There’s often a conversation about the price of flying from Northwest Arkansas National Airport, but thousands of travelers are well-positioned to avoid the highest fares.
After all, most leisure travelers aren’t required to spend $700 or $800 to fly to a specific destination. It’s a choice. They often have the option of declining to pay so much, and choosing to fly to a less expensive place. It’s summertime. Many options at XNA won’t break the bank.
FareFlightNWA cobbled together a list of low-cost solutions to high fares, and many of them allow travelers to choose American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines if that’s their preference. Flying early in the morning or late in the evening can help reduce costs.
We also included the airport’s three low-cost carriers: Allegiant Air, Frontier Airlines and Breeze Airways. The LCCs are reliable when it comes to being less expensive.
We’ll name the airlines and identify a few places they go for an August weekend for less than $275 roundtrip. Just remember that prices change often and so your Google Flights search could encounter a significantly different outcome.
American Airlines
One benefit of flying American is that more XNA travelers are part of its frequent flier program than any of the others, and piling up the miles on a preferred airline matters so much.
American has several weekend options to California for less than $275: San Diego (Aug. 15-18), San Francisco (Aug. 22-25), Palm Springs (Aug. 24-27), and San Luis Obispo (Aug. 28-Sept. 1).
If California isn’t your thing, other less-than-$275 options include Austin (Aug. 29-Sept. 1), Denver (Aug. 24-27), New Orleans (Aug. 24-27) and Miami (Aug. 22-25).
With American, that’s not an exhaustive list or the only dates that will work to those places for less than $275. Snoop around. Searching for the best deal is fun.
Delta Air Lines
With just one notable exception (San Francisco on Aug. 16-19), all of Delta’s best affordable options go east or south from XNA.
Its single best deal is New Orleans on Aug. 22-25 for $176 roundtrip, but several others hit the $275 goal, too.
The others include Austin and Nashville (both Aug. 22-25); Charleston (Aug. 23-26); and Miami (Aug. 17-20).
United Airlines
United on Monday had the same $176 fare as Delta to New Orleans on Aug. 22-25m but it’s still a great deal at $208. It’s also got a great price to Denver ($174 on Aug. 15-18) and Houston ($189 on Aug. 8-11).
It has other August destinations below the $275 limit. They include flights to Cincinnati, Raleigh, Nashville, Cleveland, Buffalo, Orlando, Miami, Milwaukee, San Francisco and Tucson (all on Aug. 22-25); and Indianapolis and Chicago (both Aug. 15-18)
Allegiant, Frontier and Breeze
The pattern at XNA is for low-cost carriers to just about always offer the lowest fares, and those are all nonstop flights.
However, the low-cost airline’s fees for such things as selecting a seat, checking a bag and carrying a bag onto the plane are often more expensive than their competitors. It makes easy price comparisons a bit more difficult. You’ve been warned.
But if the focus is on the fare, the LCCs almost always win the day.
One of the lowest fares spotted was for an August weekend trip on Allegiant Air to Nashville ($89 on Aug. 29-Sept. 1), and Frontier had a great fare to Denver ($99 on Aug. 16-19).
Allegiant wants less than $200 for trips to Las Vegas (Aug. 16-19), Destin (Aug. 15-18), Fort Lauderdale (Aug. 9-12) and Orlando (Aug. 23-26)
Breeze has great fares in August to all three of its nonstop destinations: New Orleans ($118 on Aug. 15-18), Tampa ($118 on Aug. 22-25); and Orlando ($170 on Aug. 25-28).