Spirit has exactly one flight out daily - in the evenings - from my home airport to MCO. So much for them bringing more competition and options to us!
American, has a lot of non-stop options out of PHL. The problem lately is as you get closer they try to combine flights. They eliminate some and pack up others. I always try to get early out of PHL and late out of MCO on the way home. Lately 7am out of PHL has not been a problem but most times during the week if I schedule 7pm or later it gets changed to earlier flights. Often by 2-3 hours.
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There does not seem to be a lot of those later flights out of MCO in general in recent months (year?)
So is it MCO or the airlines? I just thought they were trying to cut cost by not having any flights that are 100% booked, usually over booked.
Oh I’m sure it’s the airlines.
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early out of PHL (landing at 10am at MCO) and late returning is what I currently have for my trip in mid-January. I am looking at something similar for July.
I think I am going to wait until after my January trip to book my July flights. Hoping that some other non-stop options become available/affordable.
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Not sure where you are located but SWA has lots of non-stops to MCO from BWI. We’re in Lancaster so distance is about the same. And I like BWI better, anyway.
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Which is where allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the other planes stop. There and MDW. And I will avoid BWI like the plague having finally learned my lesson this summer. That place is so mismanaged it’s not funny.
We are 45 minutes north of the Philly airport.
BWI is over 2 hours away …a little far.
Newark is closer at 1.5 hours but we just had dd20 fly in there last weekend (landed at 11pm on a Sunday night) and it was complete chaos. Like she waited almost an hour for her luggage and it took me over 20 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic to get from the cell phone lot to pick her up outside of baggage claim kind of chaos! I will avoid Newark if possible!
Allentown is 45 minutes north of us, but nothing is direct from there.
I have completely defected from SW out of PHL to American. To the point of opening an AA card to get the mileage bonus instead of the SW card.
I won’t do non direct flights if i don’t have to and tbh i don’t like Spirit or Frontier simply because when the SHTF it can be very hard to get on another flight because of the limited number of flights they run and the lack of interline agreements. They aren’t bad or dangerous or anything, but they run on tight margins and that can lead to huge problems when weather or mechanical issue arise.
I will also say that the American terminals out of PHL are way better too. As a PreChek member, I love that the Terminal C security lane is PreChek ONLY.
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My Precheck came through in the last few days. I am very excited to use it next month! My January flights are on SW but it looks like July will be on American.
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I am considering the same as well. I do have the SW card and always had so many pojnts that I could fly for free. Going to have to do my homework on AA cards now.
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Here’s some good info to consider also - if you fly jet blue at all, they are operating a code share agreement with American now so if you fly jet blue on an AA code share flight, you could also earn and use miles that way.
If you fly transcontinental at all, Jet Blue Mint is a fantastic use of points.
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Ooh good to know! Thanks, i have not flown Jet Blue before but would def consider. I have heard good things. They dont fly much out PHL, but if I was going somewhere that wasnt orlando i would be willing to drive to NYC if needed to get a good jet blue flight. It seems American has decent prices when compared to SW too.
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I fly exclusively AA. I am Platinum Status and have the credit card as well. AA just hands down has the most options for direct flights, and not just to MCO. I too have never been a fan of Frontier or Spirit. Even if AA is more, I would rather earn the miles and not worry as much about cancellations.
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The iron law of good, fast, cheap - pick two applies to air travel as well.
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I agree…i would rather pay more for a better product. Not a fan of spirit or frontier. I think someone else mentiond…when SHTF you want an airline with more options. I am going to look at the AA cards too. Are their rewards program easy to follow?
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I looked at an American flight and it was less expensive than southwest by about $100. One bag is less than that
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See that’s true
And I hate it
Because once upon a time I could book SW and know it was the best deal given the free bags
Now I have to math, and I hate math
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I got good grades when I was taking math. I didn’t math but I know it.
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