Quick question for the Americans...

[vicki595]

Can anyone name/recommend any budget airlines which can fly me from East to West coast?

Only I only know the budget airlines over here and google likes bringing those up every time I try to search for them.

Thanks! :D

Comments

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

erm... try Southwest? Not sure if they do direct eastwest flights, though. Or, even, east flights...

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

Yes, Southwest flies East now, though not to every airport. The Southwest site is pretty well organized.

If you don't find a cheap flight that way, check out the big multi-airline discount sites -- orbitz is a good one, I think.

[vicki595.livejournal.com]

Thanks hon!

I was trying to find discount sites like that too... but they keep sending me to the UK ones!

I don't want to fly out of London, thank you!

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

EEK! How does it know that you are in the UK without you telling it? *fearz*

[vicki595.livejournal.com]

I don't care about direct to be honest! If I can save money by having a stop over (or two...) I'll survive *g*

[pellmelody.livejournal.com]

Avoid America West (see my rant in my LJ). You don't want to fly them. Southwest is good, but they don't feed you anything (they do give drinks) so if you fly them, bring a sandwich. I've flown them and they were okay.

A good bet would be to look up the airport you are flying from and see what airlines they actually support there. Then, go from there. There are small airlines called Blue, Spirit, etc. Most airports list what airlines they have that fly in and out of their hub.

[vicki595.livejournal.com]

*notes down to avoid America West* *g*

I'm not bothered by not being fed... I don't really eat, even when I'm flying trans-Atlantic. On Northwest, I ate the deserts. *g*

The problem with looking up the airport, well, isn't actually a problem per se, is that I don't know exactly which airport I'll fly out of! I'm not sure which is closer out of Hartford and Providence; but if I had to, I could feasibly fly out of Boston or New York (depending on how much the train/bus would cost me to get there)

But I'll try sticking closer to home first *g*

[pellmelody.livejournal.com]

Here's a list of some smaller airlines to try (some of these have VERY limited flight schedules and few cities):

JetBlue
Spirit
ATA
USA 3000
JetsGo (mostly Canadian cities)
AirTran
Song
Southwest
Independence Air
Ted
Sun Country

All these airlines fly in and out of either Tampa Airport or the St. Petersburg airport here in Florida.

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately the budget airlines in the US (Southwest, Spirit, etc) are not nearly as brilliant as RyanAir and EasyJet. They're much quirkier about where they fly and often aren't any cheaper than the major airlines. mylittleredgirl's advice is good: check Southwest, your airports, etc., but then check orbitz or expedia.com too--you might find something cheaper there.

*wishes we had RyanAir in North America*

[vicki595.livejournal.com]

Huh. That sucks.

(Although saying that I don't really know many of the major US airlines either *g*)

Is it cheaper booking way in advance, or leaving it fairly last minute?

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

It's almost always cheaper to book in advance, I've found. And you may have to fuss with the internet a bit to let you on the right sites--when I'm in Canada, my browser automatically directs me to expedia.ca instead of expedia.com (I try not to be overly distressed that The Internet knows what country I'm in at a given time...). But once you're on the proper site, it should let you enter any departure and destination airports, and it will just bring up all the cheapest flights, no matter what airline. Good luck!

[lifelongfling.livejournal.com]

Are you planning a trip to California for some reason? ;)

[vicki595.livejournal.com]

*shrugs*

Parentals were discussing the idea of going to California when I'm out at Easter.

It's just some ideas we're playing with

[lifelongfling.livejournal.com]

Oh see, I was more think along the lines of a certain convention being held in California, but that works too.

[jennylouise123.livejournal.com]

I Wonder why you want to know that? ;)

[vicki595.livejournal.com]

Because I don't want to stay on the East coast when it's starting to look like I'm going to be in the States for five months this year? *g*

[hyari.livejournal.com]

When I used to live in NYC, I used JetBlue a lot to visit Cali:

http://www.jetblue.com/

Plus, they're a FUN airline. Good for those long cross-continental flights. ;)