I know everyone, including most Baby Boomers, appreciates a great deal.
My partner and I like to travel as often as possible, but since neither of us is independently wealthy we always look for bargains. It’s one of the reasons we end up in Hawaii so often.
So I was happy recently to be invited by Allegiant Air to try its Bellingham to Honolulu route introduced in 2012. We’d previously flown Bellingham to Las Vegas with Allegiant so were already familiar with its “a la carte” style pricing. It’s how Allegiant qualifies as what’s known in the industry as an “ultra low cost carrier.”
What that translates to is travellers pay for a basic flight and then add as many, or as few, services as they want. Which is what I was offered by Allegiant. So while the cost of my flight was covered, I paid $70, return, to take one piece of checked baggage. The trick is to pre-book carry-on and checked baggage because if you don’t, the cost doubles at the airport. The cost to pre-book a carry-on bag is between $10 and $35 per segment. Passengers are allowed to carry on one personal item, such as a purse or computer case, for free.
We chose to pay the $70 for a checked bag because you still can’t carry liquids of any real size onboard and when you consider the price of sunscreen at most hot spots, the cost can quickly add up. It also allowed us to take toiletries without fear of violating any aviation codes.
My partner accompanied me on this trip and when we first started researching his flight the cost was $108 each way out of Bellingham. And even though we waited two weeks to book, we paid $148 one way and $178 return for a grand total of $334, which was still less than half of what the best flights we could find out of YVR were at the time.
It also costs to book a seat in advance on Allegiant, but after reading several online travel forums, we decided to take our chances and wait until we were at the Bellingham airport. And that plan worked great. We requested and received two aisle seats across from each other, but were later moved by a steward to an empty row of three seats closer to the front. Our flight heading to Honolulu wasn’t full, but our return trip was so we spent $26 to book two seats for the trip home. Passengers flying Allegiant also pay for food and beverages, including bottled water, and there is no in-flight entertainment.
There’s also the border to contend with for B.C. travellers, but we always choose our times carefully and considering how long it’s taken us previously to pass through customs at YVR, we have no qualms about driving to Bellingham.
Parking is $10 a day at the Bellingham airport, but for this flight for the first time we parked at a private, secured lot down the road for $6 a day. The cost included shuttle service to and from the airport and once we arrived back to Bellingham our driver was there to greet us. But do your research. We’ve since found private lots that charge as little as $2 a day. If you are flying out of YVR, here’s a tip — if you pre-pay for long-term parking, the savings are also significant.
So extra costs aside, unless you find a real bargain out of YVR, Allegiant is a good alternative. Out of curiosity, this week I checked the cost of a last-minute flight to Honolulu with Allegiant and found one leaving Dec. 23 and returning Jan. 8 for $763, including tax, one checked bag and seat selection both ways. Meanwhile, the cost to fly Air Canada, leaving Dec. 23 and returning Jan. 6, was $1,820.28, tax included. That’s a lot of bottled water.
