Need to make a decision as to whether to fly or drive
 

I'm in Louisiana, and my sister in in Memphis, and I will be driving up to visit her for Thanksgiving. However, I also need to go to Buffalo so as to buy a used car (it is an almost impossible combination in used car to get). My current car runs, but it has a wholesale value of $250, LOL, so I just plan on donating it to a charity. There are 2 paths to effect this:

[1]: Drive to Memphis, take 1-way flight to Buffalo, car dealer picks me up at airport, I leave old car there, I take new car and drive back to Memphis, staying a night in a hotel.

[2]: Drive to Memphis, but then drive to Buffalo, stay a night in hotel, drive to dealership, leave old car there, take new car and drive back to Memphis.

[1] has the additional cost of a 1-way flight (2 legs), which if I buy now is $204 super-economy, and locks me into a fixed time, not giving me the ability to slide the time so as to avoid winter weather - but I do save about 7 hours total time. To get the ability the slide the time, I would need to buy the flight only a few days before, which should make it much more expensive, especially considering that it would be around Thanksgiving. Driving form Memphis to Buffalo will only cost about $100 in gas, and I could be in complete control of when I make my moves.

I'm thinking that having the scheduling control is worth it, and I'd probably save a lot more than $104 in driving.

What do you think?

EDIT: It's actually about another 80 miles east of Buffalo (the dealer would pick me up at the airport). However, I think I am going to put this on hold since the car is a stripped-down rental special, and I really don't need to get another car until next summer (the A/C is not working, and that makes giving it away to charity less of a loss for me). I would really like to buy a Level 5 driverless car, so it's a question of how long that will take.

Do you have any miles with AA? You don't say exactly when you want to fly, but there reasonably-priced MEM-BUF redemptions available on AA on several November/December dates. Example:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...11c9f06e10.png
Unless money is very tight, I would always drive one way rather than two.

it’s ~900 miles and ~14.5 hours drive time *each way* MEM<>BUF

*if* I decided to drive this round-trip, I’d stay *two nights* in the vicinity of Mansfield OH; that splits the trip into two ~600 mile/11 hr days MEM<>MFD, with the middle day being ~500 miles/8 hrs up-and-back MFD<>BUF to exchange cars

the AAward flights like those guv1976 mentioned are rather more pricey (~12k in Y, many with two connections) around Thanksgiving

You're right.

I wonder whether the OP -- who apparently resides in Louisiana -- needs to make the trip to BUF in connection with the Thanksgiving visit to MEM. Maybe just fly from Louisiana to BUF, and then drive the new used car back to Louisiana -- or break up the drive home with an additional visit to his sister.

I'm not a "lots of mileage points hanging around" kind of guy.

It would cost me $175 to get to MSY; my sister could drop me off at MEM for free. That said, I could drive to a Wal-Mart near MSY and take the bus to the airport, and then leave my car there, LOL.

Yes, the idea is that the drive to get the car would be get the visit to my sister for free.