Your spring break trip was great and all, but it’s over and it’s time to plan the next junket from Northwest Arkansas National Airport.
Let’s be honest: A good portion of a recreational trip’s value is the anticipation of it. Now that spring break is over, it’s good for the soul to begin considering the next adventure so there’s something exciting on the horizon.
Per usual, FareFlightNWA’s recommendations give big importance to the cost of airfare, but we’re also giving weight this time to avoiding weather troubles because we don’t trust spring.
Let’s face it: Springtime might be cold, wet or windy, and that risk is high in some locales so they don’t make our list.
We do, however, appreciate the great fares to windy-cold Chicago (on United Airlines for $188 on April 25-29) and wet-cold Denver (on Frontier Airlines for $98 on April 3-10). They just are not eligible under our criteria.
We focused entirely on April and May trips because it’s just difficult to think months in advance these days. These are our best ideas and when to go.
New Orleans ($108)
We’d go on Breeze Airways on April 28-May 5. For a little bit more ($142), it could be a weekend trip that goes from April 28 to May 1.
It’s a great time to be in New Orleans because it gets scorching hot in the summertime. The other tourists aren’t bothered by that heat, and they start arriving in bigger numbers just after the school year ends. Don’t play follow the leader. Go in late April.
Las Vegas ($120)
Kind of weird that people fight so hard to fly cheap to Las Vegas when we all know the true cost of going to Sin City is way high. That said, the $120 roundtrip on Allegiant Air on April 16-20 leaves more money available to squander on shows, gambling and food, so maybe it is worth the effort to fly for less.
One plus about this Sunday-through-Thursday trip is that hotels are much less expensive than on Friday and Saturday nights. Try joining the MGM Rewards program and staying at New York-New York or Park MGM, both solid properties that aren’t overly expensive.
Just about every hotel in Vegas charges a resort fee that’s generally $25 to $40 a night extra. so that’ll take some of your fun money. You gotta love that President Biden wants to go after those hotel resort fees. Paying less is bipartisan.
Nashville ($65)
That $65 is a great price, but would you believe it if we told you there are days that are actually cheaper? The days aren’t perfect, though (nine-day trip to Nashville on April 23-May 2 for $50), so we’d pay that $65 and go May 14-18.
That’s a Sunday through Thursday, meaning you can come back to NWA, work Friday and cruise into the weekend.
Florida ($75, $86, $96, $107)
The people who fly from XNA rarely struggle to find an affordable flight to places in Florida, and that’s the case in April and May.
We’d go with the $75 roundtrip on Allegiant Air to Fort Lauderdale on April 10-14 as our first choice.
Second-best is the $96 trip to Tampa on Breeze Airways. It’s April 23-27.
The other two deals to Florida are Allegiant. It’s $86 roundtrip to Orlando/Sanford on April 6-13, and that $107 price is to Destin on April 3-7.
