Comparing Internal Flights for America

PBA

From my experience there aren't really any comparison sites that work well for the US, but the travel sites like opodo and expedia will let you book US domestic flights. Then once you've found out which airlines fly non stop you can check their own sites to see if you can get it cheaper. The 2 airlines you need to check directly are Southwest and Jetblue.

For NYC to Boston it's well worth checking land travel, either train (Amtrak) or bus (Greyhound, Megabus or the Chinese bus). The total travel time will be longer, but you won't have the expense of getting to the airport or a 2 hour check in time.

dmg24

PBA wrote: »

For NYC to Boston it's well worth checking land travel, either train (Amtrak) or bus (Greyhound, Megabus or the Chinese bus). The total travel time will be longer, but you won't have the expense of getting to the airport or a 2 hour check in time.

Will it? Assuming staying centrally ...

LimoLiner (bus) Departs Hilton NYC 11.15am
Arrives Hilton Back Bay 3.30pm
4 hr 15 mins

Fly LGA to BOS NYC to LGA 1 hr
Check in 1 hr prior to flight
Flight time 1 hr 15 mins
Collect bags/ leave airport 30 mins
Transport to hotel 30 mins
4 hr 15 mins

The latter option also has more scope for delays/ missed departures/ baggage going missing etc.

(I didn't time work out the timings to make them exact!)

Miiri

I did this trip last year (with a bit of a stop in CT) and would definately recommend the train (Amtrak) - its about 4 hours and a great way of seeing the countryside.. It was much nicer than the UK trains.. you get leg room! Less stressful than the dashing around the airport too.

I can't quite remember how much I paid but it wasn't a huge amount and certainly cheaper than a flight plus transit to and from the airports. I booked it in advance on the amtrak website and picked up tickets from a machine at Penn Station - you also get straight in to the middle of Boston about a 5 minute walk from their transit system.

One thing to be aware of - if you're taking oodles of luggage - I think you need to check it in seperately but it seemed to be pretty organised and you could still take pretty large bags on the train yourself.

Voyager2002

The train (AmTrack) is the best way to do this journey. Total time door-to-door will be less than flying, while levels of comfort will be far superior to anything available in the air.

Note that rail tickets get more expensive as the date of travel gets closer, so book well in advance.

M4RKM

dmg24 wrote: »

Will it? Assuming staying centrally ...

LimoLiner (bus) Departs Hilton NYC 11.15am
Arrives Hilton Back Bay 3.30pm
4 hr 15 mins

Fly LGA to BOS
NYC to LGA 1 hr
Check in 1 hr prior to flight
Flight time 1 hr 15 mins
Collect bags/ leave airport 30 mins
Transport to hotel 30 mins
4 hr 15 mins

C'mon.. why are people so anti airlines when a sensible question about an internal flight is asked.

This is an internal USA flight, you can check in online, and you have to be at the gate 15 minutes before departure. So you can get to the airport about 30 mins before (not an hour)! Security queues are not as long IMO on an internal flight.. Each time I've flown internally, and this includes from JFK, the security queue has been less than 5 minutes!

Boston airport is only about 5 miles away from downtown Boston, so that 30 minute transport to hotel, really only works out to be about 15 minutes.

So, I've just saved 45 minutes on the flight, making it 3 hours 30, also looking at flightstats.com for some recent flights from LGA to BOS, the actual flight time, is around an hour, so again that saves 15 minutes.


M

neilbond007

markymoo wrote: »

C'mon.. why are people so anti airlines when a sensible question about an internal flight is asked.

This is an internal USA flight, you can check in online, and you have to be at the gate 15 minutes before departure. So you can get to the airport about 30 mins before (not an hour)! Security queues are not as long IMO on an internal flight.. Each time I've flown internally, and this includes from JFK, the security queue has been less than 5 minutes!

Boston airport is only about 5 miles away from downtown Boston, so that 30 minute transport to hotel, really only works out to be about 15 minutes.

So, I've just saved 45 minutes on the flight, making it 3 hours 30, also looking at flightstats.com for some recent flights from LGA to BOS, the actual flight time, is around an hour, so again that saves 15 minutes.


M

I've flown from Cincinnati to LA return for 9 out of the last 10 weeks.
I can assure you it takes a lot longer than 5 minutes to get through security. Especially at LAX. You can queue for up to an hour from getting to the airport, dropping bags (with pre-printed boarding pass) and getting through security. CVG is about 20 minutes from arrival to through security.