Minneapolis-Orlando airfares?

[Carol C]

I'm meeting friends in Orlando end of Feb. They've procrastinated and haven't bought airline tix yet. (I will be driving from Atlanta.) Are they out of luck? Any chance of a sale coming? What airlines should they be monitoring for sales from MN? There are 4-5 going (two kids among them) and they are now worried they can't afford it! What airline monitoring newsletters should they sign up for?

TIA for your advice, so I can pass it along to my friends.

 

[Talent312]

These airlines offer flights from MSP to MCO...
AirTran, Northwest, American, Continental, Sun Country, United, Delta, US Airways, Frontier, Midwest. Currently, this list is approx. in the order of cheapest to most expensive.

AirTran, Northwest, American and Sun Country seem to offer the best fares. Except for American, these seem to be the only ones with non-stop flights.

They can monitor price changes with Travelocity's "Fare Watcher" which will e-mail them whenever the fare changes by $25 or more. But to check actual fares, they should use a meta-search engine like www.sidestep.com, www.kayak.com, www.farecompare.com or http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch

 

[timeos2]

I'm meeting friends in Orlando end of Feb. They've procrastinated and haven't bought airline tix yet. (I will be driving from Atlanta.) Are they out of luck? Any chance of a sale coming? What airlines should they be monitoring for sales from MN? There are 4-5 going (two kids among them) and they are now worried they can't afford it! What airline monitoring newsletters should they sign up for?

TIA for your advice, so I can pass it along to my friends.

I got one way Orlando - Minneapolis for January 19 non-stop on AitTran for my daughter at $89. I don't know if that was specific to that date or if it's a standing price for that flight.

 

[Talent312]

I got one way Orlando - Minneapolis for January 19 non-stop on AirTran for my daughter at $89. I don't know if that was specific to that date or if it's a standing price for that flight.

Currently R/T's in late Feb. are starting at ~$300. I'd monitor AirTran + Northwest over the course of several weeks for a February sale.

 

[charford]

I've flown MSP-MCO quite a few times. $300 is as low as I've ever seen it. I'd grab it.

 

[nana7]

I think Southwest is going to open in Minneapolis, they might have some bargains.

 

[SherryS]

Most of the sale prices I've seen have only been through Feb. 10, 2009, so far. (I check DTW-TPA daily!) I'd be patient and wait until some of the sales (esp. AirTran and then NW follows) extend to the end of Feb.

 

[Gramma5]

In May I bought 5 RT tickets for my son and his family to come visit in April 09. They are coming from Minneapolis to Orlando on Northwest with a stop in Atlanta and I got each ticket for about $330. I had shopped around and that seemed like a very good price. Of course, I would have like to have made it a direct flight, but those were nearly $500. each!!