be a exhausting experience, knowing by the time you've made your connection you're now 80 million years older. Yes, the ATL airport is that big.
Thanks gang. Chase, it's nasty getting into CVG. Delta is awfully convenient for business travelers but it has a hold on the market that jacks up the prices for average people. It's really annoying knowing that I can probably get to New York for cheaper.....
Also, the "big christmas break" thing isn't helping too much. Ah well. Back to SkyBus.
Wonderk....just hope you don't end up with a super sized nascar fan next to you or a screaming baby....they are both 10's in the world of bad when flying.
This thread is reminding me of all the reasons I hate flying, as if I needed any reminders.
When I flew back to Chicago last month to move the rest of my furniture to NYC, I had to catch a plane out of Newark. So after work, I grab a subway train, a commuter train, and then a monorail to get to the airport terminal. After a couple hours of sitting around in the terminal, United Airlines announces there's a problem with the deicer on our plane that will prevent it from being able to continue on from Chicago to Denver, so they needed to get us onto a different plane.
Problem was, they didn't have an extra plane at Newark, but they had one at LaGuardia. So, they load us all up on this plane, we sit on the taxiway at Newark for over an hour waiting for our turn to take off, then we're in the air for less than 15 minutes as we fly from Newark, New Jersey to Queens.
(Upon landing at LGA, the zombie-like flight attendant even went so far to announce on the PA, "United Airlines welcomes you to New York LaGuardia Airport. The local time is now..." before realizing none of us needed to be reminded of where we were, nor of the local time.)
Of course, we then had to sit around LaGuardia for another hour or so while they did the whole setup, safety check, etc. on the new plane. We finally took off for Chicago about 30 minutes after we were supposed to have landed at O'Hare.
DubK-
Have you looked into flights into Dayton on Continental? They seem to be cheaper than the beloved CVG.
this is one of the many reasons I'm glad I moved back to the east coast - I no longer have to shell out wads of cash for plane tickets home and blow all my hard earned vacation time on visiting family...
DubK sorry that you've joined us un/fortunate millions that has to return home for the holidays. Sometimes I believe its all a ploy by the airline companies...granted spending the holidays in the bed your grew up in a priceless feeling. Anyhow - I digresss.
here are my hints.
1. the closer it gets to the actual holiday the more expensive it is. Try flying on Christmas day (its usually much cheaper...and the place is a ghost town)
2. Or fly after the holidays, you'll sure be travelling in the opposite direction of most people.
3. If you do have to travel consider not carrying any bags, or limit it to something with a soft travel bag that can store easily. It is more likely that they will loose your luggage....carry on as well (chances of it being taken off the cabin as the storage tends to be over capacity)
4. tell them you can't come, and spent xmas/thanksgiving at a restaurant...the impersonal feeling diminishes over time.
Hey, I'm going to Canada. The airlines all inflate the prices plenty since it's international even though it's a shorter hop than going to most places in the US. Then to add insult to injury the CAD is worth more than the USD for the first time in my life. This is going to be one heck of an expensive x-mas. At least I've got enough miles to get 1st class upgrade. They blacked out everything for the free flight.
Worst connection airport ever is ORD. Terrible. I avoid it like the plague. DET isn't much better. ATL is ok, but I don't fly Delta too often so I haven't been there recently.
For work I always try to fly direct and often avoid the big airports. Use PVI instead of BOS, etc.
Best connection airports are DEN and DFW.
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