It pays to shop around and it pays to question whether or not a Low Cost Carrier really is low cost.

Just for fun, I looked around for flights from the DFW area to Portland, Oregon and I used Labor Day weekend as my target as it was a weekend where we should see some restrictions and fairly high travel.  In other words, I wanted to make it a popular time to travel that would see realistic fares.

I checked out Spirit Airlines and found a roundtrip all-in fare of $320 and that didn’t seem all that great to me given what we know about their many fees.  Next, I checked out my favorite airline, Southwest Airlines, and found a very high fare available for just over $500.

Yes, over $500 to fly Southwest to Portland, Oregon from Dallas and it was a connecting flight.  This is way too much.

Like Goldilocks, I found the bed that was just comfortable enough:  United Airlines with an all-in fare of just $367.00.  It, too, was connecting (through San Francisco) but not with an terrible flight time involved.

Yes, I would pay a fee to check a bag on United but that fee would be less than Spirit’s typically and I would get to fly on a vastly more comfortable aircraft.

United’s 31″ of seat pitch vs Spirit’s 29″ of seat pitch.  It makes a huge difference.

So, the Low Cost Carrier wasn’t, the Ultra Low Cost Carrier wasn’t and the legacy airline was the best fit.

Lesson learned?

Filed under: Travel Hints by ajax