TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands MIAMI VS CHARLOTTE

I am not a fan of Miami airport. There is an alternate choice to go thru Charlotte. On my way home it adds 2 hours to my trip with a longer layover. Is it worth it to avoid Miami ? Has anyone had experience with Charlotte over Miami ? Wondering Is the extra two hours worth it ?

If I fly American out of Memphis, I can't hardly go anywhere without routing through CLT. It's always crowded, without enough seating when I go through. Both American and Centurion lounges are usually packed. I don't think there's much relief to be had in avoiding MIA by routing through CLT.

Your mileage may vary.

I flew through MIA for a cruise(ship) vacay (against my better judgement and never again) and I've never walked so far to get to a gate as I did there (except for maybe Heathrow).

Other than that I didn't have any particular issues with it.

CLT has always seemed pretty good to me. Yes, it's busy but eh, seemed okay.

Like Midsouth, we fly from Memphis. Using American we go through Charlotte or Miami. The regional flights from Charlotte fly from a terminal that resembles an old Greyhound station. The walk can be long in Miami, but it's more modern, although the regional flights use an outside facility. About equal, all in all.

We have flown many times through both. All in all, I really cannot pick one over the other. They are both large terminals.

Yes - Miami is larger. The walk from low-numbered American terminals to high-numbered is long, but they have a Sky Train that makes that much shorter.

Charlotte has no Sky Train, and your flights may be from different concourses, so the walk can be longer than Miami.

The Miami terminal has much better food selections.

Honestly, it is not worth an additional two hours to go through Charlotte.

Retuning through Miami from outside the US is a pain, even with Global Entry. I avoid it whenever possible.

I agree with Duckfat. Flying from SFO AA equally sends me tho Miami or Charlotte to ST. I prefer Miami mainly because of terrific food choiced and, usually, my connecting gates are close together....that said I did find one really good local eatery in Charlotte...

Funny, the last time we flew out of Miami, we were looking for something remotely edible to take on the plane for lunch, and pretty much struck out.

CLT is always SO crowded. We prefer Miami by far!

On July 4th - acknowledging this is a slower day in the airports - we took the direct flight from Tortola with a 2 hour layover in Miami coming home. We went through customs using the Mobile Passport Control App (since my wife and 2 daughters hadn’t completed their Global Entry interviews), and had time for them to complete their Global Entry interviews (using the on-arrival process), collect bags, go through security, and spend an hour eating.

Overall, we prefer Miami because there seem to be more options if something goes wrong with our flight.

Following…we will be looking for flights shortly for our January trip.

Coming from East coast Canada we usually fly through Boston or NYC .

If by some fluke a flight gets reasonably priced to Miami from here we can look at that .

Such a wealth of knowledge you all are