We understand that Disney World is a very expensive vacation, and that’s why we search for all kinds of tips and tricks to help you save money when you’re planning your upcoming trip.

You can save on dining, hotel stays, merchandise, and more. But one of the most expensive parts of the trip might be the cost of travel to get to the parks in the first place! To save you some cash in that area, we found out when was the CHEAPEST time to fly to Disney World in 2023. 

We’ll start by looking for the cheapest months and days to fly to the Orlando International Airport from a few other U.S. airports (we used Google Flights to get the data). This information will yield some more general trends, which we’ll discuss next. And at the end of this post, we’ll include more tips that can help you save money when booking your flight to Disney World!

The Cheapest Times to Fly to Orlando

We searched for data about flight costs for a 3-day trip to the Orlando International Airport, which is displayed in the graphs below. Note that the scale for the flight costs changes, so keep an eye on the numbers along the y-axis of the graphs. When flights got more expensive overall, Google Flights updated this scale.

We checked out flights from a few different popular airports, including ones in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Although these may not be the airports you use, the trends will be true for many airports throughout the country.

From New York

If you’re traveling through New York, the best time to fly to Disney World is January or February 2023. Flights with tickets priced below $100 (one-way) were common, and there were only a few peaks on weekends.

In March and April the costs remained fairly low except for a peak around mid-April, which can likely be attributed to spring break travelers. During that time, flights got up above $300 — triple the costs we saw in January through March.

Flights in the summer were pretty consistent, around $150-$160, with several peaks reaching up to $240. The days with the lowest prices were all Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the higher prices were generally on Thursdays. The highest peak was over the Fourth of July weekend.

Watch out for the scale shift — it might look like flight costs remained low for the fall, but that scale changed and these flights are more expensive. Most of the flights cost around $200 in September and October, with a major peak on the weekend of October 6th (maybe for fall break travelers).

The costs were similar in November, and flight cost data was not yet available for December 2023.

From Los Angeles

Los Angeles also had the cheapest flights of 2023 in January and February, although these were generally more expensive than the ones from New York (due to the longer distance). The cheapest flights are on Saturdays.

Unlike the New York flights, Los Angels saw a pick-up in prices around mid-March with spring break travelers potentially to blame. The cheapest flights here can be found on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Flight costs continue to pick up into the summer months, with a few valleys that generally occur on weekends. If you can travel on Saturday and Sunday over the summer, you might be able to save money.

Costs continued to remain between $300 and $400 for most flights in the fall, with the lowest prices falling on Wednesdays. The highest prices were for flights on Thursdays.

The trend continues with the cheapest flights early in the year and a slight dip in prices around late August/early September. Day of the week is also an important factor.

From Chicago

The last airports we’ll analyze are the ones in Chicago. From this city, you can find pretty cheap flights in January and February (like we saw at the New York and Los Angeles airports). Again, February 16th and 17th (a Thursday and Friday) are a spike in these months.

Flights shift from mostly under $125 to generally over $125 when we move into March and April. There are again a couple of price hikes around March 25th, but otherwise the costs are comparable.

Flight costs from Chicago clearly illustrate the start of the summer months, as costs jump dramatically between May and June. Tickets go from around $125 to closer to $250 once the summer starts.

Note the shift in scale with the September and October graph. These flights are pretty expensive, and there aren’t many valleys in the prices.

Mid-October appears to be one of the more expensive times to travel, although the rest of the month is fairly consistent.

General Trends

The clearest trend in flight prices for 2023 is that the cheapest times to fly are early in the year. January and February have some pretty cheap flights, likely because many people choose to travel at the end of the year, so they tend to stay put after those trips are done.

There are usually cheaper flights around the end of summer and beginning of fall, in late August and September.

As far as the cheapest days of the week to travel, this shifted throughout the year and also changed between the airports, but generally Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday were the cheapest days to fly and Thursday was one of the most expensive.

Weekend trips over holidays also tended to be more expensive, such as for the Fourth of July or Memorial Day weekend.

More Tips for Booking the Cheapest Flight

Here are a few more tips to help you save money when booking your flight to Disney World:

• Look at airlines’ policies and perks. Factors like luggage fees and permitted carry-ons might affect your decision on which airline to pick. For example, Southwest Airlines permits each passenger to check 2 bags for free (included in the cost of a ticket), so that could save you money if you’re traveling with several bags.
• Let an app do the work for you. Instead of going to each airline’s website to look at prices, you can take advantage of flight tracker apps like Hopper or Kayak. These apps will alert you when ticket prices change and can help you decide when to book a flight and when to hold out for possibly lower rates.
• Try to book your flight between 1 and 3 months before you plan to travel.
• Plan for holiday travel well in advance. This is a very popular time to travel, so you should watch flight costs carefully to find the best deals.

Looking for more travel tips? Check out these posts:

• Read THIS Before You Bring a Car to Disney World
• A COMPLETE Guide to Taking the Bus in Disney World
• Our Best Tips For Flying Through the Orlando International Airport
• Air Travel Tips That’ll Change Your Life
• U.S. Airlines Have Mishandled OVER 200,000 Bags Recently — Here’s How to Be Prepared
• The Airlines to AVOID If You Don’t Want to Get Bumped from Your Flight
• The MOST and LEAST Reliable Airlines in the U.S.

Stay tuned to DFB for all the latest Disney news and updates.

Check out our COMPLETE guide to booking the cheapest flight to Disney World.

What are your Disney World travel tips? Let us know in the comments!