Holiday Travel

I’m going back to the east coast for the holidays, including spending a weekend with friends in Nova Scotia and a week with family on the US East Coast.

I’m using frequent flier miles for the flights (flying American) which will save me a lot of money. The airfare in the summer was really cheap – round trip on a non-stop flight for about $220 (flying Virgin American). For the holidays the cheapest I could find was around $500 just to the east coast and another $500 to go to Nova Scotia! The airline did charge $100 for booking the flight though, $50 for booking within 21 days of departure and $50 in foreign taxes, which didn’t really make me very happy.

I have basically stopped flying American on paid flights and have been “spending” down my frequent flier mile balance. Despite flying for nearly free using the miles, I won’t be very sad if I never fly American again. There are so many better, and often cheaper, options available today. Depending on where I’m flying, I would much rather fly Southwest, Jet Blue or Virgin American.

I tried to find a deal on hotels but the best I could find was $90 a night for 4 nights, plus tax brings the total to $400 Canadian or roughly $375 American. I’m also estimating that food will be about $100-150 since I’ll probably be eating out a lot. The total cost should be roughly $600. It’s not bad for a 10 day vacation but my frugal side wishes I could have gotten the hotel cheaper and I’m still a little miffed that American charged $50 for booking within 21 days of departure.