There’s nothing travel geeks like more than an airfare sale. While some sales allow you to book a cheap flight between a specific set of city pairs, occasionally the lower fares spread throughout the system. This results in low airfares from places not affected by the original fares.
That’s how we were able to find cheap airfares from New York to Iceland on Icelandair. The original discounted fare was posted for flights from BOS-KEF, but there were also lower fares from other Icelandair destinations when people looked. We had our choice of Icelandair or Delta for a flight from JFK for the same price.
I’ve written several times about how we’re planning a trip to Hawaii for the beginning of next year. I made some moves hoping to make good use of a limited-time Companion Pass. I thought I hit the jackpot when Southwest listed a 40% discount code for flights to Hawaii at the beginning of 2022.
As it turned out, I did find some great airfares to Hawaii. We’re just not traveling on Southwest.
When looking at flights, we originally planned to fly to Honolulu and fly home from Kauai. That brings into play a logistical problem of finding flights from LIH that connect to a flight home to MCO.
We flipped the trip and I started looking at flights from MCO-LIH. I found a great routing on Delta connecting in Los Angeles.
Clocking in at a reasonable travel time of 12 hours and 30 minutes, it’s one of the best routings we could expect to Hawaii. The 90 min stop in LAX is a nice break right in the middle of the trip.
The best part? Delta offered the flights for 17,500 SkyMiles + $5.60 each.
When looking for flights home, one flight from HNL-MCO stood out from the rest. The non-stop on Hawaiian Airlines.
I’ve been looking at this flight since it was announced. For me, it’s close to being a perfect flight.
While I would love to redeem miles or pay for one of the lie-flat seats in the front of the plane, both options were cost-prohibitive.
Cash prices weren’t bad, but I had some HawaiianMiles in my account and I could top up my balance with a transfer from AMEX Membership Rewards.
For 30,000 miles and $5.60 each, we’re flying direct from Honolulu to Orlando.
I know that some of you think we’re crazy to book a red-eye flight in economy but for a 9-hour flight that lands at what will feel like 3 AM, I’ll save the 100,000 miles per ticket and pass out in my bed for several hours when I get home instead of trying to sleep for a few hours on a plane.
We’re getting to the point where flying upfront with a flat seat isn’t worth it unless it’s a super long flight. We’ll save our points for when we get to fly to Asia again.
So thanks to Southwest for publishing super-low fares to Hawaii which forced other airlines to lower their prices for the exact time when we were looking to visit the islands.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and sign up to get emailed notifications of when we post.
Whether you’ve read our articles before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
