Boston flight advice

MikeJO

Hello all, new to this corner of the forum so hope you can help.

My son's looking to travel to visit friends on the New Hampshire/Vermont border this summer for about a month. Nearest obvious arrival point is Boston so I've been trawling the comparison sites to see what the best deals are; seems to come down to Turkish, Aer Lingus or Iceland Air but some with a pretty hefty wait between some of the cheaper flight options. Looking at just short of £600 as far as I can see.

He'll be going roughly end of June to end of July so my questions are; am I missing anything? Are there ways of doing this cheaper? He'll be eighteen but travelling solo for the first time though he has lots of experience of air travel with us. He's on a tight budget so if he has an overnight wait for a change will he be able to sleep in the airport? Anything else you can think of?

I know probably all this information is available elsewhere online but this place has been so useful to me in the past on other matters I thought I'd make it my first port of call. Thanks.

bagand96

I would recommend the following flight search:

http://matrix.itasoftware.com

It's the software behind Google flight search but that search is very powerful. You can select a calendar of a month to see when cheapest fares are, it will also let you search for a variety of durations in one search. It doesn't actually sell you a flight, just shows available fares, so you then need to go to the airline or Expedia, ebookers etc to book.

You don't mention where he'll start the journey. But I had a quick look for London and Icelandair seemed to be the cheapest. They are pretty decent and their connection times are usually good.

ETA: The Turkish option is bonkers flying UK-Istabul to come back West to the USA! At least Aer Lingus and Icelandair you start going westbound!

Doshwaster

Ha! Flying to Boston via Istanbul has to be one of the craziest thing I have heard. Boston is such a short flight that there would have to be a significant cost saving to make it worth the extra time and hassle of a connecting flight. I wouldn't want to add 12 hours each way onto the flight time just to save £100.

Aer Lingus would be a decent option although their Dublin to Boston service is always busy due to high demand so booking well in advance is recommended. There will be much more capacity on the London routes so more competition on fares.

If you can book in the next few days, BA have a sale that is about to end: http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/offers/sale and other airlines have New Year sales on at the moment too.

michele-p

My advice would be look at flights into New York too, then there is either coach, train or cheap internal flight to get where he needs to be. We are going to NY with Thomas Cook from Manchester in June, for £370 each. Also keep an eye on Holidaypirates on Facebook, they often have cheap flights popping up.

roonaldo

As he is travelling alone for first time it would be BA direct to Boston for me.

pleasedelete

Virgin have Boston on sale for about £500 until march and then about £600.

roonaldo

michele-p wrote: »

My advice would be look at flights into New York too, then there is either coach, train or cheap internal flight to get where he needs to be. We are going to NY with Thomas Cook from Manchester in June, for £370 each. Also keep an eye on Holidaypirates on Facebook, they often have cheap flights popping up.

Just wanted to add to this. Although may be a long journey by train/coach it would be a good experience for him to to do this, i'd rather do this then spend hours in a foreign airport waiting for a connecting flight.

MikeJO

Thanks for all the advice people, most helpful!

Sorry, should have mentioned that he'd be flying from London.

MikeJO

MikeJO wrote: »

Sorry, should have mentioned that he'd be flying from London.

Having said that I've just realised that there's an option from Bristol, which is much closer to us, with Aer Lingus starting from £729 (with very short stopover times also, two and a half hours max for the dates I looked at). As to the BA/Virgin/flying direct options the prices are much higher come that time of year; shame he can't go earlier but he has exams mid-June.

As you said roonaldo his mum and me would be much happier if he went direct because although he's eighteen he's still our "little boy" and we'll be nervy until we know he's arrived safely, but the finances won't stretch to it.

Thanks again for all your suggestions.

bagand96

MikeJO wrote: »

Having said that I've just realised that there's an option from Bristol, which is much closer to us, with Aer Lingus starting from £729 (with very short stopover times also, two and a half hours max for the dates I looked at). As to the BA/Virgin/flying direct options the prices are much higher come that time of year; shame he can't go earlier but he has exams mid-June.

As you said roonaldo his mum and me would be much happier if he went direct because although he's eighteen he's still our "little boy" and we'll be nervy until we know he's arrived safely, but the finances won't stretch to it.

Thanks again for all your suggestions.

It depends where you are based and how much easier Bristol is over Heathrow and whether you think the saving is worth it. Only you can work that out.

Not sure where you are but maybe Birmingham is an option (its an easily accessible airport). June 25th - July 22nd comes up at £625 with Icelandair. Or £659 for slightly different flights with better connections.

MikeJO

bagand96 wrote: »

It depends where you are based and how much easier Bristol is over Heathrow and whether you think the saving is worth it. Only you can work that out.

Not sure where you are but maybe Birmingham is an option (its an easily accessible airport). June 25th - July 22nd comes up at £625 with Icelandair. Or £659 for slightly different flights with better connections.

Thanks for that bagand, we're in Devon so Birmingham is certainly doable; no further than London (and as I'm driving to Gatwick myself for a flight on 30th June it'd be a change of scenery)!

Regional airports hadn't even entered my thinking before I came on here; isn't the internet a wonderful place?