2013
21
January
Winnipeg To Nashville | How To Get The Best Deal On Flights
21
January
Guides
The Ydeals Noise-Free Guide To Getting The Best Deal On Flights From Winnipeg (YWG) to Nashville (BNA)
 | There are a vast number of travel sites out there, all wanting you to believe they have unique or special prices on airfares to Nashville. The thing is, they don't. They use marketing noise to hide the industry secret that there is really only one source of unique prices on flights from Winnipeg to Nashville. This guide will strip away the hype and show Winnipeg travellers what that source is, so you can stop wasting so much time searching for the best flight deal. |
What are the unique sources of prices on flights from Winnipeg (YWG) to Nashville ?
Unique Source #1 - The Major Airlines
There are 4 major airlines that offer flights from Winnipeg to Nashville (BNA), and they are: Air Canada, Delta, United Airlines, and WestJet.
Where should I look then to get the best deal on a trip to Nashville?
All you need to do is search these major airlines, preferably all at once. My current favorite way to do this is normally by using Google Flights Explorer but it doesn't seem to currently display airfares between Winnipeg and Nashville. If anyone reading this ever sees them appear, please let me know.
So that means my favorite way would be to search using Kayak. It has all the sort and filter options I need, and searches all major airlines. Enter 'Winnipeg (YWG)' in the From box and 'Nashville (BNA)' in the To box.
After you've entered in Nashville (BNA) as your destination, click on 'Make my dates flexible' and set it to '+/- 3 days'. You may be surprised how often being a little flexible with your dates can result in a better price.
What about the thousands of other sites that have airfares to Nashville?
This is the noise. There is no shortage of retail travel brands trying to convince you that they have the cheapest flights from Winnipeg to Nashville. The truth is though, there's only one unique source of prices that they're gathering their prices from, and that's the prices from the major airlines themselves. Travel price aggregators can't offer seat sales lower than the airline itself, as there's already virtually no markup.
There's a few reasons why I think Winnipeg travelers waste an enormous amount of time checking multiple websites, hoping for a better seat price than the one they already found (studies show it to be an average of 22 different sites over 10 periods of research!). The first reason is just human nature. We all want to compare prices and make sure we're getting the best deal.
But I think the biggest reason is simply the noise and confusion of travel marketing. With so many travel sites and vacation brands competing for your travel budget, all hoping you'll book through them, combined with the fact that not one of them will *ever* admit to you that their source of prices is the same as everyone else, it's little wonder travelers from Manitoba waste so much time searching.
What about searching an airline's website directly?
There's nothing wrong with doing that. It's usually just a lot easier to search all of the airlines at once, using a good travel search tool. It's amazing how poor many of the airline's search interfaces are. Regardless, the fares found on any half-decent search engine will be the same as the fares found on the airline's own website.
One thing you can do is just use a search tool to search all the airlines at once, and then go to the carrier's own site to book it once you've figured out exactly which flight to Nashville you want, and what the price is.
What about a Winnipeg travel agency or independent travel agent?
They're seeing the same prices you are. Depending on the agency or agent, they may or may not charge you a 'booking fee' on top of the airfare price, for their time. As there's virtually no markup on the cost of flights, they can't offer you a price that's any cheaper than from the airline, or from a search tool that properly searches the latest airfares.
When should I book to get the best price?
This is never an easy question to answer, as airfares are not 100% predictable. Airlines start by setting their price at a level they think will fill the maximum number of seats, based on the demand they expect to see.
If they experience less demand than they expected, they may decide to lower them. If they experience more demand than they expected, they may raise them. Unfortunately, a lot of factors that influence demand can be unpredictable.
How long a person can wait it out in hopes of a better price is a personal decision. Personally though, I am usually not afraid to watch prices on the major airlines up to about 8 weeks before departure in hopes of a better price without fear of the price rising. But everyone has a different tolerance for risk.
What about last minute deals to Tennessee?
Last minute airfare deals to Nashville on the major airlines don't really exist. Typical of most major airlines, if they've done their job correctly and already filled most of the plane seats, they feel the few seats remaining become more valuable, and often decide to raise the price of airfares.
What's a decent price from Winnipeg to Nashville?
From Winnipeg, flights to Nashville tend to bottom out around $550 to $600 (roundtrip after taxes). This is just a general guideline though, based on average demand periods of the year.
Airfare ticket prices are highly affected by demand. So anytime you can think of a reason that there might be higher demand than usual for travel to Nashville (such as dates when many people in Winnipeg have holiday time) you can expect prices to react accordingly.
As for the Christmas holiday period (anything between Dec 21 and Jan 5), that's a whole other level of demand, which means prices are never anything but very expensive relative to the rest of the year. As a very general rule of thumb, I find you can usually take a decent price from an average demand period and multiply it by 1.5 to get your typical Christmas price.
What about one way flights to Nashville?
You should be able to get to Nashville for about 50-60% of the cost of a roundtrip flight. Use the same search techniques as for round-trip flights, and just change the search option in your favorite search tool to 'one-way'.
Are there direct flights to Nashville?
Unfortunately there are not currently any airlines offering non-stop flights from Winnipeg to Nashville. The quickest it can usually be done is with 1 layover in Minneapolis (on Delta) or Chicago (on United). Personally, I'd prefer Minneapolis for the layover, as Chicago (ORD) is such a busy airport.
What about a multi-city flight? Such as into Nashville and out of another airport?
Searching for alternate return segments in travel is still a bit of a pain. Even Google Explorer currently can't handle it, as there's too many possible combinations. I'm sure eventually someone (likely Google) will put enough processing power behind it and create something useful for searching multi-city fares.
But for now, you're stuck with searching one departure date at a time when it comes to multi-city fares and experimenting with different destination combinations. Most of the decent travel sites will offer a variable-segment option (it should be right next to 'one-way' and 'round-trip').
Kayak would be my preferred option here. Just click on the 'multi-city' option and in the first box, enter in Winnipeg to Nashville (BNA), or whatever airport you want to fly into, and then in the second box, enter St. Louis (STL) to Winnipeg, or whatever airport you want to fly out of.
You never really know what you're going to get with a multi-city fare. And it really depends on what airport you choose to come back from! And of course, you're still left with figuring out the cost of getting between the two airports.
What about discounted flights to Nashville from U.S. airports within driving distance of Winnipeg?
Nashville from Grand Forks (GFK), North Dakota
If you've ever read my guide about flying out of U.S. Airports within driving distance of Winnipeg, you may know that I feel it could be worth the drive, when you see an airfare from Grand Forks that's at least $275 less per person than from Winnipeg.
So, if Winnipeg vacationers find a flight from Grand Forks for under $325 roundtrip after taxes, it could be worth the drive. Typically though, flights to Nashville from Grand Forks aren't a whole lot cheaper than from Winnipeg, since they average around $500 roundtrip after taxes.
Nashville from Fargo (FAR), North Dakota
If you've ever read my guide about flying out of U.S. Airports within driving distance of Winnipeg, you may know that I feel it could be worth the drive, when you see an airfare from Fargo that's at least $375 less per person than from Winnipeg.
So if you can locate a flight from Fargo for under $225 roundtrip after taxes, it could be worth the drive. Typically though, flights to Nashville from Fargo are only about $150 cheaper than from Winnipeg, averaging around $450 roundtrip after taxes.
I think I've found a great deal on a flight to Nashville!
Excellent! Please share it with your fellow Winnipeg travel enthusiasts, they will appreciate it and thank you for it! You can post it in the YWG Deals Facebook group (click 'Join Group', at the top-right, when you arrive), where thousands of people from Winnipeg are crowd-sourcing the best deals, and sharing great travel advice.
Or if you prefer, you can always give me a shout through the YWG Deals contact form or on Twitter @YWGdeals or through Google Plus. Great deal finds are always appreciated.
Why should I trust this Nashville travel savings guide?
 | The info in this guide is based on my observations of the travel industry over the years, including all the thousands of websites out there, and where all the different players get their prices from and how they interact with each other. My objective is to remove the noise of travel marketing, so vacationers from Manitoba can stop wasting so much valuable time searching the same ticket prices over and over. |
But, as social proof of it's accuracy, feel free to join the YWG Deals Facebook Group (click 'Join Group', at the top-right, when you arrive) and publicly disagree with any of it, or make a comment below. Critiques are always welcome!
I think I have some info that could help improve the guide for Winnipeg travellers!
Great! Please post your info in the Facebook group above, or contact me directly. Suggestions for improvement are always appreciated. Let me know if you see something that seems inaccurate or outdated.
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And don't worry, alerts are only sent when it's truly an amazing deal.
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