GoCanes

Currently kicking around traveling from NYC (JFK or LGA) to MCO for the holidays - departing 12/23 and returning 1/1. I know they are busy travel dates and the award pricing is certainly inflated over non-holiday periods, but trying to figure out when to pull the trigger.

Currently, 4 tickets in comfort is 214,000 - or 53,500 miles per person.

I can drop that to 198,000 by breaking up my party and doing 2 tickets in main that auto upgrade to C+ and the other 2 tickets directly into C+.

I guess my question is, will these get better or worse as the year progresses?

And yes, I realize Disney is crazy that time of year. But that is when we like to go.

MarkCron

as a PL, book now, and monitor. If it drops, change the tickets.

ATLflyer2017

If you can afford the mileage, and are 100% sure that you will be traveling to that destination on those dates, then personally I would choose to book. Are you able to cancel without paying the redeposit fee if the price were to drop? If so then I would absolutely book it just to "reserve" your spot. That certainly seems a little steep but I am not familiar with pricing/value of C+ so that would be why.

jrl767

the simple answer is "when you find something that you can live with" ... your profile says PM, so if prices drop you can book new flights and redeposit the miles (before T-72 hrs) for these with no penalty

MarkCron

and check one way fare. If it is the same or better, book one ways. Then if the price drops on one segment (going down or coming back), you don't have to worry about the other segment being higher when you re-book.

iflyalexair

This actually sounds like my worst nightmare. Spending a huge amount of money or miles to go to Orlando/Disney.

Shouldn't the analysis rest on the cost of the revenue ticket to see if it is worth dumping this many miles?

GoCanes

These are all great suggestions. I totally forgot about the redeposit waiver, which makes it a no brainer so long as I don't need the miles for something.

GoCanes

I did that analysis. The tickets are pricing out around $817 each in C+ ($700 in main) - so for four of us $3268. So I am looking at 49,500 miles for a $800 ticket in C+.

Adelphos

As a PM, he probably earned a large amount of the miles via normal flying. Tickets prices from NYC to anywhere in Florida are extremely expensive in December. You could argue he should be flexible, but the family may not want to got to Disneyworld in August or whatever. It seems like a decent use of miles to me

jrl767

obviously more of a challenge traveling as a party of four as opposed to one or two, but if you're planning to rent a car for the week, how do the prices (cash and award) compare if you were to fly into TPA (~2 hours) or JAX (~3 hours)?

apodo77

GoCanes

Surprisingly enough, they were more miles than MCO

BenA

If you hadn't said you know what you're getting into, I would have tried in the strongest possible terms to talk you out of being on Disney property between ~12/22 and 1/1. These are the busiest days of the whole year and the parks often close due to capacity limits as early as 10-11am. It's really hard to enjoy yourself in conditions like that, and Star Wars Land opening (plus Rise of the Resistance likely being operational by that point) is going to make things even crazier than usual.

With that in mind, I'd book as soon as you can, and take advantage of free redeposit as a PM to continue hunting for lower mileage prices for the remainder of the year. But expect flights to be insanely full. (Similarly, book lodging now as well, with a refundable rate you can adjust as your vacation gets closer.)

One last attempt at persuading you - are you sure you don't want to go a week or two earlier? All the holiday decorations are still there, and the crowds are a small fraction of what they'll be Christmas week...

birdiedouble

GoCanes

Ha! We have been to Disney now several times with the kids over this time period. What we have found is staying on property, utilizing early morning magic hours and saving fast passes for the evening time period, is the key to making it a fun trip. However, between 11 and 3 during the day, it is capacity and a little crazy. That is when we head back to hotel for lunch or go to the pool if warm enough. But we have become pros at going this time of year, but we usually drive down.

We would love to go two weeks earlier if we could, but kids are in school and cannot miss that much school unfortunately.

And I am very, very excited about Galaxy's Edge. I am prepared to wait to get into that mess!!!

But will take the advice of booking now and continuing the search.