If you’re planning a visit to Walt Disney World on a budget, you might wonder how to find the cheapest flights. In this post we’re going to answer that question…and more. Planning a Disney vacation is complicated, and you can’t simply pick the cheapest flight and expect it to be part of the cheapest overall trip. Sometimes cheap flights can cost you. In this post, we’ll give you a guide identifying and booking the cheapest flights to Disney World…that work for you.
About This Post
Only about 1/4 of this post is actually dedicated to getting you to find the “cheapest” fares…and that’s a good thing. The reason is that’s all it takes. Finding the cheapest fares isn’t much of a challenge these days, so you should have little trouble doing it.
Most of this post is about two other things. After the basics of finding cheap fares, we switch to helping you decide whether or not you want the cheapest fare. A lower price might come at a cost—is it a worse time? Will you pay more fees? These—and less obvious things—are the sorts of things we want to flag for you.
Then we close with how you might use credit card points or airline miles to pay for you flights. We don’t go into detail about this, but we flag it because it is a workable option in many cases.
Basics for Booking Cheap Flights
We start with four simple rules for finding the cheapest fares.
First of all, be very suspicious of anyone offering “secret” fares. While travel companies can sometimes offer packages that include flights, air travel is a very systematic industry where the prices you find on one trusted source for a given flight are likely to be the lowest available price, with a few dollars of variance.
I don’t want to make this a universal declaration. But there basically are no “secret” fares. Nothing on this post is a secret. But just because it isn’t secret doesn’t mean you already know about it.
And unrelated, sites like “Secret Flying” use “secret” in their name just for fun—the deals they publish are publicly available and not really “secret,”
Second, use Google Flights, Kayak, and Momondo to price flights. These tools are mostly going to show you the same prices you’ll see elsewhere, but they’re flexible tools that allow you set all sorts of limitations on your flight to find just what you’re looking for. Of these, Momondo seems to be the best at identifying truly low fares.
I like to use Google Flights because their search tool will allow you to see a collection of prices as once. For example, the “Date Grid” shows me roundtrip prices for a select of departure and arrival dates:
The Price Graph shows me roundtrip fares for trips of a certain length (in this case, 7 days) beginning on different dates:
Third, consider booking with two different airlines. Most economy fares in the United States are priced one-way. This means if the best price to your destination is on one airline and the best price returning home is on another, you can just book two one way tickets. The downside to this approach is that if you have to make modifications (which tend to be very limited anyways), you’ll have to deal with two airlines, two policies, and two sets of change fees.
Fourth, book about two months in advance. Flight prices tend to be highest far in advance—because early bookers who know they have to have a flight will pay more—and as the date gets closer—because people booking last minute have fewer options.
While “studies” claim “exact” dates, the truth is that somewhere between 90 and 30 days in advance is when prices tend to be lowest. If you’re flexible with your dates, though, this will have pretty minimal significance as long as you’re booking at least 30 days in advance, since you’ll usually find some reasonably priced days at that point.
Those four above tips are genuinely all you need to know about finding the “cheapest” flights. The problem is that you need to know whether or not you always want the cheapest flight. So let’s dig more into this issue.
Fifth, pay attention to your fare class. With basic economy fares the hottest thing in the airline industry, you have to be careful when searching fares to know exactly what you’re getting.
If you’re unsure based on the icons shown on the search engine, just go and search directly on the airline website once you find a prospective fare. Their prices will usually be the same, but you’ll be able to click into detailed explanations of what’s included. That said…
Sixth, open yourself up to low-cost and basic economy fares. If you need lots of stuff, probably fly Southwest. Otherwise, consider taking a second to downsize your packing so you can fly the cheapest, most barebones fare. We discuss more about why this may or may not work for you in the next few sections.
Seventh, consider “fare clubs.” The two of these I’m familiar with are Spirit’s $9 fare club and Frontier’s discount Den. These programs allow you to access lower fares not available to the general public in exchange for an annual fee. And it can happen that the annual fee will be less than the savings on your first booking.
Finally, be realistic about times. I can’t tell you how often I ignore this and lose money. Yes…a 6AM flight might be cheaper than a 9AM flight. But you know what? A night at an airport hotel the night before, or an Uber to the airport at 4:30AM is much more expensive than the $2.50 train ride to the airport.
Obviously this is a niche issue—I don’t drive and I live in a city. But it’s the sort of thing lots of people don’t think about when booking flights.
Now let’s move onto considerations specific for Disney travelers.
Disney-Specific Flight Booking Tips
Fly to MCO for Walt Disney World and LAX or SNA for Disneyland. There are a few exceptions where you might have a regional airline near home that can get you to an alternative airport for significantly cheaper, but it will rarely be worth the hassle.
Really pay attention to baggage rules. Everyone needs to pay attention to the rules on what bags you can bring free of charge…but Disney travelers really need to pay attention to this. Why?
When you leave Walt Disney World and are sitting at MCO because your shuttle brought you to the airport way too early, you’ll see lots of other sad people leaving Florida—many of whom will be accompanied by their stuffed shopping bags from Disney World.
This used to be a bigger scene before the era of fees began. Nowadays, the airline will charge you a high fee if you try and bring an extra bag on (even “just a shopping bag!”) if you’re not allowed to. If you need an extra carry on or checked bag—pay for it in advance when the price will be lowest.
Cheaper flights can mean more expensive stays. It might be cheaper to fly in a day earlier than you planned, but is your trip still cheaper if you have to pay for the extra hotel night? Are you doing to extend your park tickets too? Price out entire stays—hotel + flight + tickets—don’t just grab the cheapest flight that works and then plan around that, you might lose money.
Flight times matter. You’re paying a lot of money for your hotel and your park tickets. Every minute is worth something. If I’m on a 6AM flight, I might be in the park by noon. If I’m on a noon flight, I might not even go to the parks that day.
An extra six hours could get you some major rides in. You might spend hours learning how to perfect your Genie+ strategy…maybe spend the $40 per person to fly in earlier and just use that time to knock off a few rides. (As above, though, keep in mind if you have to add a day to your tickets, the calculus changes.)
Basic Economy and Low Cost Airlines
Going through each airline and each basic economy fare class would be a poor use of space. I’m going to talk here in general terms and hope you can apply them to your situation.
Assume nothing is included except a random seat and a single small personal item. Until you’ve confirmed elsewhere, assume the lowest fare just entitles you to a random seat on the plane and a single small personal item. Personal item sizes vary, but we have never had any problem with our standard Jansports. A personal item is not a full-size carryon that goes in the overhead bin, and even some small items that fit under the seat in front of you may not qualify.
Not everyone needs a carry-on or checked bag. Let’s say Alpha Airlines charges $100 per ticket and includes a checked bag for everyone. Bravo Airlines charges $60 per ticket and you can add a checked bag for $50. At first, it looks like “we’ll need a checked bag, so we’ll fly Alpha” makes sense. But not everyone in your group needs a checked bag. If you’re a family of four, two of you could get checked bags and you’d pay $340 on Bravo vs. $400 on Alpha.
But everyone probably wants a seat assignment. If you’re traveling as a family and want to sit together as a family, you’ll probably need to pay for seats together. If those seats are expensive enough, you might want a fare class or airline that includes free seat assignments.
Airline choice probably doesn’t matter. Service across the airline industry is pretty dismal, so there’s no sense picking you airline based on that, in my opinion. You might find different terms for changes/cancellations, but even those are all going to be pretty strict across the board once you’re close enough to your trip.
Some airlines are more reliable than others overall, but this also varies city-by-city. Alpha Airlines may be less reliable than Bravo Airlines overall, but if Alpha flies 20 flights through an airport each day and Bravo only flies one, which airline is going to be better placed to replace a plane or flight crew on short notice?
Most of the airlines you’ll be looking at have extensive operations in MCO and LAX. There are lots of reasons you might get delayed, but the chances that your choice of airline will be the cause of a significant delay is pretty small.
Use credit card travel credits for incidentals. Keep in mind—you pay for your travel credit when you pay your card’s annual fee. So nothing you pay for with that credit is “free.” But it’s good to remember that if you have a travel credit—like on a Chase Sapphire Reserve or Citi Prestige or Amex Gold Card—you can typically use it for incidentals like seat assignments or extra baggage.
Using Points and Miles For your Flight
Points and miles earned from credit cards or airline loyalty are rarely going to best be used for domestic flights. If you have flexibility or are interested in an international trip, or even a trip to Hawaii, you’ll usually find better uses for your points than domestic flights.
But some people only fly domestic, or they want to unload some points and don’t have anything big planned other than their next domestic trip. This is definitely not a complete guide to flying with points or miles, but it should give you enough information to know if you want to look into it more. (For more in this area, check out Best Credit Cards for Disney Travelers and How To Point Your Disney World Hotel With Points.)
Let’s start with two examples showing that yes, this really works…
Two Quick Examples (Yes, This Works)
The Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95 annual fee) is offering (as of this update) a 60,000 point signup bonus for spending $4,000 in the first three months you have the card. If you’re paying for your Disney vacation up front, that bonus should be easy to earn.
Those 60,000 points are worth $750 when booking travel through Chase, including most major airlines. That means if you put your $4,000 hotel and ticket package on your new Chase Sapphire Preferred, you’d be able to pay for up to $750 of flights using the points you’d earn (actually, it would be $850 since the $4000 would earn you another 8,000 points worth $100 dollars).
The United and Southwest credit cards from Chase are airline credit cards where you could do something similar. Sign up, earn the bonus, and then you’d have somewhere around 50,000 airline miles (about the cost of four one-way domestic tickets) to use for your trip.
Now let’s explain the three ways to do this.
Three Ways to Use Points/Miles for Your Flight
First, you can use the airline’s rewards program. If you earned the points with the airline, this is your only option. If you earned points than can be transferred to the airline (like Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou, or Amex Membership Rewards), this is an option.
When you use the airline’s rewards program, you can simply conduct a search on their website and check the box that says something like “use miles”. You’ll see availability and how many miles a flight requires (typically priced one-way). Keep in mind that just because a flight is being sold for cash doesn’t mean it’ll be available with miles. A standard “good” fare one way in the United States is 12,500 miles.
Second, you can use a partner airline rewards program. This is a little more complicated. Basically, different airlines partner in different groups and are able to book seats on each other’s flight using miles. So if Alpha and Bravo airlines are partners and I have Alpha miles, I can book Alpha flights or Bravo flights.
This comes in handy when you have a specific flight in mind but your miles aren’t on (or can’t be transferred to) that airline. For example, my Citi ThankYou points can’t be transferred to United Airlines, but they can be transferred to Avianca LifeMiles, which is a partner of United and can be used to book United flights.
Third, you can use your credit card’s travel portal. The major players in this space are Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou, or Amex Membership Rewards. Those three programs have built-in travel portals (similar to Expedia or Orbitz) where you can use your credit card points to book travel.
You need to compare this option to using an airline’s reward program. If United has a flight for $75 or 12,500 points, it makes more sense for me to use 5000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to book it through the travel portal (my rate for Chase is 1.5 cents per point) then to transfer 12,500 to United.
Conversely, if the flight costs more than $187.50, I’d rather transfer the points to United and book that way.
Finally, you can use cash back or a statement credit. Cash back / statement credits are rarely the best way to use points, though for some cards the are the only way. By converting your points to cash back or a statement credit, you can offset the cost of your flight. Notably, air travel is one of the few non-Disney expenses you can use Disney Rewards Dollars on if you’re a holder of the Disney Premier Visa Card.
What’s a Good Use of Points?
It’s subjective. You can redeem most points for between 0.5 cents each (low-rate statement credits) and 10 cents each (if you find a good points fare for a high-priced international first class ticket).
Generally, you want to get at least 1 cent per point, as most points can be redeemed for gift cards at 1 cent per point. Beyond that, your goals come into play, as do the type of points.
Southwest points are worth about 1.5 cents each and can only be used for Southwest purchases. Since the value doesn’t fluctuate too much, it’s hard to find “good” and “bad” uses of Southwest points.
Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be worth 1 cent each if you only have a card like the Freedom Unlimited or they can range from 1.25 cents to 10 cents+ if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred.
But we’ll close with why getting 10 cents per point might not be all that. Let’s say you are able to use 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to book an amazing first class flight between Sydney and Abu Dhabi that costs $10,000 cash (the actual pricing varies, this is just for an example). That’s 10 cents per point.
If you used those same 100,000 points to book travel as a Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholder, they’d be worth “only” $1500. But that $1500 would be ten roundtrip flights between my home (Chicago) and Orlando. So which would I rather have—one amazing flight, or ten round trip flights to Florida? I suspect not everyone’s answer is the same.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Disney World planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.
Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Genie+ and Lightning Lane strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Epcot Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Animal Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, and Hollywood Studios Genie+ and Lightning Lanes.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.
All Your Other Disneyland Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Disneyland planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.
Just starting out? Check out our Disneyland Planning Guide. If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disneyland crowd calendars.
When it comes to hotels, we’ve got reviews of all three Disney hotels: Disneyland Hotel, Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, and Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel. As for tickets, check out where to find discount Disneyland tickets.
Know what to ride with our: Disneyland Rides Guide and Disney California Adventure Rides Guide. And just as important, know how to get on the best rides without the wait with our Disneyland and Disney California Adventure FASTPASS and MaxPass Strategy! For the complete guides to a day at the park, we have a One Day Disneyland Itinerary and a One Day Disney California Adventure Itinerary.
We always recommend arriving at the parks early. If you can get access to Extra Magic Hour at Disney California Adventure or Extra Magic Hour and Magic Morning at Disneyland, you’ll have the most time in the parks. Even without those bonus hours, you’ll need to know Rope Drop Strategy at Disneyland and Rope Drop Strategy at Disney California Adventure.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.