Started looking for flights to SXM for February. I am having sticker shock. AA through CLT is $1069 per p, SAT to SAT with 1 hr 20 min layover. Tried flying down on FRI. It was $6 more! Then tried Delta through Atlanta, SAT to SAT. OMG. I could not believe the cheapest was $1806 per p! And this is Economy Main Cabin. And there is only one flight to Atlanta from DTW on Saturday mornings, at 6 am. (We who live in the Midwest are SOL when it comes to flights to SXM.) Then I thought to try Delta RT from Detroit to Fort Lauderdale, and switch to Jet Blue. But Jet Blue only books up to Jan. 8 right now, so will have to wait a few months to even try that. Any other Michiganders who have a suggestions?

What about United? I thought they used to have flights from Detroit.. Is there another smaller airport that is fairly close to you that you could fly from and then connect???

Welcome to my world the past few years. 2 years ago I decided to book a cruise instead. Air to San Juan and the week cruise was $50 PP cheaper than just the airfare from STL to SXM. The cruise ship did do a day in SXM tho.

Wendell

We have been going to St. Maarten since 1995, and bought a Time Share at Divi, just before Louis. But back then we had a charter company from Detroit to SXM, and our flights costs $400 ea. We have watched the costs climb over the years, and of course expected that, but last year we paid $780 each on AA, as opposed to the $1069 they are asking this year. And the Delta prices are outrageous. And yes, Carol, I did try United, which was cheaper by a couple hundred, if I wanted to stay overnight in either Newark or Chicago. But if I didn't, it was the same RT price as AA.

Most people in the Midwest have had a pretty rough time with airfares, especially since Irma. Since you have a while to go, about the only thing you can do is to set up a fare alert and if you get something that you can live with, jump on it. Although Southwest is apparently denying it, there are persistent rumors that they will announce they are entering the SXM market this fall. If so, that should drive some prices down. Best wishes.

Are you from the Detroit area, KitKat? If so, Toronto's Pearson airport is a 4 hour drive for you (about 230 miles or so). WestJet will likely have lower prices, and they offer direct flights to SXM. The prices will be in Canadian dollars, so simply multiply that by .75 to figure out the U.S. exchange rate. If you fly Saturday to Saturday it will come out to roughly $700 per person, but that's for premium economy which includes your seat selection and one checked bagged up to 50 lbs. If you fly during the week the cost will even be lower. When my wife and I fly to Europe we always fly out of Toronto because the cost savings is significant. Last year two roundtrip flights to Rome on Air Canada cost us $1,880 USD. No matter what we tried from the states it was going to be at least $1,000 higher. So, you might want to give WestJet a try if you don't mind the drive thru Ontario.

Don’t know how far you are from Toronto but you may want to check out Westjet, probably would be around $800.00 Canadian dollars and a direct flight

Okay, curiosity got the best of me! Checked out WestJet's website and converted to U.S. funds. Flying non-stop from Toronto to SXM on Thursday, February 6, 2020 and returning one week later (also non-stop) comes to grand total of $972 with all fees and taxes applied. $486 per person, and no connecting flight to have to deal with. Flight on 2/6/2020 leaves at 9:15 a.m. so you might want to drive up the night before rather than deal with Toronto traffic that morning. That's what I would do.

Sammy and Linny--looks like you've got the answer! We routinely drive 3.5 hours one way for a nonstop from Miami.

Try using Momondo.com or Skyscanner.com. I'm seeing some options that are under $800pp and some go through Toronto on Candianair. I'm in northern Michigan and have often found great deals leaving from Chicago. (Yeah it sucks to drive that far but to save $300-400 it's worth it. We stay at the ORD Hilton for $100 and $7 a day parking.)

If you're in southern Michigan you could possible train to ORD or Toronto.

Thanks for all your suggestions. I did try Toronto with Westjet, and you are right. We live in Port Huron, right across from Sarnia, Canada, and about a 3 hour drive, in good weather. In February, who knows. But it is definitely a good option. Our time share runs from SAT to SAT, and the cost would be around $650 ea US dollars. A pretty big savings! Thanks again.

We fly from Toronto all the time (45 min drive). We always book a night near the airport, (just in case of that Feb weather), and take their shuttle back and forth. One night stay and up to 2 weeks parking , figure on $250 CDN. We usually book through "Park, Sleep, Fly"
George

I’m wondering if these expensive fares are the new reality from DTW. On my last Delta flight this year I ended up going first class because it wasn’t that much more expensive than Delta Comfort which I normally get.

If you are willing to drive, you might try JetBlue out of Cleveland. They had some pretty decent fares the last time I looked. As you stated, the JB fares are not out yet but it may be worth waiting. They were around $550/pp for late fall of this year, Cleveland to SXM with a connection in Ft. Lauderdale. I just put in some random dates for Nov. and the lowest is around $650 currently. Good luck.

I fly out of Dayton OH and run into the same thing you do, lack of choices and exceedingly high fares.

Kitkat, did you look at GRR? We head to SXM every winter for a week+ and have to go to DTW or ORD to get flights that we can afford. We have gone to Chicago and used Park and Fly at several different hotels to get us to SXM the last 4 years. 6 weeks ago I spotted flights out of our home airport for $725RT. So, you know where we are headed January 2! GRR is less than 3 hours from you and flights still look reasonable.

I use Priceline as my search engine for all flights. From your location, try flying from Cleveland (4 hours). I checked Wednesday, February 5 and found flights for $390+ pp on several airlines. I also checked Saturday, February 8 and found flights for $508+ with an overnight stay on the way down. JetBlue may be better when they post their schedule. I am finding Detroit to be $860+ on Saturday. All these prices are for economy. I have edited a prior post due to thunderstorms causing intermittent internet.

I know what you mean. We usually travel in February, the last being in 2017 and it was around $550 a person. Leaving on June 28th, Friday-Friday and it was $802. Not sure why Detroit gets the shaft for pricing but I think its only going to get worse.

I was quite surprised that I recently purchased tickets from DTW to Rome, Italy for $600pp.

On United, connecting in Newark for March the cheapest economy ticket is $1217 at the moment. UGH.

It is so frustrating when you first look at the RT cost of a flight out of DTW, then go to the return flights and see that the total RT cost has risen by a hundred or more dollars. I suspect we will end up going to Toronto for next trip in Feb.

Maybe try Spirit Airline, if they fly out of Detroit. I know they do Chicago. We also are finding that sticker shock for November. And so many overnight flights these days.

We flew on Spirit out of DTW Sept 2018. Not bad.

Glad to hear that, but Spirit is known to charge for everything that other airlines may include. Even carry-on items that typically are free of charge. Also, they don't connect to St. Maarten directly, so you would have to find another airline (like Jet Blue) that could finish the journey. The timing of this can be tricky, and might require an overnight stay. But, it's good to investigate all options when dealing with the airlines these days. I would still suggest Toronto as a primary option to DTW, especially since you reside in Port Huron. The airport is roughly 170 miles away, so a three hour journey to save that amount of money is worth the travel.

We went ahead and booked flights out of DTW for our usual first 2 weeks of December on AA a few weeks ago, and lo and behold AA just cancelled our flight connecting thru CLT for the return home. Now just the flight thru MIA that requires an overnight on Sundays. The new flights they put together had us leaving SXM on the 5:08 pm to MIA, then to PHL landing after 11pm..overnight stay and then on a flight at 9pm from PHL to DTW the next night. I called and they didn't have an explanation, but I'm guessing it's the 737 MAX flight shuffling process being extended. So, went from a total 8 hour trip to over 30 hours, and AA offered no alternatives or assistance what so ever. So..checked Delta out of CLE, and ended up booking great flights in Comfort for the same dates at a significantly lower cost. Well worth the 3.5 hour drive. And, as per usual, no notice that my flights had changed from AA. I check about once a week, and when I checked on Thursday I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Also, our outbound from DTW was now 3 hours earlier and connecting thru a different airport despite our original flights still being available. Went from 8:30am to 5:30am departure, from CLT to PHL for connect to SXM and equipment change from an A320 to an ERJ 145, also known as The Devils Chariot, or the Bastanardo if you're 6"5" like me.

AA was pulling this kind of crap well before the 737 MAX situation arose. I have preached on this site for a long time that flying this airline is risky if you have a connecting flight, and I find their indifferent attitude unacceptable. Now, some people have done just fine with them over the years and that's great. But, along with Spirit and Frontier they are at the very bottom of my airline list when flying anywhere in North America and beyond. If I sound bitter it's probably because I didn't learn my lesson with them the first time (or the second time) they ruined my plans. I've had my luggage lost for one week in Philadelphia, a connecting return flight in the evening cancelled for no reason with no one from AA present in the PHL airport to help us make alternative arrangements until the next morning, another flight to PHL with the second flight to SXM cancelled with no explanation (they offered a later flight that day well after the SXM flight would have left that was useless), and so on. They say that "stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." I've decided that I'm done being stupid and I always look elsewhere, especially when we fly to SXM.

Spirit does connect directly to SXM from DTW via MIA, or at least it did last year.

Just for kicks, checked out Spirit today for our Feb. trip. They are only booking up to Dec. 18. So along with JetBlue, who also are not yet booking in Feb., I will have to wait for a couple more months to check both airlines. But I have checked Spirit in past years from DTW to SXM, and they were only a few dollars cheaper than AA, so by the time you added in luggage and other amenities it was the same or more. And it is only 2-1/2 hours from Port Huron to Toronto, where it is 3-1/2 hours to Cleveland, so it looks like Toronto is still our best bet. But I want to thank everyone who posted suggestions.

I think I got an email stating JB would be announcing their next round of fares and dates today but I didn’t pay too much attention to the specifics. You might want to check them this afternoon jic.......My personal experience with them has been that about a week after they open their new dates the rates drop a little and from that point on they continually go up a little month after month. Good luck with your tickets.

Correction, Spirit flies from Ft. Lauderdale, not Miami. But I think they meant there was not a non-stop on Spirit from Detroit, that one had to connect on Spirit, thus the Toronto option of a non-stop was better.

Can only comment on AA flight 2219 leaving at 12ish......never ever had a problem. This leaves from Miami direct to SXM and usually is on time or up to 20 minutes early. Must have done this flight about 30 times. Return around 4.30 so gives you virtually half an extra day. Also on time. Just for those coming from Canada and elsewhere across the country who want to say combine an overnight stay in Miami and possibly enjoy some time in Miami by sightseeing. They do though tend to change the departure gates this trip 3 times in 45 minutes but no big deal as was in same terminal. Also as mentioned before try to travel midweek if you can.

Ah, you're right. I knew we changed planes somewhere in Fla. Forgive my faulty memory.

dolfer--no problem

Same thing happened here -- I had the only one day return trip booked, and now they have us stopping at Miami first so we will miss our CHT connection. So they have me staying in Miami overnight, and getting home the next day. I was also told there would likely be more schedule changes up until the travel dates, and try to log in every couple of weeks to see if any changes are made. I asked if the one day return flight reappears, can I move back to that, she said I would be able to do that. American was leaving SXM at 3:25 p.m, that is now 5:08 pm. That didn't help, either.

Spirit airlines is having a 75% off sale, I can fly from DTW to SXM for $387. per person. I know this does not include seat or luggage, but even if I had those 2 things, it would save about $300 per person.

Has anybody flown Spirirt out of Detroit to St. Martin recently? Is it a reliable flight?

Just make sure you have Duct Tape in your carry on. LOL

I flew Spirit in 2010 from DTW at Christmastime. That was the last time I even considered it. They had given one of our seats away and it was a mess. I happened to have checked-in on line, which saved the day since I had checked in first. Anyway, I will and have paid 5 or 6 times that sales price to avoid them.

Wofan flew Spirit from Orlando recently (I think that was the Florida airport), and had a good experience. I think if you understand what you're getting for your dollars, it's fine.
Maybe he'll see this and comment....

Georgia--Spirit flies out of Ft Lauderdale nonstop. If they flew out of Orlando nonstop, I might well be tempted to fly them again!

I'm not sure, but I'll ask them.

Georgia--You misunderstood my post. I know that Spirit does NOT fly nonstop out of Orlando, just FLL. If they DID fly out of Orlando, I might try them.