Top Five Ways to Save Money on a Spring-time Trip to Orlando

Orlando is a great spring-time vacation destination. However, any trip to Florida can become costly, especially if you are taking the children. So what can you do if you have a budget, but don't want to miss out on the fun?

1. Get the best deal on your airline tickets. How do you do this? The consistent theme has been that you should buy your tickets on priceline, or travelocity, or orbitz, or some other discount airline website. I do not share this opinion. I have found it much better to deal with the airline companies directly. So how do I go about booking a plane ticket? I like to visit websites such as orbitz first, to get an idea of what airlines are flying to Orlando from my hometown on the dates and times I need. I can find out, for instance, the Continental, Delta, and Air Tran all have flights between my city and Orlando. This also gives me a rough idea of the prices for taking different flights. Next, I will visit the website of the cheapest airlines shown from orbitz, for example. Most likely, the cheapest will be Southwest, Air Tran, or Jet Blue from my area in Baltimore/Washington, D.C. I will visit Southwest.com, and see what the prices are. Southwest usually has special offers, and sometimes there will be a special destination of the month. Then I will visit AirTran's website, and then JetBlue. I will find which has the best offer.

I generally like to fly Southwest, because Southwest doesn't charge a change fee if you need to reschedule your trip. No questions are asked, you just get a credit for later use. This feature alone may justify me spending a few more dollars in the long run. Also, with Southwest, seats are not chosen in advance, so if you think you can arrive at the airline early, or check-in online early, then you will get in an earlier seating group and will have a good selection of where to sit on the airplane. If you always run late and don't need to change your dates very often, AirTran may be the best price or JetBlue. JetBlue is great because everyone has their own tv on the back of the seat in front of them!