I found an airline that flies to and from NY from Atlanta every morning. Just one flight a day. The price is astronomically low. I took it and survived! I'm going to do it again. To backtrack a little, I tried taking the bus to NYC to save money, and I was traumatized a little. Over the summer, I paid about $70 round trip to take the China Bus as it is usually called, and it was crowded, smelly, and people were really disgusting and threw food on the floor. And there were roaches! Next, my husband and I took the Megabus for about $100 round trip and while it was cleaner, and better, the lack of leg space was physically painful and I had to wear compression socks to stop leg swelling.
The next time I traveled to NY it was me and my adult kids and for $600 we flew round trip. That's $200 each. After that trip I prepared myself to only fly and be prepared to pay $200 per trip to NY. Imagine my surprise when I came across a discount advertisement for $100 round trip in my email. I jumped on it and have flown back to NY and it wasn't terrible. But, of course there were some issues. First, the cost is for flight only. If you are carrying a bag, you have to pay $25-$75. AND you have to pay to choose your seat... any seat at all. You have to pay for beverages and snacks. And leg room is non existent.
As I arrived at the airline, and looked at the same clientele I had left on the China Town bus (and for that price, what could I expect). I decided to pay $35 for first class. (previously, I declined to choose a seat and let them choose it for me for no fee.) Uh. no, it wasn't first class. It was the first few rows that had some extra leg space. There was also the emergency exit row which also had the extra leg room... and you also had to pay $35 for that. Imagine my disappointment. There were still middle seats in first class. Fortunately, no one wanted to pay for first class, and so the middle seats were not taken. Then there's the fact that it is costly to get to and from the airport, so I still need to build in $100 per trip for ground transportation. Going back, I may very well be checking a bag, so I will forgo the first class and just try to go to sleep so I don't have to be feel the pain in my legs until I stand up.
But it's OK. It is still better than either bus company or both combined. And since I actually have an apartment and clothing in NYC, I don't regularly need luggage. I will probably get a backpack though because a purse or computer bag is allowed, and a backpack fits both categories, but for this trip, this was my carryon luggage, which qualified for free! Oh, and the image of the little item above... that is the cellphone and ID holder I use to avoid digging into my purse and dumping everything out. So essentially, a wallet on a strap became my purse, and my purse became my luggage.
Now this is not a guaranteed all the time price for Frontier Airlines between my two favorite destinations. This is a discounted fare and if you sign up on the website or other discounting sites you will find it. Plus, for the most part, you need to fly Tuesday and Wednesday for the best price. For that reason, I already booked my October and November flights. And these two round trip flights costs only $88.00 each. If this keeps up, I will never take a bus again.
I will however, bring some candy and a little snack. and I will get a backpack so I can carry a few things back and forth.
Oh, by the way, A lot of frontier routes are cheaper than my ATL to NY route (when on sale).
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