$1000 Off My Trip to St. Thomas
Everyone loves a good deal and I’m no exception. For my recent trip to St. Thomas, I blogged about my Plane Tickets to the Caribbean. For what should have been $1440 cash (or a bunch of United MileagePlus miles), I had a nice trip laid out from Tulsa to St. Thomas. Well… it’s 4 days before takeoff and I’ve cancelled those tickets and rebooked to save myself $1,000!
Frontier Airlines to the Rescue!
Everyone can have their own opinions about ULCC or Ultra Low Cost Carriers. They give you a price for the seat… then charge more to let you pick the seat… then more to bring a carry-on… and more to check a bag… and then charge for a bottle of water. Well… If I don’t drink the water or bring a bag… why should I subsidize everyone else that does? So I like ULCCs like Frontier, Allegiant, and Spirit. It lets me pay only for what I need.
A Better Deal to St. Thomas
Four days before my trip, it caught my eye that Frontier was advertising flights that left at Midnight on Sunday and arrived at 1:30pm on Monday from DFW to STT with a 7 hour layover in Puerto Rico. Now that doesn’t sound as good as a 7 hour total flight, but here’s the thing. While United Airlines tickets to Puerto Rico were only $232, Frontier was offering them for $104. On top of that, the return trip on United was closer to $480, Frontier was only $56. As a GoWild member, if I wanted to wait and book those, they could actually come down to just $37 each way… but there is the risk they don’t. So I decided to jump on it. I’m also a Discount Den member, so instead of $104 and $56, the total round trip price was $130 each.
Bundle and Save
For all the reasons I like ULCCs, I also don’t usually bundle simply because I don’t like the things they put in the bundles. However, I do know how to run the math. First of all is bags. I know I’m not really getting to St Thomas and back for just $130. I need to take a bag. What’s the cost of a checked-in bag? $51. So that easily take me from $130 to $180. That’s ouch… but not really ouch. If the bag also has to come back, that’s another $50. Or for two of us to split it, it’s $180 each. Now, Discount Den knocks a few dollars off… but here’s where the fun begins. The had a bundle for bringing on a carry on bag and picking a seat. It was $180 each. So now we we have flights and bags and seats… but for just a few dollars more we got a Premium Bundle… so now we have exit row or 3rd row seats and they are together.
Total cost to and from St Thomas
So with a bundle in mind I opted for the Frontier Premium Bundle with the Discount Den price. The cost was $389.32. That’s for 2 Round Trip tickets from Dallas to St Thomas. It includes 2 carry-on bags… premium boarding (we get on first) and premium seats with extra leg room. When people ask how far in advance I had to book to get that price… the answer is “4 days.” It pays to keep your options open.
