Any Tips on getting a decent flight $1100 a person! Yikes

[auteur55]

Trying to make our dream a reality next April of going to Aulani. I'm just shocked at the cost of this vacation and I keep finding hidden costs ($37 a night for parking are you kidding me??)

Any tips on how to get flights from Salt Lake City a little lower for those that fly to Hawaii quite a bit? 4 of us at $1100 is a bitter pill to swallow. Is it unrealistic to expect to get tickets for less by waiting till it's closer to 2018 or is that what most of you find you end up paying?

Thanks for the help!

 

[prprincess]

Watching thread. I could use the advice, as well. Planning on a June 2018 trip.

 

[trs518]

Unfortunately the cost of flying to Hawaii isn't cheap. That cost seems in line with what I'm seeing for our non-stop flight there next year as well. As always you can look into booking multi-stop flights, especially if you use different carriers for each of the stops. An example would be Delta to LAX and then Hawaiian Air to HNL. This might save you some money, but I'm not sure if it would save you enough to make it worthwhile.

 

[alohamom]

Are you willing to drive to Las Vegas? I think it is about a 5 hour drive from Salt Lake City and I know Hawaiian and other airlines have great prices from Las Vegas quite often. I know this might not be practical but it is one idea.
I am not sure when you want to go in April but I looked quickly at some pricing from Las Vegas and I see quite a few days in April for $635.60/per person/roundtrip on American Airlines.

The other thing is look at the idea of renting points from a DVC member. We have done this twice through Davids and it worked out quite reasonable for us plus if you rent points you dont have to pay the $37 parking.

 

[mfleeting]

We paid about $790 a person coming from Texas and we booked like 2 months in advance. Use the hopper app it kinda gives you an idea on when to buy

 

[cgattis]

We paid $1100 each in June of this year (booked a year in advance), from Nashville through Salt Lake on to Honolulu. I watched it often and it never dropped. That drive to Vegas sounds like it could easily be worth it.

 

[Bunless]

With the Alaska Airlines credit card, you get one companion fare a year, free. So, that means my husband and I have one trip a year where we get 2 for 1 on airfare. If there are two adults in a family, you can have a card for each.

Yes, credit cards like this aren't for every person or every family. You have to be very, very disciplined in using them and paying them off, but this particular perk is an amazing one.

 

[scottmel]

a lot of predictions with the new fleet for HA and SW competition 2018 excellent time to visit with airfare price drops. More fleets more flights .

 

[Robin"D"]

try booking a FLT and a car combined

 

[Scootypuffjr]

With the Alaska Airlines credit card, you get one companion fare a year, free. So, that means my husband and I have one trip a year where we get 2 for 1 on airfare. If there are two adults in a family, you can have a card for each.

Yes, credit cards like this aren't for every person or every family. You have to be very, very disciplined in using them and paying them off, but this particular perk is an amazing one.

Along with this, check Alaska flights out of San Diego. We can usually find flights out of San Diego for $300-400 and then use our companion fare for one and can usually squeeze at least one way of the flight out of our miles. I believe they start you with enough miles for a round trip after you spend something like $500 in the first 3 months. It also gives us free bags.
We are from Denver and we usually get a cheap flight to Orange County (less than $100 round trip) to visit family, stay one or two nights and go to Disneyland and then drive to San Diego to head to Aulani. Those Alaska flights out of San Diego are consistently so much less expensive than any others I've seen.

 

[scottmel]

Along with this, check Alaska flights out of San Diego. We can usually find flights out of San Diego for $300-400 and then use our companion fare for one and can usually squeeze at least one way of the flight out of our miles. I believe they start you with enough miles for a round trip after you spend something like $500 in the first 3 months. It also gives us free bags.
We are from Denver and we usually get a cheap flight to Orange County (less than $100 round trip) to visit family, stay one or two nights and go to Disneyland and then drive to San Diego to head to Aulani. Those Alaska flights out of San Diego are consistently so much less expensive than any others I've seen.

I was going to sign up for this or Hawaiian air credit card but companion fare is economy. So I signed up for Barclays MasterCard with free 500 travel credit. Can book airfare on anyone and apply credit direct to the charge. This way I can book any class I want. No free bags though but flex on airlines

 

[Amw1064]

We fly from Florida but it has always been $1000 plus each ticket. You have to go long enough to make it worth your while. In my opinion at least 10 days.

 

[nkereina]

$1100 from SLC seems high to me. We flew from Buffalo, NY on Delta (through Atlanta) and paid $980 per person. That said, our flight was booked 10 months in advance shortly after schedules were released, and we went in September which is low season. I would guess April through the summer is high season, with school breaks, etc. And if you're traveling around Easter/Spring Break, that's likely why prices are so high. I'd be wary of waiting to book in that case because I'd think prices would be inclined to go up. We only saw our flights rise in price the closer we got to our trip.

Have you looked into renting DVC points for Aulani? It will save you on your room which might help to offset the cost of the airfare. And everyone who stays on DVC points (rented or owned) gets free parking which would also be a savings for you.

 

[LYSE]

Set some price alerts at sites like Kayak and use the buy/wait advice.

Take a look at the credit card thread on here if you are open to using credit card sign up bonuses for free flights

 

[marcyleecorgan]

Try $1500 a person if you happen to be in Canada...

 

[FireflyTrance]

There a frequently flights available out of larger cities in California for under $500 round trip. Maybe look into transferring flights and flying out an airport in So Cal or Nor Cal.


Even cheaper would be collecting credit card mile bonus offers. We didn’t pay for flights the last two times we went to Aulani. The first time we used American Airline miles and the second time Hawaiian Airline miles. We got enough miles from credit card sign up bonuses. We later canceled the cards.

 

[CaliAdventurer]

The cheapest we have gotten is $8-900 from Seattle on Hawaiian. We will only fly direct so if we were willing to split it up sometimes you can get under $700 (via LAX or SAN) but we're looking at $1100+ for our next trip and it has not come down at all. Seems like the prices are crawling up fo Hawaii the last few years.

 

[TagsMissy]

I just paid $900 Canadian total for 2 return non-stop tickets YVR-HNL

 

[mrswillson]

I would book as far in advance as you can. Tickets for two flying round trip from south Florida would range from 900 at the lowest to 1250 at the highest depending on the time of year. Check all available airports within driving distance to see if the fare is lower, and consider driving to LA and getting a red-eye flight. Hawaii airfare isn't cheap by any means.

 

[CaliAdventurer]

Just pulled the trigger. Glad I did because the return flight had hardly any seats and we had the last full row together. $1400 direct sea-hnl. GULP. Hoping to have a DLR Xmas next year. Those flights are much more palatable.