Show Summary
This audio is from our free course that helps you plan a vacation to Disneyland. In this module, we give you specific tips to help you book your flights to California for your Disney trip.
Booking a flight is more than just looking for the lowest cost, learn a few tips and tricks to save you thousands when booking flights to Disneyland!
We cover why you should book early and book refundable tickets, the closest airports to Disneyland, why checking multiple airports can save you hundreds or thousands of dollars, and tips for avoiding flight delays and cancellations.
In our free Disneyland planning course, we have additional tips and a worksheet to help you plan booking your flights.
Jump To:
Show Summary
This audio is from our free course that helps you plan a vacation to Disneyland. In this module, we give you specific tips to help you book your flights to California for your Disney trip.
Booking a flight is more than just looking for the lowest cost, learn a few tips and tricks to save you thousands when booking flights to Disneyland!
We cover why you should book early and book refundable tickets, the closest airports to Disneyland, why checking multiple airports can save you hundreds or thousands of dollars, and tips for avoiding flight delays and cancellations.
In our free Disneyland planning course, we have additional tips and a worksheet to help you plan booking your flights.
Chapters and Time Stamps
0:00 Intro
8:53 Outro
Show Transcript
Booking Flights to Disneyland
In this video, I'm going to talk about all the things that you need to know in order to book your flights to Disneyland in the cheapest, most effective way.  There are a couple things that make the biggest difference in getting a low price for your flights, and I'm going to walk through each of those.
Tip 1: Book Early Refundable Tickets
And the first is to book early. Your flights will be significantly less expensive if you book 6 weeks in advance. Now you might not have everything all together, that's okay. If you are not positive, I would recommend spending a little bit extra and booking those refundable tickets. This way, you're locked into that lower price if prices go up. But if you have a fully refundable ticket, then you can even go to a different airline and book a flight at a lower cost, if prices go down.
Tip 2: Check Multiple Dates and Airports
Checking multiple dates and airport combinations are the next tool that I use to make sure that I get the best possible price. So what I do is I check two different locations. I check Google flights, and then I also check Southwest Airlines, and I get an idea of different flight dates and flight airport combinations.  Now, this does take a little bit longer, but on average I can save $300 to $1,000 when I'm flying my family over a long distance.
So what I do is I create a 3 x 3 matrix. I select 3 dates for 3 different airport combinations, and I determine what is going to be the least expensive. Now, as you're looking at these flights, most times people plan on flying into LAX, and for most places it's going to be cheaper to fly into LAX. If the price is very similar to SNA, which is the John Wayne Airport, or LGB, which is Long Beach Airport, you might want to take a second look. And the reason is that there's a couple of disadvantages to flying into LAX. The first is that LAX is 40 to 90 minutes from Disneyland, depending on traffic.
Traffic in Los Angeles can be very intense, and so something that is even just a small distance away in miles can be a very long distance away in time. So it will cost you more to get to the parks from LAX if you're using Uber or Shuttle. If you're renting a car, just make sure you allot for the extra time.
Tip 3: Consider Not Flying Into LAX
The other thing is LAX is a very big airport. It's very busy and it can be much more stressful and it can take more time to get in and out of. The traffic around LAX is pretty significant. And so you would have to leave Disneyland resort earlier to make sure that you got to the airport with enough time to make your flight. That said, sometimes, especially if you're flying from a small airport, it does make sense to fly into LAX. SNA and LGB are the other two closest airports. So SNA is in Santa Ana and LGB is in Long Beach. I really love flying into both of these. And if I play around, I can usually get it to be where it's almost the same price, sometimes even less than LAX if I play with some different dates.
 If your kids are really into airplanes, my son was very obsessed with transportation when he was little, one of the cool things currently at Long Beach Airport is they still have the ramps. They're ramps, but they're not stairs anymore, but to get off the airplane and sometimes they can load off of the back and the front especially on Southwest.
So I really love flying into Long Beach because it's a really small airport. You get a really close up view of the plane. There's not a lot of places to eat but it is a really great airport. SNA is a little bit bigger. If none of those work, there's also one other airport, ONT, Ontario Airport. It's a little bit closer to LAX, but not as Santa Ana and Long Beach. Ontario Airport is also a nice smaller size and on top of that it's not as far from LAX.
 The other thing that I have found is sometimes changing my departure airport, it might be worth driving to an airport that's maybe an hour or two away to get a big enough difference in price.
Some cities have multiple airports, so maybe you always fly out of midway in Chicago checking out ORD sometimes the flights can be significantly different and a lot of that depends on what airline you're flying and where they're based out of, and where their hubs are.
Tip 4: Changeable Tickets Provide Flexibility
 So as I said before, booking changeable tickets and having the flexibility if something changes, is really important, especially when you have little kids that could get sick, if you're bringing grandma and grandpa that might get sick. Having that flexibility is worth the extra price in most cases.
The biggest benefit again, is to be able to check and see if flights go down. Periodically checking to see if there's a discounted flight as you get closer. This is something that I do, not only with flights, but with hotels to try to see if I can save a little money here and there on our trips.
Tip 5: Consider the Cost of Luggage
 As you're comparing airlines, there can be a temptation to go with like Spirit or Allegiant. There's nothing wrong with flying those airlines, they can be a great low-cost way to travel, but you want to make sure that you want to consider the cost of luggage when comparing airlines. So Southwest includes that luggage. How many pieces of luggage do you think you'll need getting there and getting back and making sure you're including that in the cost, so you're not surprised later on.
Tip 6: Allot Time for Delays
A lot of times when people are booking flights, They want to plan to land in California and go do another activity. If that is your goal, you want to make sure that you allot a lot of time for things to go wrong with your flight; flights get delayed all the time. In your plans, I usually would recommend planning an hour to get luggage planning for about two to three hours for potential delays. And then another hour to get to your hotel and check in. If you're flying from LAX, I would allot for two to three hours. It won't take all of that time, but just give yourself that room so you're not stressed out at the airport. Your kids pick up on that. Your husband picks up on that, your wife picks up on that.
 So making sure that you have that extra room or have something, an activity that's flexible, that you don't have to start at a specific time will reduce a lot of stress.
You can have a reservation at Disney and cancel up to two hours earlier, so just keep that in mind as you're planning the day that you come into the parks and the day that you're planning on leaving.
Tip 7: Early Flights Are Less Likely to Be Cancelled
I will say that flights that are early in the day are less likely to be canceled or significantly delayed. A lot of times when flights are canceled, it's because the flight crew has maxed out their total number of hours. So the later your flight is in the day, the more likely it is that it will be canceled.  That likelihood is still very small. But if you are very concerned about delays or about your flight being canceled, then I would book it in the morning. I would recommend that you fly in the morning, get to your hotel, and then you can relax, go visit the pool, maybe go to the beach or visit downtown Disney.
Ideas for Your Arrival Date
If you're not familiar with downtown Disney, there's a shopping area that's right outside of the two parks. And in that shopping area, you can see all of the Disney souvenirs. There are some really cool shops. There is some really great food. There's usually some live entertainment, some music.
There's a place called Tortilla Jo's where they come around and make animal balloons for folks. So there's a lot of really great things. Most weekend nights at least, and most nights in the summer, there'll be live entertainment there. And you can walk through the hotels, get an idea. It's a fun little walk around thing to do.
 And then the beaches are not too far from Disneyland, if you have a car. It can be a little bit more difficult to get to the beaches if you don't have a car.
So those are the big tips when it comes to booking your flights to Disneyland. Again, the most important things are, to book as early as possible, and then if you can book a refundable or changeable ticket, that gives you a lot more flexibility to see if those prices do come down. And then to check multiple arrival and departure airport combinations and different dates to get the best possible prices for your airline tickets.
 And this is going to be covered in the next module, but I just want to highlight it again here. You cannot enter Disneyland parks without a reservation and I would recommend that you book your tickets and reservations at the same time.
Once you have those locked in, most airline tickets will allow you to cancel tickets that are booked within 24 hours. So you can book your flight, then check for park reservations but make sure you understand the policies of your airline before that.
Now you have the information. You need to go ahead and book your flight to Disneyland and start to solidify your park dates and we can start building out your trip.
Show Resources