Florida Villas and Vacation Rentals
Flights To Orlando. The Cheaper Option.
With the ever-increasing costs of transatlantic flights, this year’s annual Florida vacation offered me an ideal opportunity to seek out a cheaper alternative to our usual scheduled flights, which consisted of flights from Newcastle to Gatwick, then Gatwick direct to Orlando International Airport (MCO). Arriving at 3.25pm local time.
To allow me to ensure that my flights we indeed cheaper than booking direct flights, I needed to confirm the total cost of my usual route. This fare was for 2 adults and 2 children aged 14 and 11 years.
British Airways returned a total price of £4,473.60
My intention was to identify a transatlantic carrier, who had partner airlines, which operated domestic flights within America. This would make my journey easier, by allowing me to check my baggage in once at my point of departure, after which I simply picked it up at my destination.
After much time searching the Internet and national papers, I decided to book my return transatlantic flights with Air France. Although I had no experience of this carrier, I had heard some good reports.
Our Initial flight departed Newcastle, arriving at Charles De Gaulle, where I transferred within an hour for my onward journey to JFK New York. The total cost of these return flights was £2,319.60
I then set about booking my domestic flights. However having decided to take the opportunity to spend some time in New York, meant that I did not need to book onward flights on the date of my arrival in America. Out of interest however, I set about looking for flights, which allowed me to continue onto Florida that same day. The total cost of the internal flights was £466.40, bringing may total airfare to a respectable £2786 inclusive of all taxes, a saving of £1687.60!
A by-product of flying indirect to Florida is the fact that when you arrive at your destination, you do not have to go through immigration, as this is done at the first point of entry into America.
My chosen flights meant that I did not have to endure any travelling between airports, I simply landed and departed from the same one, albeit on my forward journey some 5 days after arriving. This was also an advantage over my usual British Airways flights, which would have required a coach trip between Gatwick and Heathrow airports both on my outward and return journeys.
For those thinking about the delay in arriving in Orlando, Florida having travelled via an indirect route, had I chosen to make my onward journey from JFK airport to Orlando International I would have arrived just over 2 hours after the British Airways flight.
Arriving in Florida International Airport, I anticipated the normal lengthy wait in the rental car queue, however having arrived on a domestic flight meant that this process was the quickest that I had ever experienced taking no more than 20 minutes.
So there you have it, cheaper flights are out there, you just need to be flexible in your approach to how you reach your chosen destination, and if like my family and I the savings pay for themselves.
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