Catherine Smith started flying on budget airlines in 2015.
She’s booked one-way flights on airlines like Frontier for as little as $15.
Smith says budget airlines are just as safe, if not safer than the best airlines.
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I love a deal, especially one involving a plane ticket. I’ve been flying budget airlines almost exclusively for the last eight years and have no intentions of stopping any time soon.
My foray into budget travel began more out of necessity than anything else. In 2015, I’d just quit my full-time job, moved into an apartment above my grandparent’s garage, and began trying to build a career as a remote freelancer. Money was tight but I also had trouble staying put — I blame that on growing up an Army brat and moving every two to three years. Affordable airlines, like Frontier, Play (formerly WOW) , Allegiant, and even Spirit have made traveling within a budget possible.
Courtesy of Catherine Smith
I flew on a round trip ticket from Newark, New Jersey, to Iceland for less than $300 with Play. When I lived in Southwest Virginia, I flew Allegiant from Asheville, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach for less than $100 round trip. I flew Spirit from Philly to Los Angeles for $75, and regularly fly with Frontier for less than $50 round trip.
Flights on traditional airlines were nowhere close to my budget
My favorite deal, and the one that really helped me see what was possible with budget travel, was the deal I used to visit my grandmother in 2015 — she lived in Alabama.
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Flights on traditional airlines were close to $500, and nowhere near my budget. So I booked a $15 flight from Trenton, New Jersey, to Atlanta on Frontier and visited with a friend from college. Then I flew to New Orleans the next day on another $15 ticket, where I spent two nights in a cheap Airbnb exploring the city.
From New Orleans, I took a two-hour ride on the Megabus to Alabama for $12 and spent a few days with my grandparents before returning to Atlanta for $15 and eventually ending up with friends in Orlando — again, for $15 — before making my way back to Philly for a final $15. All of a sudden, that $500 was going a lot further.
I refuse extra in-flight offers to keep my ticket price low
While a $15 airline ticket sounds like a pricing mishap, it’s actually quite common. Frontier regularly offers deals like these. In fact, my partner and I recently booked flights from Philadelphia to West Palm Beach for a total of $38 round trip — $19 each way. But whenever I talk about my love for budget airlines, there’s always a handful of people who dismiss me with comments like,
Budget Airlines Are Just As Safe and Allow Travel Personalization
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