I have a lot of travel coming up in 2023, and I’m still trying to get my ducks in a row. One missing piece is securing flights from Dallas to Orlando over spring break for our cruise on the Disney Wish.
Thankfully, a few months ago I found some AA Web Special Awards for our flights home. We have to stopover in Austin, but I was just happy to find some decent award space on the exact day we needed to fly home.
Unfortunately, flights TO Orlando for the beginning of our trip were not looking good with cash or miles. Part of the problem is that we’re not very flexible with our schedule. We have one week for spring break, and the rest of the DFW metroplex has the same week off. I already booked an adorable airbnb right on the beach for two nights prior to our sail date. So, unless I really wanted to pull my kids out of school early (I don’t, two are in high school), we only had one or two days that worked for us to fly to Orlando.
Check out these outrageous flight prices on American Airlines. This is for a one-way flight for one person!
Most of the seats on these flights are already taken! I can only assume that there are a few high school marching bands or orchestras going to Disney World over spring break (which is entirely possible, because my son’s orchestra went in 2020).
Flights using AA miles were not ideal either–~50k for nonstop flights or 30k for stopover flights. Prices on other airlines (most of them with stopovers) were better, but still not great.
Frontier Airlines to the Rescue
Recently, Frontier Airlines dropped its price on our desired travel date to $189. I know a lot of people aren’t fans of Frontier (including my own kids!). But, for a 2 1/2 hour flight, I don’t care if there isn’t a charging outlet or tray table at my seat. And yes, I know you have to pay extra for assigned seats and luggage. But still, this option was much cheaper than anything else I was seeing, and I have no faith that prices would drop for spring break.
I don’t have any Frontier miles. But, I could book these flights through the Chase travel portal for around 12,600 points each using my husband’s Chase Sapphire Reserve points at 1.5 cents per point. For my family of 5, we would need 63,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points instead of paying a total of $945 for these flights. (The Chase Sapphire Reserve currently has a higher 80k bonus–see this post).
Cash vs. Points
I decided to save my 63,000 points and pay cash for the flights. Since there are 5 of us going, I actually saved a total of $50 by buying the Discount Den membership and getting the cheaper price of $159 per person.
Why didn’t I use the points if I have them? Why spend cash when I don’t need to? It’s because I’m thinking of the bigger picture and my future travel goals.
My family is itching to return to Costa Rica. We had such a wonderful time at the Andaz Costa Rica hotel (see my post here). And, Leana’s recent trip to Costa Rica inspired me to visit the Tabacan Thermal Resort (see her post here). We can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt to book both of these resorts and get more value from our points than we can by booking flights through the Chase travel portal.
In the Chase travel portal, the points are worth 1.5 cents each. But the points can be worth a lot more when they are converted to Hyatt points, depending on when you travel and the cash price for the resort.
In the summer months, both of those Hyatt resorts in Costa Rica cost 17,000 points per night (low season). However, the cash price for that same night in July at Andaz Costa Rica is much higher:
The math works out to ~5 cents per point in this scenario.
I don’t always calculate cents per point when comparing redemptions. But in this case, since I know I want to book a Hyatt resort or two in the future, it makes sense to save my points for that redemption.
Final Thoughts
There is no wrong or right way to use your miles and points. I don’t always get the best bang for my buck when I use my miles and points. But, in this case, I decided to fork over the cash for the flights and save my points for a future trip.
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
I am having such a hard time with spring break this year. Flights are over $1000 roundtrip to Florida or Hawaii (our top choices) from San Diego. Points redemptions are equally heinous and many flights are sold out, What is going on and who is paying these prices!!! My back-up is that we have beach campground reservations for Santa Barbara which isn’t bad but I really wanted to do a bigger trip. Oh well.
@Wendy Ugh, those prices! Those are more like “fly to Europe” prices. On the plus side, Santa Barbara is so lovely. I visited a few times when I lived in the LA area and it’s one of my favorite areas in California.
this is very informative. I’m having trouble trying to figure out how to best use my alaska airlines points. It’s looking like i’ll have to spend my whole stash just for myself to fly from Portland, OR to New Orleans for a cruise! I dont understand how people get these really great deals using points – maybe cuz i dont understand transferring and partners?
@Sara Right now is a bit of a funky time with flights because airlines are cutting the number of flights (due to pilot and staffing shortages) yet demand is up due to people not traveling during the pandemic. Cash rates for flights at peak times are still a bit crazy, although I’ve seen some good deals at non-peak times with short notice. Do you have any flexibility with your dates prior to your cruise? The best deals I’ve gotten with miles/points lately is booking 11 months out (my Air France flights to Europe) and stalking the AA site for web specials for domestic flights.
true, we arent booking cruise til we find doable flights so we do have flexibility! Its so much harder to find a cross-country flight that is manageable at my parents age. we want to cruise the carib. this february. heard its really hard to go outta galveston (airport and hotels really far from port?), which leaves florida or new orleans. I considered doing a solo cruise out of san juan, P.R. but alaska air doesnt even allow me to use points for that!
@Sara I wouldn’t necessarily rule out Galveston. From Houston’s Hobby Airport (which is closer to Galveston), it’s about a 45-50 minute ride to the airport and less than $50 uber ride. There are also a lot of inexpensive hotels near the airport and halfway between the airport and Galveston. You should be able to use Alaska miles to fly to Puerto Rico on American planes, but only if AA has some MileSAAver flights available. I’ve also been looking for AA flights to PR on miles and my dates are not working right now.
thanks for the info!!! i cant figure out how to search outside of alaska’s search engine (it includes American Air options), i think there’s just no PR flights atm.
@Sara I believe the only partner airline that doesn’t show up on Alaska’s website is LATAM. If AA has any MileSAAver space, it will show up on Alaska’s site.
$821 is insane for round trip, let alone one way. And apparently people are paying it.
@projectx My family hates road trips, but if $821 was the only flight available, we’d be driving 20 hours to Orlando.
If the choice for us was $821 RT or driving 20 hours… we’re not going! LOL