Driving to alternate airport

[Jimm]

What’s the furthest you’ve ever driven to an alternate airport for a cheaper airfare?
I am trying to plan a June/July 2010 St. John trip, but currently air out of Cleveland is running around $550/person. Air out of Detroit is between $318 - $350/person. Detroit is about 2.5 hours further drive than Cleveland for us, but I'm thinking the savings may be worth it.

[waterguy]

I drive 3.5 hours from Green Bay to Ohare every time I go the 300 + I save per ticket is worth it

[Beesmom]

I can pay about $750 for tickets our of Huntsville (45 minutes) or Birmingham (1 1/4 hours) or drive 4 hours to Atlanta more or less depending on traffic and pay half that much, maybe even less.

Surprisingly we have paid to go out of Huntsville because sometimes the money is not worth the hassle of getting to Atlanta. It all depends on how desperate we are for a vacation vs. what our finances look like.

-Sandy

[madness]

We were considering driving 5-6 hrs to Phil, but that was for a free flight (FF miles). It depends on the savings, flight times, connections, etc. I would think the drive home after vacation would be the worst.

[Steve S]

Albany (NY) is my home airport at 45 minutes away. We've driven to:

Boston 4 hrs *
JFK 4 hrs *
Newark 3.5 hrs
Hartford 2.5 hrs *
Syracuse 2.5 hrs

* Park/Sleep/Fly

[waterguy]

Trips to the islands I always do park sleeep fly to europe the flights leave late enough for me to drive and fly the same day. cost about the same when you pay for parking.

[vi lover]

We normally drive 1 hour to Louisville or Cincinnati. However, last cruise was with 6 people so we drove the 2hr 45 mins to Indianapolis. Saved $200 each ($1200 total airfare).

Yes - the drive home really was horrible!

[RickG]

Lets see:

Reagan National - 30 minutes

Dulles International - 45 minutes

Baltimore Washington International - 90 minutes

I'd drive to Baltimore to get a direct flight, but the only sporadic direct flight we see is out of Dulles. The next option is Philadelphia and the $ and time savings have never driven us to go that far.

Cheers, RickG

[JT]

Lets see:

Reagan National - 30 minutes

Dulles International - 45 minutes

Baltimore Washington International - 90 minutes

I'd drive to Baltimore to get a direct flight, but the only sporadic direct flight we see is out of Dulles. The next option is Philadelphia and the $ and time savings have never driven us to go that far.

Cheers, RickG

Yeah, and besides, Rick, they'ed lose your bags in Philly.

[mindehankins]

We live closest to Buffalo, but have travelled to Cleveland, Pittsburg, Syracuse and Toronto if the savings made it worth it. The furthest of those would be about 4 hours.
A nice part, for me, of flying out is that vacation starts the minute we get out of work, the day before travel. We plan a nice dinner in a city we don't get to often, and enjoy that night as part of vacation!

[cocosmom]

Hey Rick, I am 10 minutes from BWI if ya want to save on parking Never found a better price from BWI. Last few trips we went out of National. Except that great time they canceled our flight & gave us BWI for the same price...loved that trip![/quote]

[dtenel]

We live by Grand Rapids, Michigan and ALWAYS fly either out of O'Hare or Detroit. We do the park, sleep, and fly and take the very first flight out in the morning. The savings is usually about $300 + per person than flying out of Grand Rapids. The drive to Detroit or Chicago is about 2.5-3 hours. No biggie to us....well worth the savings!

[bruco72]

Being in Chicago, it's tough to find a location that we can't get a decent priced flight to between O'Hare and Midway, but Milwaukee is only 90 minutes away and a decent option for certain destinations. Haven't pulled the trigger on a flight out of Milwaukee yet, but came close a few times.

[Lulu76]

I drove to Atlanta from Nashville last year to save about $400 on my ticket. My best friend lives in Atlanta, so I was only out gas money to do it, but even with parking and a hotel, it still would've been cheaper.

I almost always drive to Chattanooga to fly to Florida. It's about $250 cheaper, so worth less than a two hour drive. (When I lived in Ohio, I always had to drive two hours to get to any airport, so I guess it's not a big deal to me.)