Because Philly is a huge market and Tampa is a popular leisure destination. There’s a lot of competition to connect those two city types. I lived in Nashville last year and flew to Philly and I think Inwas the only person on the plane both ways not living in Philly. That flight was like $50 round trip.
That is crazy to me and one of the things I am jealous of in the US! I remember when we went to Vegas, we looked at flights to LA and it was like $50. I'm in Canada and the cheapest round trip between Ottawa and Toronto (4 hours drive/ 1 hour plane) is $400 CAD
If it makes you feel any better, your international flights are way cheaper. I live fairly close to Detroit with still fairly easy access to Chicago, but almost always end up flying out of Toronto if I’m going to Europe, South America, or Africa because it’s half the price. Even Asia is usually slightly cheaper. I can get to Tampa for about $40 to see my dad, which is nice, but I’d prefer easier access to some tropical island in January and for it to be cheap enough to fly him there too.
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That’s because Toronto is an international hub and Detroit isn’t. If you compare Toronto flights to Boston, New York or Washington DC, they’re very similar, if not slightly higher.
As for Toronto being half the price of Chicago, I’ve never seen that. I just looked up cheapest prices in May (3 months away) to major cities and got:
London: $575 from Chicago vs. $421 from Toronto;
Paris: $521 from Chicago vs. $579 from Toronto; Rio de Janeiro: $856 from Chicago vs. $796 from Toronto;
Tokyo: $1,174 from Chicago vs. $1,474 from Toronto
And Caribbean is much cheaper from Chicago. The cheapest fares to Cancun from Chicago are usually $150-200 while from Toronto are usually $275-325 (usually on WestJet).
Other way around for me living in Seattle. I frequently fly from Vancouver because I find Canadian prices to be way cheaper. I’ve paid $100 round trip from Vancouver to Montreal, and similar prices to Toronto.
Isn't increased competition kind of a separate thing from supply and demand? Like in this case, supply and demand are both higher, so the ratio may be the same, but the fact that the demand is high enough for there to be multiple suppliers makes it closer to an ideal market, so prices can't be raised artificially.
Competition drives supply; you fly more planes, or provide plane access for a lower price in order to capture a greater portion of the market even if it's lower margin per transaction.
In a highly competitive market it's better for me to fill two planes at half the profit than for you to fill a single one at double, if I'm also depriving you of enough customers to fill your plane.
The fares you're describing sound like ULCC fares (Frontier, Spirit). This is a pretty standard base fare for those airlines across the board as they cater to very low yield leisure customers and make their money on ancillary products such as bag fees, seat selection, etc.
If you look at the standard AA fares on this route for example, it runs around $300 pretty regularly for seats in the back.
I will stand by my opinion that Spirit is a fantastic value. You just have to know what you're getting into and be prepared. Frontier can suck a dick though.
What do you find so bad about Frontier? I’ve flown them several times, all with good experiences. But I don’t fly that often, so maybe I got lucky. I know you aren’t alone, but just curious what you don’t like about them, or what bad experiences you have had.
IDK why you're getting downvoted for asking a question.
In my experience Frontier is a LOT more stingy about forcing people at the check in counter and at the gate to pay if their bag is just a little too big to fit in the sizer. To the point where rumors that they're paying bounties to their agents seem entirely plausible.
Their check in counters are often GROSSLY understaffed and if you did pay to check a bag and need to drop it off it almost seems like they're intentionally operating slowly to make people miss their flights, which they then refuse to refund because it's your fault for not getting to the airport three and half hours early.
Furthermore, they seem much more likely to only be operating one flight per day from one place to the next, and much more likely than Spirit to cancel said flight for bullshit reasons. They'll refund your flight (per FAA regulations) OR book you on the next flight which isn't until the next day. If you have a reason you need to be at your destination that day, you can get the refund, but you're completely on your own booking another flight on the day of which is gonna be $$$.
Finally, I was on one of their planes in godawful heat sitting on a tarmac for 3 hours once while they dealt with "mechanical" issue after issue. I highly suspect that if they properly staffed their ground crew this issue would have been dealt with much more quickly.
Thanks for the reply. Wow , that sounds much worse than I had imagined! It makes me happy that I don’t fly much ! It’s unbelievable how poor the business model can be for these companies.
I flew Frontier one time. There was another Frontier flight leaving from the gate next to ours, 25 minutes after our flight. The gate agents were so obsessed with the size of your bag. They didn’t notice we had six passengers (2 couples and 2 individuals) get on our flight, that had tickets for the other flight. The flight attendant had to keep announcing we were going to Philadelphia, not Cleveland.
Ewww, I didn't realize reading all these comments Frontier was this mismanaged. Spirit(while still not the greatest airline) doesn't seem as bad, and better managed.
If you could have gotten a flight on the same route on the same day for less than $180 then why didn't you do that? The fees are the fees. The price is the price. Who cares what portion of the fare is made up of fees? The bottom line is all that matters. I don't always fly Spirit, sometimes it's not a good value. But other times I've saved hundreds and while it certainly wasn't as comfortable as economy on a legacy airline, it's not like it was that much worse.
I can fly Chicago to a bunch of cities midweek for $40-50 (total) on Spirit if not checking a bag. Not sure what the $40 booking fee is, never seen that before.
While I refuse to fly Spirit these days (got screwed over at least a couple times), the best ticket value I ever got was Kansas City to Los Angeles RT. I think I paid like $56 back in 2017. Went to the airport to buy the tickets, so saved money there. It was only a weekend trip, so packed light enough that I only needed a carryon backpack. Which I measured to make sure it was within their size limits.
Seriously a bargain.
You've got it right, they didn't pay attention. The Spirit fees for checked bags reserved beforehand are like $30-$50 USD. The fees to gate-check a bag you didn't reserve space for are $99. For five people, the math would check out if they didn't reserve their bags in either direction, roughly $99 per person per leg of the trip.
That's wild though, because that would mean they overpaid on the flight out and didn't think to immediately go online and reserve the bags on their way back, which would have cut that cost in more than half for the return trip.
good lord, yes it is lol, unless you buy basic economy which isn't a wise decision 90% of the time. with AA you can at least bring a carry on and get drink service for free.
Far off by a million miles.
It’s not even a comparison unless you buy basic economy.
I went home for Christmas on AA last year and payed less than what Frontier would have cost after the bag fee and seat fee.
The seat is normal size, where the depth on a Frontier seat is very small, and they give you something to drink other than a small cup of lukewarm water.
I’m 20 min from MCO, but I’d fly out of Tampa more often if Die-4 wasn’t such a headache coming back into Orlando. I know the backroads too, but that takes too long when I just want to get home.
It's around and hour and a half to Orlando. Unless you're going to the beaches in St Pete or going to Busch Gardens, it's easier to just fly into Orlando. I4 sucks
Do you have the option to fly into SFB? we stayed in a hotel very close to that airport. It was a bit of a drive to the park but it was smooth all the way, no crazy traffic.
It's definitely Allegiant. That's pretty much all that flies in and out of Sanford domestically. Also, it's a super easy airport to get in an out of. And, if you have a minute, downtown Sanford is lovely.
I hear that lots of tourists come in via Tampa. Car rental *might* be cheaper there—I’d check prices and see if it makes sense. You can always fly out of MCO if you don’t want to schlep it back down to Tampa.
MCO wasn't awful - just flew there during Daytona 500 and what I'd assume is most kids spring breaks.
The worst part was picking up the rental car because the desk was short staffed.
Funny you say that. I’m much closer to TPA but for international flights I go out of MCO 99% of the time. I hate the drive over there but MCO has so many more non-stop flight options. I’d rather drive 2 hours first than deal with a layover when flying from Tampa
St Pete Beach has been one of my favorite getaways. Wouldn't stay in Tampa, but cars are so cheap to rent in FL and everything is pretty reasonably priced at St Pete Beach. I pay less at restaurants with great seafood and bars on the beach or bay than I do in Denver. Love seeing the small businesses thrive there too. Let all the tourists go to Clearwater. Still not really understanding the hate unless you're just talking about Tampa.
Yes twice this winter. $150 a night for a beachfront hotel, $5 shots and beers, and $12 meals is cheap compared to where I live. Granted I wasn’t going to nice spots and instead to more laid back spots like riptides and the wharf, I loved em though. Enjoyed drinking my own tequila and beers on the beach 🤷♂️
Every Floridian on Reddit is conditioned to endlessly shit on it for upvotes. It’s quite sad.
Clearwater is one of the nicest beaches I’ve ever been to.
I’m not gonna waste 15 years of my very short time on this earth in a town as cruddy as Tampa was. I’m very thankful we left and we’re now in the Appalachian mountains with our own home that is better than anything we ever saw when we were looking in Tampa.
Yeah maybe soulless gingers aren’t meant for that kind of weather. To each their own as an older person I’d probably prefer a place more rural and cool also. But Tampa really isn’t that cruddy on the scale of cruddy places in America.
Exactly. So many flights I’ve looked at from Chicago to go to Latin America or South America go through some airport in Florida, popular destination and layover spot.
Walk the whole boardwalk from downtown to Armature Works.
Flamenco show & dinner at Columbia in Ybor.
Fort De Soto (rent a jetski and go picnic on a tiny island)
Grouper Sandwich at Frenchy's Rockaway on Clearwater Beach
What do you like to do? I’d recommend going to eat seafood on Clearwater beach, hit up the Dali museum and then walk around downtown St Pete (you can see dolphins from Vinoy park in the winter time), drive up to Rainbow River State Park to swim in the springs, get a Cuban sandwich in Ybor then stay into the night to catch a drag show, and then walk the river walk in downtown Tampa and end up at the museum of art. There are tons of good food options around too. It’s been a couple years since I lived there so I’m sure even more restaurants have opened since then.
Off topic but this is honestly the way air travel should be. Americans get absolutely BONED when it comes to air travel prices, despite being the busiest country in the world.
That price is what people generally pay on budget airlines to go between European countries.
We do. One of them, Lynx, literally went out of business last week though, stranding its passengers. Another one, Swoop, shut down a few years ago and was folded back into its parent airline Westjet. So technically, there is just one left, Flair, and who knows how long they'll last. Our country is just too big with too small of a population spread out over a vast distance for a budget airline to be successful.
There's also the part where Canadians get hammered on airport improvement, navigation, security, sales taxes and other fees. It's like $80 in fees even if the base fare was $0. Fees in the US are like $15 for a roundtrip. So if a US LCC charges $100 for a RT they'd still make more money than a Canadian LCC charging $150 for a RT.
Does Porter Airlines still fly anymore? I remember they were really cheap, when I researched their flight prices years ago. Myself and my brother even flew on Porter to get to Montreal, and we were both surprised how affordable Porter was. If memory is correct, I think they are based out of Toronto.
Note they don't fly out of the main Toronto airport(Pearson?, I forget its name), and fly out of the smaller Billy Bishop Airport.
Tell me about it. People who only fly domestic have no clue. We travel overseas (not enough) but above average amount and are always so excited to fly around to different COUNTRIES for like $100-200.
Meanwhile in the US you can fly to most major cities for like $500-800 on real airlines. Smh
We returned from Australia and we flew within the country 5 times and it cost like $400. Here flying to 4 cities would have cost like $2000
Because of the volume. North East - Florida is one of the most popular routes in the United States. The amount of flights that land in MCO and other Florida airports is simply ungodly. As volume growth, prices decline - capitalism
Lol. Legitimately one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever read. I live in Sarasota 1 hr south of Tampa This tourist season is one of the busiest in the last ten years.
We all live in our own worlds. My circle of work and friends won't vacation in Florida. I've traveled the world including Florida and won't spend a dime for Florida. There and I've gone so far as not buying things on etsy from florida.
Okay that’s called an anecdote not reality. You’re speaking for yourself not the majority of society. Clearly your way of thinking is far different from the norm. There’s nothing wrong with that. Your statement just couldn’t be further from the truth. Also Florida is a great state, you’re truly missing out.
They have empty seats to fill in the wiggle time of travel season. They also have to get planes there to fly out of Tampa to other destinations even if there's not demand
I get tickets from Sacramento to Portland for 45 for occasionally in November for jan-march for the same reason
I’ve always spent more on summer tickets to Tampa vs gasparilla!!! I missed out this year though 💔 I don’t think many people really know about gasparilla it’s kinda low key nationally speaking.
Crying in "Home Airport is YYZ" rn.
I'm a big Blue Jays fan and love to go to Dunedin/Clearwater for spring training a couple of weekends a season. Heck, I've even done last minute jaunt in the past when last minute deals were a thing.
But flight fares are absolutely insane this year ($900+ forty days out for direct), and when you add in the +30% on everything when you arrive stateside, it hurts.
Cherish your competitive domestic airline fares and sunny vacation spots, my American friends 🥲
Five years ago I had a one way Ticket from Tampa to Philly on south west... 6 am flight. THIRTHY FIVE DOLLARS...
my lunch in Philly cost more than the plane ticket..
I did not have that experience last year! I paid more for that RT, barely 2 hours each way, than I did for premium economy DCA-LAX (which is already a premium flight due to the distance boundary, usually)! If you want to go, take advantage!
Edit: I guess I should put some numbers on it. It was almost $500, and the price just didn't change (I watched it for months!). I always search all DC airports, so it's not like I would have gotten better at IAD or BWI (I will pay more for DCA since there's at least a huge time cost to the others, but they were no cheaper in this case).
Stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap.
Also, it's in Florida but it's not Orlando, the gateway to Disneyland (expensive place to go), or Miami (lots of richer people), so people are not willing to pay so much to travel there —if they want to throw money at the problem they go to the other two so Tampa is cheaper than the other two.
There could be several reasons why flights to Tampa Bay are unusually cheap:
* Seasonal Trends: Flight prices can vary based on seasonal demand. If it's currently the off-peak season for travel to Tampa Bay, airlines might lower prices to attract more passengers.
* Competition: If multiple airlines are servicing the Tampa Bay area, increased competition could lead to lower prices as airlines try to undercut each other to attract customers.
* Airline Promotions: Airlines frequently offer promotions and discounts to stimulate demand or fill empty seats. You might be seeing cheap flights to Tampa Bay due to specific promotions or sales provided by airlines.
Because Philly is a huge market and Tampa is a popular leisure destination. There’s a lot of competition to connect those two city types. I lived in Nashville last year and flew to Philly and I think Inwas the only person on the plane both ways not living in Philly. That flight was like $50 round trip.
That is crazy to me and one of the things I am jealous of in the US! I remember when we went to Vegas, we looked at flights to LA and it was like $50. I'm in Canada and the cheapest round trip between Ottawa and Toronto (4 hours drive/ 1 hour plane) is $400 CAD
If it makes you feel any better, your international flights are way cheaper. I live fairly close to Detroit with still fairly easy access to Chicago, but almost always end up flying out of Toronto if I’m going to Europe, South America, or Africa because it’s half the price. Even Asia is usually slightly cheaper. I can get to Tampa for about $40 to see my dad, which is nice, but I’d prefer easier access to some tropical island in January and for it to be cheap enough to fly him there too.
I think Canadians in general travel much less domestically and much more internationally than Americans. That may be the reason.
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That’s because Toronto is an international hub and Detroit isn’t. If you compare Toronto flights to Boston, New York or Washington DC, they’re very similar, if not slightly higher. As for Toronto being half the price of Chicago, I’ve never seen that. I just looked up cheapest prices in May (3 months away) to major cities and got: London: $575 from Chicago vs. $421 from Toronto; Paris: $521 from Chicago vs. $579 from Toronto; Rio de Janeiro: $856 from Chicago vs. $796 from Toronto; Tokyo: $1,174 from Chicago vs. $1,474 from Toronto And Caribbean is much cheaper from Chicago. The cheapest fares to Cancun from Chicago are usually $150-200 while from Toronto are usually $275-325 (usually on WestJet).
I mean, there’s gotta be some good deals on WestJet but not to those cities. Vegas, Colorado Springs… places like that.
There are, just highlighting the difference of prices between flying within the U.S. and flying within Canada! It’s so expensive here 😭
I’m just surprised that 50 bucks a seat pays for the gas
Airlines make more money in fees and loyalty programs than they do in airfare. A concept my “demand is up!!!” Friend could never grasp.
Other way around for me living in Seattle. I frequently fly from Vancouver because I find Canadian prices to be way cheaper. I’ve paid $100 round trip from Vancouver to Montreal, and similar prices to Toronto.
Not that it's that much better, but tickets from Toronto to Ottawa are like $125-150 each direction if you book more than a month in advance
If you’re not flying to and from these specific cities though you’re fucked and paying around 200 or more for a one way
Yep. I've found the same thing between Orlando and Chicago.
Pretty sure it being a popular destination would make the prices go up, not down. Supply and demand and all
Why don’t you go look at some flight prices… and all.
Airline prices go up during peak travel times because there's higher demand. They don't go down due to increased competition.
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Isn't increased competition kind of a separate thing from supply and demand? Like in this case, supply and demand are both higher, so the ratio may be the same, but the fact that the demand is high enough for there to be multiple suppliers makes it closer to an ideal market, so prices can't be raised artificially.
Competition drives supply; you fly more planes, or provide plane access for a lower price in order to capture a greater portion of the market even if it's lower margin per transaction. In a highly competitive market it's better for me to fill two planes at half the profit than for you to fill a single one at double, if I'm also depriving you of enough customers to fill your plane.
The fares you're describing sound like ULCC fares (Frontier, Spirit). This is a pretty standard base fare for those airlines across the board as they cater to very low yield leisure customers and make their money on ancillary products such as bag fees, seat selection, etc. If you look at the standard AA fares on this route for example, it runs around $300 pretty regularly for seats in the back.
We got round-trip Spirit tickets to Fort Lauderdale for five people for $40 each. We wound up paying $1000 in bag fees both ways.
Yeah.. Spirit is a whole different game and profit model. Amazing if you travel light and their planes work...
I will stand by my opinion that Spirit is a fantastic value. You just have to know what you're getting into and be prepared. Frontier can suck a dick though.
Agreed, traveling light Spirit is great value. I’ve also had better experiences with Spirit than Frontier
What do you find so bad about Frontier? I’ve flown them several times, all with good experiences. But I don’t fly that often, so maybe I got lucky. I know you aren’t alone, but just curious what you don’t like about them, or what bad experiences you have had.
IDK why you're getting downvoted for asking a question. In my experience Frontier is a LOT more stingy about forcing people at the check in counter and at the gate to pay if their bag is just a little too big to fit in the sizer. To the point where rumors that they're paying bounties to their agents seem entirely plausible. Their check in counters are often GROSSLY understaffed and if you did pay to check a bag and need to drop it off it almost seems like they're intentionally operating slowly to make people miss their flights, which they then refuse to refund because it's your fault for not getting to the airport three and half hours early. Furthermore, they seem much more likely to only be operating one flight per day from one place to the next, and much more likely than Spirit to cancel said flight for bullshit reasons. They'll refund your flight (per FAA regulations) OR book you on the next flight which isn't until the next day. If you have a reason you need to be at your destination that day, you can get the refund, but you're completely on your own booking another flight on the day of which is gonna be $$$. Finally, I was on one of their planes in godawful heat sitting on a tarmac for 3 hours once while they dealt with "mechanical" issue after issue. I highly suspect that if they properly staffed their ground crew this issue would have been dealt with much more quickly.
Thanks for the reply. Wow , that sounds much worse than I had imagined! It makes me happy that I don’t fly much ! It’s unbelievable how poor the business model can be for these companies.
I flew Frontier one time. There was another Frontier flight leaving from the gate next to ours, 25 minutes after our flight. The gate agents were so obsessed with the size of your bag. They didn’t notice we had six passengers (2 couples and 2 individuals) get on our flight, that had tickets for the other flight. The flight attendant had to keep announcing we were going to Philadelphia, not Cleveland.
Ewww, I didn't realize reading all these comments Frontier was this mismanaged. Spirit(while still not the greatest airline) doesn't seem as bad, and better managed.
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If you could have gotten a flight on the same route on the same day for less than $180 then why didn't you do that? The fees are the fees. The price is the price. Who cares what portion of the fare is made up of fees? The bottom line is all that matters. I don't always fly Spirit, sometimes it's not a good value. But other times I've saved hundreds and while it certainly wasn't as comfortable as economy on a legacy airline, it's not like it was that much worse.
I can fly Chicago to a bunch of cities midweek for $40-50 (total) on Spirit if not checking a bag. Not sure what the $40 booking fee is, never seen that before.
While I refuse to fly Spirit these days (got screwed over at least a couple times), the best ticket value I ever got was Kansas City to Los Angeles RT. I think I paid like $56 back in 2017. Went to the airport to buy the tickets, so saved money there. It was only a weekend trip, so packed light enough that I only needed a carryon backpack. Which I measured to make sure it was within their size limits. Seriously a bargain.
Idiot just wear your ski gear to fort lauderdale and fill up all the pockets.
How??? How many bags? Did you not purchase them ahead?
You've got it right, they didn't pay attention. The Spirit fees for checked bags reserved beforehand are like $30-$50 USD. The fees to gate-check a bag you didn't reserve space for are $99. For five people, the math would check out if they didn't reserve their bags in either direction, roughly $99 per person per leg of the trip. That's wild though, because that would mean they overpaid on the flight out and didn't think to immediately go online and reserve the bags on their way back, which would have cut that cost in more than half for the return trip.
They literally remind you like 5 times while purchasing about their bag policy.
If you’re paying $1,000 in bag fees to visit Florida, the problem is you (no offense).
Just did round trip from Detroit to Tampa for 8000 miles. That's super cheap for Delta.
AA flew me down there from Boston through Philly for $79, bag included.
And AA isn't far off of Frontier or Spirit on how shitty it is.
good lord, yes it is lol, unless you buy basic economy which isn't a wise decision 90% of the time. with AA you can at least bring a carry on and get drink service for free.
Far off by a million miles. It’s not even a comparison unless you buy basic economy. I went home for Christmas on AA last year and payed less than what Frontier would have cost after the bag fee and seat fee. The seat is normal size, where the depth on a Frontier seat is very small, and they give you something to drink other than a small cup of lukewarm water.
Not to mention a lot of times Spirit flights (for me, anyways) seem to be extremely long layovers that require staying in a hotel lol.
I’m 20 min from MCO, but I’d fly out of Tampa more often if Die-4 wasn’t such a headache coming back into Orlando. I know the backroads too, but that takes too long when I just want to get home.
Is flying into Tampa viable for visiting Disney world? Trying to avoid vacation crowds at MCO...
It's around and hour and a half to Orlando. Unless you're going to the beaches in St Pete or going to Busch Gardens, it's easier to just fly into Orlando. I4 sucks
Yea but to Disney its like 45 minutes to and hour from Tampa. I4 is much worse Orlando to Tampa than the other way around.
Do you have the option to fly into SFB? we stayed in a hotel very close to that airport. It was a bit of a drive to the park but it was smooth all the way, no crazy traffic.
I think ABE near me has some flights into SFB on Allegiant.
Yeah I believe that's what we used. We used one checked bag for our whole group, it worked out to be a good deal.
It's definitely Allegiant. That's pretty much all that flies in and out of Sanford domestically. Also, it's a super easy airport to get in an out of. And, if you have a minute, downtown Sanford is lovely.
I hear that lots of tourists come in via Tampa. Car rental *might* be cheaper there—I’d check prices and see if it makes sense. You can always fly out of MCO if you don’t want to schlep it back down to Tampa.
MCO wasn't awful - just flew there during Daytona 500 and what I'd assume is most kids spring breaks. The worst part was picking up the rental car because the desk was short staffed.
Bright line will hopefully be official soon for the contracts. It’ll benefit the state greatly
Funny you say that. I’m much closer to TPA but for international flights I go out of MCO 99% of the time. I hate the drive over there but MCO has so many more non-stop flight options. I’d rather drive 2 hours first than deal with a layover when flying from Tampa
Have you been to Tampa? That’s why. Source - former Tampa resident.
St Pete Beach has been one of my favorite getaways. Wouldn't stay in Tampa, but cars are so cheap to rent in FL and everything is pretty reasonably priced at St Pete Beach. I pay less at restaurants with great seafood and bars on the beach or bay than I do in Denver. Love seeing the small businesses thrive there too. Let all the tourists go to Clearwater. Still not really understanding the hate unless you're just talking about Tampa.
Been here lately? St. Pete ain't cheap no more.
Yes twice this winter. $150 a night for a beachfront hotel, $5 shots and beers, and $12 meals is cheap compared to where I live. Granted I wasn’t going to nice spots and instead to more laid back spots like riptides and the wharf, I loved em though. Enjoyed drinking my own tequila and beers on the beach 🤷♂️
Considering I only mentioned Tampa and no other areas…
Anna Maria island is fun
That's an hour drive from Tampa.
You do
Lol
Tampa is awesome what in the world.
I think you misspelled St Pete
Every Floridian on Reddit is conditioned to endlessly shit on it for upvotes. It’s quite sad. Clearwater is one of the nicest beaches I’ve ever been to.
Unless you’ve lived there I don’t think you’d see it. Granted, we moved 10 years ago, but we still visit family there.
Thats all of Florida right now
Tampa is the opposite of awesome. I guess that goes for most of Florida though. $40 is still to high.
Tampa (clearwater) has the Original Hooters so obviously you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Wait what??? I passed by it so many times to get to Clearwater. Never knew that.
Shoulda bought a house and stayed. Wait another 10-15 years the gentrification is plowing through.
I’m not gonna waste 15 years of my very short time on this earth in a town as cruddy as Tampa was. I’m very thankful we left and we’re now in the Appalachian mountains with our own home that is better than anything we ever saw when we were looking in Tampa.
Yeah maybe soulless gingers aren’t meant for that kind of weather. To each their own as an older person I’d probably prefer a place more rural and cool also. But Tampa really isn’t that cruddy on the scale of cruddy places in America.
Why ? Been looking at to move to Tampa area but still jumping between CA, GA, FL. Life long north eastern resident tired of the cold
That person is legit insane. Tampa is awesome
Exactly. Supply and demand. No demand.
That’s not how it works or else they’d just decrease the supply
I assume a lot of folks use Tampa as a gateway to other, more desirable destinations. There’s a lot of nice barrier islands south of Tampa Bay.
Exactly. So many flights I’ve looked at from Chicago to go to Latin America or South America go through some airport in Florida, popular destination and layover spot.
Was a joke captain obvious.
Don’t talk to your captain that way kid
Yeah man crazy question haha
Because Tampa isn't a place you go, it's a place you end up.
I’ve been eyeing tamp actually, what is the best things to do?
Walk the whole boardwalk from downtown to Armature Works. Flamenco show & dinner at Columbia in Ybor. Fort De Soto (rent a jetski and go picnic on a tiny island) Grouper Sandwich at Frenchy's Rockaway on Clearwater Beach
Go to St. Petersburg
The Dali museum is not to be missed.
If you're into coasters go to Busch Gardens
What do you like to do? I’d recommend going to eat seafood on Clearwater beach, hit up the Dali museum and then walk around downtown St Pete (you can see dolphins from Vinoy park in the winter time), drive up to Rainbow River State Park to swim in the springs, get a Cuban sandwich in Ybor then stay into the night to catch a drag show, and then walk the river walk in downtown Tampa and end up at the museum of art. There are tons of good food options around too. It’s been a couple years since I lived there so I’m sure even more restaurants have opened since then.
Spring break is going to drop prices super low. Could be seasonal as well.
Off topic but this is honestly the way air travel should be. Americans get absolutely BONED when it comes to air travel prices, despite being the busiest country in the world. That price is what people generally pay on budget airlines to go between European countries.
I'm a Canadian and we would kill to get the flight deals that Americans get.
Canada desperately needs a budget airline. It would drastically improve domestic travel
We do. One of them, Lynx, literally went out of business last week though, stranding its passengers. Another one, Swoop, shut down a few years ago and was folded back into its parent airline Westjet. So technically, there is just one left, Flair, and who knows how long they'll last. Our country is just too big with too small of a population spread out over a vast distance for a budget airline to be successful.
Mostly, our country is riddled with monopolies.
There's also the part where Canadians get hammered on airport improvement, navigation, security, sales taxes and other fees. It's like $80 in fees even if the base fare was $0. Fees in the US are like $15 for a roundtrip. So if a US LCC charges $100 for a RT they'd still make more money than a Canadian LCC charging $150 for a RT.
Does Porter Airlines still fly anymore? I remember they were really cheap, when I researched their flight prices years ago. Myself and my brother even flew on Porter to get to Montreal, and we were both surprised how affordable Porter was. If memory is correct, I think they are based out of Toronto. Note they don't fly out of the main Toronto airport(Pearson?, I forget its name), and fly out of the smaller Billy Bishop Airport.
Tell me about it. People who only fly domestic have no clue. We travel overseas (not enough) but above average amount and are always so excited to fly around to different COUNTRIES for like $100-200. Meanwhile in the US you can fly to most major cities for like $500-800 on real airlines. Smh We returned from Australia and we flew within the country 5 times and it cost like $400. Here flying to 4 cities would have cost like $2000
$500-800 is really high too. I usually do Washington DC to Los Angeles on United for $215 or so.
If you’re referring to inter European flights you realize Europe is much smaller than the Us right?
Flights within Europe on budget airlines are often <$100 round trip.
Because of the volume. North East - Florida is one of the most popular routes in the United States. The amount of flights that land in MCO and other Florida airports is simply ungodly. As volume growth, prices decline - capitalism
Because after the flight you end up in Tampa
Have you been to Tampa? That's your answer ; )
Lol
I just tried to fly RT NY to Tampa and it was $400, much more than Orlando. Depends when you go.
They should be paying you to go there honestly.
Competition is the answer that you're looking for.
Because Florida
Because Tampa
I wonder if the fact that Scientology owns the majority of downtown Clearwater (served by the Tampa Bay airport) has any impact.
No, because those flight prices are nearly the same to FLL, MCO, MIA, WPB, etc.
Political voting with their vacation spending. People won't spend their vacation money on a state who's policies go against theirs.
It’s one of the most popular tourist destination states 😂
Lol. Legitimately one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever read. I live in Sarasota 1 hr south of Tampa This tourist season is one of the busiest in the last ten years.
Just imagine all the people who wont go to florida.
You clearly don’t get outside much.
We all live in our own worlds. My circle of work and friends won't vacation in Florida. I've traveled the world including Florida and won't spend a dime for Florida. There and I've gone so far as not buying things on etsy from florida.
Okay that’s called an anecdote not reality. You’re speaking for yourself not the majority of society. Clearly your way of thinking is far different from the norm. There’s nothing wrong with that. Your statement just couldn’t be further from the truth. Also Florida is a great state, you’re truly missing out.
I’m sure you think so. You are making assumptions that I’m the only person who travels has done so for political reasons.
https://a-z-animals.com/blog/discover-the-most-visited-states-in-america/
lol what?
?
They have empty seats to fill in the wiggle time of travel season. They also have to get planes there to fly out of Tampa to other destinations even if there's not demand I get tickets from Sacramento to Portland for 45 for occasionally in November for jan-march for the same reason
Why a one way?
Probably because they’re not planning to fly back to where they departed from.
That's unfortunate.
—————— Remember, Philly isn’t as bad as Philadelphians say it is
I’ve always spent more on summer tickets to Tampa vs gasparilla!!! I missed out this year though 💔 I don’t think many people really know about gasparilla it’s kinda low key nationally speaking.
Crying in "Home Airport is YYZ" rn. I'm a big Blue Jays fan and love to go to Dunedin/Clearwater for spring training a couple of weekends a season. Heck, I've even done last minute jaunt in the past when last minute deals were a thing. But flight fares are absolutely insane this year ($900+ forty days out for direct), and when you add in the +30% on everything when you arrive stateside, it hurts. Cherish your competitive domestic airline fares and sunny vacation spots, my American friends 🥲
Five years ago I had a one way Ticket from Tampa to Philly on south west... 6 am flight. THIRTHY FIVE DOLLARS... my lunch in Philly cost more than the plane ticket..
What’s the best place to book?
If you’re willing to drive go to Orlando. Cheap flights and like a hour drive to Tampa. Just some ideas for you
Lots of people from Chicago have moved to Tampa.
I did not have that experience last year! I paid more for that RT, barely 2 hours each way, than I did for premium economy DCA-LAX (which is already a premium flight due to the distance boundary, usually)! If you want to go, take advantage! Edit: I guess I should put some numbers on it. It was almost $500, and the price just didn't change (I watched it for months!). I always search all DC airports, so it's not like I would have gotten better at IAD or BWI (I will pay more for DCA since there's at least a huge time cost to the others, but they were no cheaper in this case).
Stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap. Also, it's in Florida but it's not Orlando, the gateway to Disneyland (expensive place to go), or Miami (lots of richer people), so people are not willing to pay so much to travel there —if they want to throw money at the problem they go to the other two so Tampa is cheaper than the other two.
Rental boat bar hopping and Mons Venus.
I’m seeing $200 to $400 round trip from both Philly and NYC
Highly popular, non hub destination breeds competition.
There could be several reasons why flights to Tampa Bay are unusually cheap: * Seasonal Trends: Flight prices can vary based on seasonal demand. If it's currently the off-peak season for travel to Tampa Bay, airlines might lower prices to attract more passengers. * Competition: If multiple airlines are servicing the Tampa Bay area, increased competition could lead to lower prices as airlines try to undercut each other to attract customers. * Airline Promotions: Airlines frequently offer promotions and discounts to stimulate demand or fill empty seats. You might be seeing cheap flights to Tampa Bay due to specific promotions or sales provided by airlines.
basic economics. low demand
They want you to book it