Flights prices to LA in August?

[liz-paul]

Originally Posted by NewtoOrlando

Is that including flights from London to Dublin? Or are you based in Ireland? I don't think that is too bad inc bags and seats.

See more...

I am in northern Ireland so the dub - lax don't Inc flights from London. The year we went from london I bought separate flights from Dublin to connect. And thinking about it we flew from Heathrow not Gatwick.

In my very limited experience of looking for flights to LA the school holidays don't seem to affect prices as much as Orlando, presumably it's not such a family holiday destination.

[NewtoOrlando]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

I only listed Easter because it is a peak(ish) time and therefore it may equate to August prices.
There is no point looking at this August as it is only 3 months away, there has been demand and therefore price will bear little relation to when they were early October of 2021.

We booked August of 2020 and also 2021 to the west coast and were at £500. This reinforces my view that this is a reasonable average price.

You should be looking to book around early to mid October as this will be when the flights that you want are released.
I suspect that you will end up with BA/AA flights.
BA release at 355 days and therefore they will be before those of AA on the BA website. I reiterate that in my case for next Easter, when the AA offering for the same flights came out on 330 days, they were 10% cheaper than booking with BA.

See more...

We would end up with BA/AA flights, I like the flexibility of a BA custom booking, especially being able to pay a deposit. Heathrow is on our doorstep aswell, so it saves on taxis/overnight hotels etc.

I saw flights this morning to San Jose for £1800 hand baggage only, for this August. With a car for the duration (DH likes the big SUV's so smaller is non negotiable) and luggage, it's £3000. That is what we have paid for this summer, so not out of our reach.

Lots of food for though... DH needs some convincing, him & DS want a lazy beach holiday, DD would be bored to tears as would I, so I need to sell it to him. We have NYC booked for Nov, so would happily scrap that and use the funds towards a bigger better trip to California.

[Bad Pink Tink]

Originally Posted by NewtoOrlando

I saw flights this morning to San Jose for £1800 hand baggage only, for this August. With a car for the duration (DH likes the big SUV's so smaller is non negotiable) and luggage, it's £3000. That is what we have paid for this summer, so not out of our reach.

See more...

San Jose is about an hours drive from San Francisco. I wouldnt be driving in San Francisco. the hills and streets are the most insane I have been to, many of the roads are almost perpendicular!

I also wouldnt be too keen on a hand luggage only deal. Its a false economy.

Originally Posted by NewtoOrlando

Lots of food for though... DH needs some convincing, him & DS want a lazy beach holiday, DD would be bored to tears as would I, so I need to sell it to him. We have NYC booked for Nov, so would happily scrap that and use the funds towards a bigger better trip to California.

See more...

California is not a really a lazy beach holiday destination. Its road trips, national parks and forests, theme parks, city and town sight seeing and tourist attractions.

A compromise would be spending a day in some of the beach towns like Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Venice, Newport Bay, Huntington's. But even in those beach towns, you dont do the typical hotel by the beach and alternate between beach and pool like you do in Spain, Portugal or The Canary Islands.

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by Bad Pink Tink

San Jose is about an hours drive from San Francisco. I wouldnt be driving in San Francisco. the hills and streets are the most insane I have been to, many of the roads are almost perpendicular!

I also wouldnt be too keen on a hand luggage only deal. Its a false economy.



California is not a really a lazy beach holiday destination. Its road trips, national parks and forests, theme parks, city and town sight seeing and tourist attractions.

A compromise would be spending a day in some of the beach towns like Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Venice, Newport Bay, Huntington's. But even in those beach towns, you dont do the typical hotel by the beach and alternate between beach and pool like you do in Spain, Portugal or The Canary Islands.

See more...

I certainly wouldn’t call ‘hand baggage only’ a false economy.
That is only your opinion, not shared by everybody and in any case, the money saved comes in very handy. We also generally have at least one domestic flight during a travelling vacation such as the West Coast and therefore the savings are even greater.

10kg is more than ample for us and the bag dimensions generous when going on a vacation to a warm/hot location. You don’t need 10 pairs of shoes, a hamster cage, a kitchen sink and loads of potions/lotions on vacation. My sister in law would disagree, taking 2 hold suitcases and 12 pairs of shoes to a 10 day vacation in Mexico.

As a male, I look to good flipflops, 4 pairs of shorts, 2 spare chinos, swimming trunks, 7 pants, 3 socks, 6 shirts, I pad, Camera, minimal toiletries, no towel. I wear my coat , long trousers, good shoes to fly.
My wife will have a few summer dresses in addition.
We simply look for wash facilities whilst travelling.

We rarely exceeded 13kg when we had hold luggage and therefore weight was not a factor in selecting what to pack. We always seemed to have plenty of stuff that we never needed, though.

It is about management and selection of clothing, as well as travelling in your heavier items. Perhaps it is also a military thing about carrying what you needed on your back! Being able to move easily and rapidly as you transit on vacation can only be a good thing.

It is a wonderful feeling when in most locations, you are through immigration and customs, passing through baggage reclaim and out, all before the travellator has even started moving.

Nope, certainly not a false economy, more a balanced decision as to whether it suits you!

This is us (minus me as I am taking the picture), embarking on a 3 weeker involving 2 x U.K. trains, 1 AMTRAC, 2 x Domestic flights, 2 car hires and 9 States. Easy peasy!

Needless to say that our 2 person, California, Nevada, Arizona, California this Oct is hand baggage only. There is an internal flight, 2 x cable car trips, the Bart and the boot of a Mustang Convertible to consider!


San Francisco? I agree about driving there.. or more importantly, not driving there.

I also agree that California is certainly not a beach vacation in the traditional sense.

Theme Parks? They are in our past. Much better things to see and do over on the West side!

[NewtoOrlando]

Originally Posted by Bad Pink Tink

San Jose is about an hours drive from San Francisco. I wouldnt be driving in San Francisco. the hills and streets are the most insane I have been to, many of the roads are almost perpendicular!

I also wouldnt be too keen on a hand luggage only deal. Its a false economy.



California is not a really a lazy beach holiday destination. Its road trips, national parks and forests, theme parks, city and town sight seeing and tourist attractions.

A compromise would be spending a day in some of the beach towns like Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Venice, Newport Bay, Huntington's. But even in those beach towns, you don't do the typical hotel by the beach and alternate between beach and pool like you do in Spain, Portugal or The Canary Islands.

See more...

That's why I looked at the cost of adding the car so baggage was included, like I said, £3000 which for 4 of us including car, and baggage, is something we would be happy to pay. We could never travel hand luggage only, we just wouldn't be able to! We wouldn't be basing ourselves around that area, nor would we be visiting San Fran as we would predominantly going to visit friends and doing more of SoCal and would save Northern California for another trip (If we go)

And I know it's not a beach holiday like a Spain trip, that's why I want to go and do California and not go to Lanzarote like DH wants to. I like to explore, so a few days on the coast would be thrown in to relax so we get the best of both worlds.

[liz-paul]

Regarding the beach holiday aspect - we're going in August this year as a compromise of we all wanted to go somewhere warm, I wanted to visit my brother, sister in law and baby niece and we wanted a mix of stuff to do and also relaxing, lazy days. All of our hotels have pools, we're not going to have every day scheduled (we'll have a list of possibilities and pick them as we go along) and we'll spend some time at the beach... It's a long way to go and a lot of money just to go for a sun holiday but it seemed a good compromise for us to go and see family, do some stuff and relax a bit.

Whatever you decide california is a pretty amazing place with a huge area to cover and almost limitless possibilities for how to spend your time 😊

[NewtoOrlando]

Originally Posted by liz-paul

Regarding the beach holiday aspect - we're going in August this year as a compromise of we all wanted to go somewhere warm, I wanted to visit my brother, sister in law and baby niece and we wanted a mix of stuff to do and also relaxing, lazy days. All of our hotels have pools, we're not going to have every day scheduled (we'll have a list of possibilities and pick them as we go along) and we'll spend some time at the beach... It's a long way to go and a lot of money just to go for a sun holiday but it seemed a good compromise for us to go and see family, do some stuff and relax a bit.

Whatever you decide california is a pretty amazing place with a huge area to cover and almost limitless possibilities for how to spend your time 😊

See more...

That is exactly how I look at it. Yes it is a long way to go, and there is a lot to see, but we don't need to do it all, we don't need to spend every waking moment being busy. We would be visiting friends, enjoying that time more than anything, enjoy a few beach days, a few hours around the pool, see some sights, and make some memories. I know that it's massive, and we wont be able to do everything, but we wont be going out there expecting to! Like you, it's a mix of everything for us and we are more than happy to make some compromises along the way. I don't particularly enjoy holidays to European holiday destinations, been there done that, and while we are still at an age where long haul travel is doable, I want to do it, the 2 hour flights can happen when we no longer enjoy long haul!

[MsSparkles]

For this August we got direct flights into LAX and out of SFO and 1 night at an LAX hotel for £1680. We booked through BA in December 2021. We added the 1 night at the LAX hotel to make it a 'package' through BA holidays, meaning that we only had to put down a £150.00 and it had the BA covid cover of us being able to change/cancel with no penalty. We've been to CA a couple of times in August and this is the most we have paid for flights but only by a little bit.

We did get a good car hire deal through Andy at DFCH by picking up the car at the hotel rather that the airport - it took hundreds off the price, even with the one-way drop off fee for dropping it at SFO.

I agree, there's no need for a car in SFO. Most hotels will charge for parking as well (apart from a few motor lodges). It's a very walkable city but you can also use buses/uber to get around.

Cornishfrogboy - I really admire you going hand-luggage only! Having done many roadtrips around the USA, I always come back saying that I won't pack as much next time but I always do!

Just editing to add: I agree with the posters saying that CA isn't a chilled out holiday... there's so much to do and see. However, you can definitely have beach days if you want and it doesn't have to be planned with as much military precision as a WDW holiday!

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by MsSparkles

For this August we got direct flights into LAX and out of SFO and 1 night at an LAX hotel for £1680. We booked through BA in December 2021. We added the 1 night at the LAX hotel to make it a 'package' through BA holidays, meaning that we only had to put down a £150.00 and it had the BA covid cover of us being able to change/cancel with no penalty. We've been to CA a couple of times in August and this is the most we have paid for flights but only by a little bit.

We did get a good car hire deal through Andy at DFCH by picking up the car at the hotel rather that the airport - it took hundreds off the price, even with the one-way drop off fee for dropping it at SFO.

I agree, there's no need for a car in SFO. Most hotels will charge for parking as well (apart from a few motor lodges). It's a very walkable city but you can also use buses/uber to get around.

Cornishfrogboy - I really admire you going hand-luggage only! Having done many roadtrips around the USA, I always come back saying that I won't pack as much next time but I always do!

Just editing to add: I agree with the posters saying that CA isn't a chilled out holiday... there's so much to do and see. However, you can definitely have beach days if you want and it doesn't have to be planned with as much military precision as a WDW holiday!

See more...

Quick question MsSparkles.. how many of you are there? I am guessing 2.

Second question, is that including hold baggage and paid for seats? I am always keen to get a breakdown on costs.

[KarenG]

If it’s BAHols that includes checked luggage