Man - Mco Easter 2012

We have been looking for seats from Man to Mco at the beginning of the Easter holidays ( March 31st.to April 14th) So far , we have seen nothing sensible on the VS site so have had to look at other airlines. The prices quoted are the Y and L code fares. The actual price varies between £1200 and £1450. My quote for a package with car from another airline is £650 - a no brainer. Is asnyone paying these fares or is something silly going on?

Y and L are the most expensive fare buckets and offer some flexibilty in terms of cancellation and changes and being able to upgrade that the lower buckets don't

Easter will always be a popular time to travel and it looks like VS have sold their allocation of the cheap fare buckets.

It helps if you can be flexible too even by a day either side but I appreciate that is not always practical.

Hi AlbertLord,
I`m not sure if our experience compares exactly, but this was our experience recently. We are a family of four (2 adults+2 13yr olds)travelling from Manchester to Orlando 28th March 2012. We tried to book our holiday through Virgin Holiday Shop, starting 30th/31st March, price for 2 weeks was almost £6000(kids Easter holiday) Deciding we would look around first before committing, we came home and looked through the Virgin Site, travel on 29th/30th/31st March were all the same price for 2 weeks. Then we found a BARGAIN, travel on Wednesday 28th for 3 weeks=£3430 :0 Booked it within the hour, then told the kids they had to have 3 days before Easter hols and 4 days after, which didn`t upset them at all. We`re going to be there for an EXTRA week, same hotel, with Virgin. Almost half price, who would have thunk it?? I sure don`t know how they work their prices out, one thing we did not ice though, kids price@Virgin teenager rate =£383. Adult price around £700 the rest is showing as taxes etc. But we`re more than happy.

[Neil]

Easter is probably the most expensive time to get flights to MCO. It is extremely popular and next year, unlike this year, every school is pretty much having the same two weeks off, so flights on the first weekend are going to be crazy busy with only the most expensive fare codes available.

As others have suggested, try moving your dates if possible forward or back a couple of days, as demand isn't as high. This year, when the Easter break was split over a 4 week period, some family we went with paid £680, so still not cheap!

I'm not sure if it's something you would consider, but have you thought about flying LHR to New York then catching a connection down?

I know it's not ideal, especially having to get down to LHR from MAN then transit through to MCO, but if you do want to fly VS, big savings to be made (based on your dates):

NY = £535 PP

MCO = £1234 PP

Jetblue offer some good value connections. Other than that £650 direct is good.

Thanks to all who responded to the post. The alternative that we are cosidering is with American Airlines from MAN to ORD along with Alamo as the car rental company. We book through Trailfinders usually as they have always been exceptionally efficient. It is roughly £650.
The galling thing is that my wife and I have 220,000 Flying Club miles and, as it's Easter , realise that there is no chance of using them. They are there for later next year perhaps.Gotta get booking!!

[Neil]

Have you looked at Miles plus Money to MCO? Or at miles seats to MIA as options?