Want to book a vacation from EWR (New York / New Jersey) to MIA (Florida) from Dec 21st (Fri) evening to 25th (Tue) and flights tickets are expensive - around $500 per person (Expedia). Any suggestions for flight + hotel and the website to book it from?
Where do we stay in Mia — South Beach?
I am more of a party, beach person than the Orlando disney guy. Suggestions please?
Thinking 2 days FL and 2 days KeyWest
Is flying out of Atlantic City (ACY) an option for you? I don’t think their airlines show up on any of the travel sites, you have to go directly to them.
i recommend hoteltonight for short-term last-minute sweet deals in MIA. for 2 days only, south beach is the only option - otherwise you sit in horrendous traffic wasting time.
perhaps its cheaper to fly to tampa, spend a day in ft. myers which has nice beaches on the gulf, then take the ferry express to key west and back? you skip the urban intensity of miami and focus on beach time and chill. fort myers and sarasota have some of the best sandy beaches i’ve seen in florida. you also skip the 3 hour drive through the keys - not that worth it and somewhat boring for long stretches
The cheapest flight I see is $607.
http://matrix.itasoftware.com/view/flights?session=e1d57da2-4c67-4c23-81e5-a5be965c96b9
Just to add - I have never been to Florida before and heard the drive to Key West in a convertable is a pretty sweet deal.
In off season’s the EWR to MIA tickets are usually ~$250. This thing is almost double due to Dec / Christmas.
How can a software developer afford any of that?
It drops to 480 if you leave at time before evening. Perhaps a few hours of leave would be worth it?
http://matrix.itasoftware.com/view/flights?session=e1d57da2-4c67-4c23-81e5-a5be965c96b9
$279 Round trip Atlantic City to Fort Lauderdale on Spirit.
I wonder if it comes out less including the rental car to drive to Miami. You cheated bro, using different airports.
$268 same flight, except for direct.
http://matrix.itasoftware.com/view/flights?session=e1d57da2-4c67-4c23-81e5-a5be965c96b9
Can’t beat the matrix man
Nice, I’ll have to keep that in mind.
BTW, I didn’t cheat, I merely expanded the parameters of the question. ACY might not work for him though if he’s in NYC and has no car.
Don’t go to Orlando. The city shuts down at 8 PM.
ITA Matrix is by far the best search. Play around with it. The way they let you view available flights over 2 months graphically makes its super easy to find the best/cheapest flight. You can customize everything. You can search for flights leaving after 2PM with 1 layover and with a direct return flight or vice versa. You use Matrix to find the flights, then you go to Orbitz and book it. Got to love Google
Thanks. I’ve never heard of it before, will certainly check it out.
JW Marriott in MIA is really nice, practically brand new. I stay there for work sometimes, but it is right across the water from South Beach. Staying on South Beach is going to be more expensive. Mandarin is obviously nice, but more expensive.
Here’s a little boutique hotel in South Beach. Booked my mother-in-law in there a couple years ago and didn’t have any complaints. Reasonable prices too, but you should look at a few sites to see where you can get the best rate.
^ you can’t go wrong with a MIL seal of approval.
You are probably correct, will have to postpone my plan till mid Jan as the whole package is getting pretty expensive for 4 days in last week of Dec.
Thanks all for the suggestions.
I guess I am the only person wondering why you would go on vacation and travel back on Christmas day… Jewish?
^ Christmas is a great day to fly if you are not a Christian.