And we did get a great deal!Back in July I told you about my daughter’s first flight on Allegiant Air. Neither one of us had ever flown with them before that, so her experience was all that I had to go on at the time. Well, that has changed, and I have now experienced Allegiant Air for myself.
I flew to Nashville on Allegiant, and it was a one way flight. It was cheaper for me to fly back on Frontier. That said, Allegiant does have an incentive to fly round trip with them. If you book round trip, you will receive a $10 discount each way! When it comes to discount airlines, that extra $20 can make the deal even more desirable.
One thing that you need to keep in mind with Allegiant is that they do not fly in an out of Orlando International Airport. Instead, you will be in and out of Orlando Sanford International Airport. It’s about 40 minutes further than OIA, and Disney’s Magical Express will not give you a ride. You can rent a car, and it looks like they have a deal with Universal Orlando Resort for a shuttle there for a fee. I don’t know anything about it, I just saw the signs.
My afternoon flight boarded late, but it wasn’t too bad. My daughter and I were both on the flight. We did not pay to pick our seats, but we were still seated together. That was a nice surprise. Another nice surprise was that we were assigned the first row. We had plenty of leg room, and it was the first time in a while that I wasn’t sitting near the back of a plane.
The flight itself was smooth and without incident. We had one of the nicest flight attendants that I have ever met. She was the type of person that I could see myself being friends with under different circumstances. I was so impressed by her that I left her a good review in the Allegiant App. Speaking of the flight attendants, they wore Allegiant shirts and jeans. That felt appropriate for some reason.
Remember that with the discount airlines you get a seat for the price and that’s about it. I am good at filling a backpack with several days’ worth of clothes, so I never buy a carry-on. It is usually cheaper to check a bag on discount airlines, so if you can’t fit everything into a small bag you might want to share a large suitcase. As I already said, if you pick your seat ahead of time it costs extra. I never do that, I would rather save the money. You also have to pay for drinks or snacks. I brought a water bottle and filled that up after TSA, so I didn’t need a drink. We brought a snack from home. If you check in at the airport there is a fee, but you can check in online or on the app for free. That’s what I did.
I will definitely fly Allegiant again if it is the cheapest flight. While Sanford is a bit of a drive from Walt Disney World (I don’t live far from the parks), it was still worth it for the amount of money that we saved. I know that not everyone likes the discount airlines, but I think that they’re great. I have been to Massachusetts to spend time with my parents four times this year for less than it would have cost once on a non-discount airline. That is worth having to fill up my own water bottle at the airport right there.