I’m sure you are familiar with the special discounts hotels offer guests traveling to out-of-town weddings. Couples block off a certain number of rooms and their guests typically receive a 10% discount. Now the airlines are taking the concept and “flying” with it.
American Airlines claims that they were the first airline to create a wedding fare discount. The company’s “Wedding Event Travel” program attempts to attract wedding guests to fly American to the destination of the celebration. The program offers discounts of up to 5% off American’s fares when ten or more passengers travel to a “wedding celebration, after-wedding party, or commitment ceremony.” Itineraries and origin cities may differ as long as the destination city is the same. To receive the discount, wedding guests need to enter a special reservation code when booking their flight on American’s website. As an added incentive the airline provides the wedding couple complimentary wedding invitation inserts to inform out-of-town guests of the available discount.
I got married in Hawaii (it wasn’t considered a “typical” destination wedding because it was where I grew up and many of our guests lived there). While I had a number of out-of-town guests (mainly my husband’s extended family) flying in for the ceremony who were aware of American’s discount, no one took advantage of it as they found better package deals to Hawaii on other websites. However, the program did work to the advantage of guests attending my college roommate’s wedding. In that case, most of her guests were traveling from California and Arizona to Chicago.
Another airline offering wedding discounts is Midwest Airlines. With their program, if you have a minimum of 10 or more guests traveling to your wedding, each will receive 10% off Midwest’s lowest published fares. But, there are restrictions. For example, guests will only receive the 10% discount if they book a ticket 60 days in advance of the wedding. They will receive a 6% discount for bookings with less advance notice. Guests may arrive up to 7 days in advance of the wedding. Even with the restrictions Midwest’s program offers some nice bonuses, including giving the bride or groom 2,500 Midwest frequent-flier miles and one complimentary ticket for every 30 round-trip tickets purchased by guests. Not too shabby.
When you are making your wedding to-do list, remember, travel is an important item. Your guests will appreciate any and all information you can provide them. The easier you make it for them to get to your wedding the more guests you can expect to show up.
For additional information on weddings visit the “Marriage” and “Frugal” blogs.