Any Nebraska Cruisers...

[sprint180]

Is Omaha the best/cheapest place to fly out of? For the most part anyway. How do you check for the cheapest rates?

[UPGrandma]

Try one of the discount travel sites or the airlines home page that you fly out of. If you look closely at the page where you search for flights you can generally get quotes for airlines up to 50 or 100 miles from a specific airport (In addition to multiple cities). The other thing to think about is the gas to travel, do you need to rent a room the night before, or when you return, and what the parking fees are.

 

We have a small airport that we fly out of, another small one 30 miles away then Green Bay which is 3 hr away. Prices don't vary enough to make the drive & rent a room for us.

[horsegal]

I live in NE (grand Island) we looked at flying out of Grand Island, Linconl, Omaha, Denver, and even Kansas City, KS. Some were cheaper flight wise but when I added in the extra gas, and hotels for some of them they were all pretty even. Make sure you factor in the overall cost of everything because what may seam more expensive at first might actually be close money wise in the end. We ended up going with South west out of Omaha, the money saved with luggage, even with taking parking and gas into account it was a little more than the Kansas City option but a LOT less driving.

 

I looked at a basic search engine to get average prices then went to the airlines website to find the cheaper prices. Southwest only sells tickets on their own website.

 

Good luck! It is not cheap flying out of the midwest! This will be our first time flying for a cruise (moved here less then a year ago from the east coast).

[UPGrandma]

Sprint180 and horsegal, airfare is tough as you said then add in weather this time of year. All 3 outgoing flights cancelled yesterday and I'm not sure the 6 am flight got out today.... Wish I was cruising to get our of this weather, BUT glad I don't have to try to get anywhere by plane today.

[Nebr.cruiser]

We live in Nebraska, near Norfolk. Although we usually use FF miles, when I do look for a flight I always check the box 'airports within....miles". So far I have never found a better deal at an airport within any reasonable driving distance.

 

It's always Omaha for us--which is 2.5 hours away by car. To us it's just not worth it to drive even to Kansas City, the next nearest large airport, because savings, if there are any, just don't make up for time, gas, hotel, etc.

 

It's an unfortunate fact that living in the center of the country and not near major airports makes flying difficult. Try finding a direct flight from Omaha!

 

However, we are compensated by lovely non-crowded country-side, a booming economy, great people and a safe and clean environment.

 

Written while visiting family in South Texas which is mad with people and traffic!

[thinfool]

The Cruise Air forum here on CC will be of some help.

And you can use http://matrix.itasoftware.com to pull up fares from multiple airports.

[KKB]

And nearly always Omaha has the best rates--Lincoln is rarely cheaper these days. I have compared KC but the difference is rarely enough to warrant it.

 

The only time we have flown out of KC is if there are 3-5 of us flying. We have done some college search visits the last couple years & KC flights were around $200RT to Dallas or Newark--$400+ out of Omaha. When 3 of you are flying, makes it worth the extra hour drive.

 

Flights have become horrific over the last year. I bet we paid around $350RT from Omaha to FLL for each of our previous cruises. This one was over $500.:eek:

 

Vegas used to run us $150-250RT; now $350 seems to be the new norm. :confused:

[sprint180]

Thanks for the replies. I live in Stuart which is 110 miles from Norfolk. Omaha is as far as I drive. There is Sioux Falls , Sioux City, Grand Island, and Rapid City that I would look at but Omaha is always the cheapest. I was just wondering if I was missing something.

[Nebr.cruiser]

Your really are out there! We drive through Stuart fairly often, heading west.

 

I agree, Omaha seems to be the best for airfares. For some western cities, Allegiant has great fares from Grand Island (sometimes) and especially Sioux Falls, but I have never used them. Days they fly are very limited, though, and I have heard it is very bare bones.

 

Prices to Florida this year are much higher than usual; glad we have FF miles.