Time versus Money compromises
August 30, 2006
Citygirl brought up the topic about whether time or the money was more important to save when traveling. In her case, she was weighing the value of 4 hours in a 4 day trip against about $150.
BoyDucky and I have been weighing these options as well, but have worked out a fairly reasonable compromise. In his case, he has to spend an additional two and a half hours in transit each way if he takes the cheaper airline [Southwest] versus about 10-30 minutes depending on his departure location with the pricier airline [United].
The math was approximately 2 to 2.5 hours each way on top of the flight time, for a savings of $60. Even though he was coming back twice a month sometimes, and that would add up to a substantial amount rather quickly, I just didn’t think it was worth the amount of time he was losing. And luckily, United has dropped their prices about $30 for some of the less desirable flights.
However, it does make sense for me to take the cheaper flights because he can pick me up with only an additional 30 mins each way. So I can travel at $120/trip while he takes the $150 flights when available.
One option I would like to explore is the Entertainment Book United coupons, I know they have a tiered coupon of “up to $75 off” flights but I haven’t actually seen one and read the fine print. I know they don’t apply to the lowest sale prices but if it applied to a moderately priced range, it may actually drop the price down lower than the lowest prices.
