Airfare

bsmitty2020

Earning My Ears
Joined
Feb 17, 2020
My wife and I plan on visiting Aulani in October. We are flying in from Atlanta so we pretty much know we will be flying Delta. I have a few questions. What is a good price point for airfare? How hard was the flight on your body? I'm trying to decide if I want to fly non-stop or take a flight with a layover in LA. I thought the layover might be nice just so we can get off the plane and walk around some. What is your opinion?
 
Airfares fluctuate so much and it's hard to predict. Book what you are comfortable in paying when you see the fare. It appears as of today from Atlanta, anything in the mid $600's to mid $700's for October is average. So anything below that is a good deal and anything above that is high. I'm comfortable flying non stop from Atlanta to Hawaii and would prefer it to minimize delays and luggage issues. However, I could see why you would want to stop in LAX, SEA, or SLC to take a break if you are not used to flying long segments, as long as you can tolerate the wait and possibility of delays. Booking seats with more legroom can help. For me I would want the cheapest non stop flight.
 
Can't really comment on the price point but we fly Delta to HNL (from MCO) pretty much every year for the past 6 years. We've tried both the MCO>LAX>HNL and MCO>ATL>HNL routes and our preference, by a wide margin, is the latter. If you were to fly to the west coast and then to HNL, you're facing a long (~5 hour) flight to the west coast, followed by another long flight to HNL. We found that when we did it that way we were pretty worn out when we got to LAX and the prospect of another 5 hour flight was dreadful.

OTOH, when we fly the short hop to ATL and then non-stop to HNL, we take great comfort in the fact that once we get on board that leg, it will be all over in one swell foop. (Do people still say that?) It may make a difference that we fly in first class though. We feel its worth it on such a long trip.
 
I fly Delta and prefer the nonstop ATL to HNL whenever I go to Oahu. Delta only has one nonstop flight to HNL from ATL, so if you want to book it you need to do so before it fills up. When I travel, I prefer to have only one layover. Doing the nonstop will allow you to rest on the plane and arrive at HNL refreshed. If you decide to connect through LAX, make sure your layover is at least two hours. That way you’re not rushing to make your connection if the plane is late arriving and don’t have to worry about changing your watch twice in route. Ultimately, I would choose whichever flight gets me to HNL the earliest in the day. Good luck. When I flew to HNL in December, I booked the nonstop and Delta changed me to the LAX route. I called and got it changed back. They are notorious for constantly changing their itineraries after you book. Just check periodically and call them if the change they make doesn’t work for you.
 


I fly Delta and prefer the nonstop ATL to HNL whenever I go to Oahu. Delta only has one nonstop flight to HNL from ATL, so if you want to book it you need to do so before it fills up. When I travel, I prefer to have only one layover. Doing the nonstop will allow you to rest on the plane and arrive at HNL refreshed. If you decide to connect through LAX, make sure your layover is at least two hours. That way you’re not rushing to make your connection if the plane is late arriving and don’t have to worry about changing your watch twice in route. Ultimately, I would choose whichever flight gets me to HNL the earliest in the day. Good luck. When I flew to HNL in December, I booked the nonstop and Delta changed me to the LAX route. I called and got it changed back. They are notorious for constantly changing their itineraries after you book. Just check periodically and call them if the change they make doesn’t work for you.
Thank you so much. Thats very good information to have.
 
We flew from Buffalo to Atlanta to Honolulu on Delta, so presumably the flight we took from ATL to HNL is one of your options. We paid about $1000 per person round trip booking 10 months out, traveling in September. I often find the same flights a little more expensive than this, but we'd honestly pay whatever the cost is because it was a great flight!

The flight we took left ATL around 8-9am if memory serves, and we got in around 2-2:30pm local time. It was an Airbus 330 plane with the 2-4-2 seat configuration. We were in coach, but they offered tons of free movies and TV shows on the seatback TVs and everyone received free hot meals, alcohol, and a pillow. The flight home was the same way, also through Atlanta for us. It passed the time nicely and we agreed it was very manageable to do without taking the unnecessary time to stop in LAX or somewhere on the west coast. We'd rather just get to Hawaii.

The flight itself didn't take much out of us, but the time change did. We were there during daylight savings, which Hawaii doesn't observe, so they were 6 hours behind us. Took us about 2-3 days to adjust, where we weren't going to bed at 8pm and awake at 4am!
 
The flight we took left ATL around 8-9am if memory serves, and we got in around 2-2:30pm local time. It was an Airbus 330 plane with the 2-4-2 seat configuration.
Delta constantly plays with this flight. It may leave ATL closer to 10 and get to HNL closer to 3, depending on what month you fly. More significantly though, the aircraft is sometimes a A330 and sometimes a 767-300.
 


I do not like being on a plane long so we flew to LAX stayed the night to explore LA, then flew out the next morning. This worked perfectly for our family and it also saved me money even taking into consideration hotel and spending money while in LA.
 
We fly out of Chicago and always fly united nonstop to Honolulu because I have status and get economy plus for free. We are going again in may and usually pay between 700 and 800. And then I upgrade d to business. But I personally would not stop in LAX or SAN FRAN. I much prefer just getting there. If you want to stop I’d do it on the way back. Stopping in LA to go to DL for a few days. But we usually just fly back nonstop, leaving about 3 pm and getting into Chicago about 5 am. I’d try for a plane with 2-5-2 configuration in economy and get the two seats on the side, window and aisle. Also unless you are in business, you don’t get food. So bring your own,
 
I would say $600-700 is a great price for a flight to Hawaii. We paid about $900 out of Chicago a few years ago and those were pretty good prices for the time of year. We just booked a trip for August and our cost was near double that, but we are flying out of a much smaller airport now.

I don't think the flights will be too hard on your body, although we do 8+ hour flights at least once per year. I would suggest booking in Comfort+ at least so you are more comfortable for the longer flight. We always book at least Comfort+ for any flights we have to sleep on, which in the case of Hawaii will most likely be your return trip home.

For longer flights I prefer a layover so we can move about, get food that everyone likes, etc. We don't have the option for a direct but I hate the idea of mega long direct flights. We really want to go to Australia next year but I just can't wrap my mind around that long flight!
 

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