Buying cheap tickets on AA

[Catfish]

Does anyone know of the best or cheapest way to purchase tickets for American Eagle? I live in the Dallas, Tx area but work in Alexandria, La. I have to drive this weekly and it is 350 miles each way. That's 12 hours round trip and lot's of fuel! I wished we had Southwest Airlines flying out of AEX but unfortunately Am. Eagle is it but the ticket prices are outrageous. It cost way more to fly than to drive. I can fly from DFW to San Antonio for $59 and up roundtrip with Southwest which is about the same distance I am wanting to fly now from Alexandria.

I was wondering if there was anyway you can buy empty seats or standby tickets or whatever.

Thanks for any input and suggestions.

Mike

 

[FA Mikey]

AA's DealFinder now officially in operation

American Airlines, which began offering its new DealFinder software to customers earlier in July, launched it formally on Tuesday.


http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?p=/url...itle=dealfinder

 

[JS]

Does anyone know of the best or cheapest way to purchase tickets for American Eagle? I live in the Dallas, Tx area but work in Alexandria, La. I have to drive this weekly and it is 350 miles each way. That's 12 hours round trip and lot's of fuel! I wished we had Southwest Airlines flying out of AEX but unfortunately Am. Eagle is it but the ticket prices are outrageous. It cost way more to fly than to drive. I can fly from DFW to San Antonio for $59 and up roundtrip with Southwest which is about the same distance I am wanting to fly now from Alexandria.

I was wondering if there was anyway you can buy empty seats or standby tickets or whatever.

Thanks for any input and suggestions.

Mike

You don't get reimbursed by your employer?

You can deduct unreimbursed business travel expense from your income. That's 45 cents a mile if you drive, or whatever the ticket price is if you fly.

 

[eolesen]

If you think fuel is expensive for you, imagine how much it costs for an aircraft....

I wished we had Southwest Airlines flying out of AEX but unfortunately Am. Eagle is it but the ticket prices are outrageous. It cost way more to fly than to drive. I can fly from DFW to San Antonio for $59 and up roundtrip with Southwest which is about the same distance I am wanting to fly now from Alexandria.

It's 250 air miles to SAT, and 300 to AEX.... And the cheapest fare I could find on WN was $49 one way before taxes with a 14 day advance purchase.

There are about 1.7 million people or so living in the area surrounding SAT, and perhaps 130,000 living around AEX.

(source: http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t3/tab03.txt

Looking at the list of metro areas below 200,000 in population, I don't see a single city served by Southwest. Or Jetblue. Or even Airtran.

Why?

Because they know that the only way they can afford to fly into a city is if there is a large enough population base to support lots of people flying on every flight. AEX is growing, but not fast enough that they'll be getting service from Southwest anytime soon.

Greyhound is $149 round trip. You'll spend 7 hours on the bus each way. And, assuming you get 20 mpg, it's still more expensive than driving.

Eagle has a $228 round trip if you book at least seven days in advance.

Seems to me the extra $100 is worth it in order to get there in a little over an hour, but it's your choice.

 

[jersey777]

I went online and picked some dates and times at random and came up with a fare of $197 including taxes. Not horrible considering it cost $50 each way to take car service from JFK into Manhattan. I guess everything is relative.

 

[Bob Owens]

I have to drive this weekly and it is 350 miles each way. That's 12 hours round trip and lot's of fuel! I wished we had Southwest Airlines flying out of AEX but unfortunately Am. Eagle is it but the ticket prices are outrageous. It cost way more to fly than to drive. I can fly from DFW to San Antonio for $59 and up roundtrip with Southwest which is about the same distance I am wanting to fly now from Alexandria.

"It cost way more to fly than to drive. "

This post just goes to show how the public has unrealistic expectations when it comes to flying. They expect to save "way more" time but not pay "way more" money.

Deregulation is great for those going between major population centers but those traveling long distances between less populated areas are not likely to see the same benifits.

With all the increases in productivity everyone could see affordable reasonably priced air transportation but thats not what we are seeing happen. Some pay much less while others pay more.

 

[JS]

"It cost way more to fly than to drive. "

This post just goes to show how the public has unrealistic expectations when it comes to flying. They expect to save "way more" time but not pay "way more" money.

Deregulation is great for those going between major population centers but those traveling long distances between less populated areas are not likely to see the same benifits.

With all the increases in productivity everyone could see affordable reasonably priced air transportation but thats not what we are seeing happen. Some pay much less while others pay more.

If you read past the first post of this thread, you would see that others are finding reasonable fares on this route.

I'm curious as to how much advance purchase the OP has. Last minute is going to be expensive, naturally.

 

[formeraa]

With all the increases in productivity everyone could see affordable reasonably priced air transportation but thats not what we are seeing happen. Some pay much less while others pay more.

When we say "reasonably" priced, take a look at some early-80's fares that were considered very reasonable: $339 lowest roundtrip from SEA-BOS. That would be over $800 in today's dollars. Even with productivity improvements (say 30%), that would still imply a lowest fare of $560.

Basic economics at work here. Large markets with more demand attract more competition and lower fares. Smaller markets with far less demand attract much less competition and, thus, higher fares. That's what deregulation is all about.

 

[Winglet]

Does anyone know of the best or cheapest way to purchase tickets for American Eagle? I live in the Dallas, Tx area but work in Alexandria, La. I have to drive this weekly and it is 350 miles each way. That's 12 hours round trip and lot's of fuel! I wished we had Southwest Airlines flying out of AEX but unfortunately Am. Eagle is it but the ticket prices are outrageous. It cost way more to fly than to drive. I can fly from DFW to San Antonio for $59 and up roundtrip with Southwest which is about the same distance I am wanting to fly now from Alexandria.

I was wondering if there was anyway you can buy empty seats or standby tickets or whatever.

Thanks for any input and suggestions.

Mike

SWA won't touch it. They're cherry pickers and are not going to be able to operate unless the market has a large volume. So many people in smaller cities are totally unrealistic in their expectations to get big city air service and on the cheap to boot.

The cost per seat mile of a Regional Jet is very very high in comparison to a narrow body airliner. As it is, you and your fellow pax tickets on an American Eagle RJ probably doesn't cover the cost of the flight. It's probably subsidized by American mainline. If pax paid the real cost in ticket prices for some of these Regional Jet flights, they'd be surprised.

 

[Catfish]

You don't get reimbursed by your employer?

You can deduct unreimbursed business travel expense from your income. That's 45 cents a mile if you drive, or whatever the ticket price is if you fly.

My job is a full time job and I expect to work here at least 8 more years therefore I cannot deduct mileage. My wife(CPA) told me that you can only deduct mileage if it is a temporary job. I hope she's wrong! If anyone has other info on this please advise. The story is that my oldest daughter has one more year to graduate then my wife will move down here with me.

Also I can drive home for $100 in fuel and flying is at least twice that and I still have to have someone drive 75 miles to DFW to pick me up and bring me back to airport etc. My job does not pay anything on my traveling fees unfortunately. I go home weekly so can't afford the current flight fees.

Thanks to everyone that has replied! I appreciate your help.

I'm glad I found this site! Very imformative!

 

[FWAAA]

Catfish, what you're seeing is that Eagle routes are often flown more for connecting traffic than for O&D (origin and destination) traffic. That may help explain why the fares are so high between DFW and AEX. I just bought some LAX-Florida fares for $198 plus taxes for this fall - about 5000 air miles for less than you're seeing for about 600 air miles.

If you want to see extreme examples of this phenomenon, check out advance purchase fares between LAX and SBA (89 miles) at $513 return or LAX-SAN (109 miles) at the same $513 return. That's about $2.50 a mile, about what a taxi would cost. Both of these routes are meant to be flown as connections, not as a way to get between the two cities (unless you're made of money or someone else is paying).

As for finding a cheaper way to fly Eagle on this route, as others have said, just buy with plenty of advance purchase or prepare to drive a lot. Good luck.

 

[JS]

My job is a full time job and I expect to work here at least 8 more years therefore I cannot deduct mileage. My wife(CPA) told me that you can only deduct mileage if it is a temporary job. I hope she's wrong! If anyone has other info on this please advise. The story is that my oldest daughter has one more year to graduate then my wife will move down here with me.

Also I can drive home for $100 in fuel and flying is at least twice that and I still have to have someone drive 75 miles to DFW to pick me up and bring me back to airport etc. My job does not pay anything on my traveling fees unfortunately. I go home weekly so can't afford the current flight fees.

Thanks to everyone that has replied! I appreciate your help.

I'm glad I found this site! Very imformative!

Fly home every other weekend.

 

[Winglet]

Commuting expenses are not deductable. It's your choice to live where you do and work where you do. Since many many airline pilots cannot afford to live in extreme-cost areas like San Francisco, LA, NY, or Miami, they must commute to work and it's not deductable.

 

[TWAnr]

I have to drive this weekly and it is 350 miles each way. That's 12 hours round trip and lot's of fuel!

Also I can drive home for $100 in fuel...

Get a Toyota Prius or a Honda Civic Hybrid and your fuel cost for the round trip will be reduced to approximately $37 (assuming $2.70 per gallon).

 

[eolesen]

I doubt the cost of the hybrid will ever be offset by the fuel savings... Most the people I know who've bought them are making a statement.

Better option is a VW diesel Jetta -- my wife was getting 43-45mpg on the highway, and it was reasonably priced. VW makes a great diesel engine that will last forever.