<p>Hi!!</p>
<p>I’m going to start college in the fall and I wanted to know if any parents had suggestions to save on the airfare. I was going to open up a “College Rapid Rewards” account with Southwest (3 roundtrips, get one free! SO GOOD! Can you believe it?!), but I called them today and found out they were discontinuing this promotion. :(
Now, I have no idea what to use to fly across the country. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Thanks~</p>
<p>You can try studentuniverse.com</p>
<p>Sometimes they have good deals for students, sometimes not. One perk is that they have one-way flights, which are hard to find at reasonable prices.</p>
<p>Right now Delta has a one-way flight from Florida to New Hampshire - $59 - with t/f’s $80 -pretty good deal, but only on mid-week flights. It’s enticing, but crazy as it sounds, we’re leaning toward driving.</p>
<p>Honestly, just use Southwest without the promotion - they’re still generally the best deal for most places if you buy far enough in advance (especially considering that you get 2 free checked bags!). They’re also just a generally great airline - nice planes and staff, almost always on schedule, don’t charge massive fees to change/cancel your flight, etc.</p>
<p>For other airlines, [Cheap</a> Flights, Hotels, Destinations | Bing Travel](<a href=“http://farecast.live.com%5DCheap”>http://farecast.live.com) can show you trends in ticket prices, etc and can be helpful.</p>
<p>priceline, but be prepared to get flights at bad times. But you are a college student, so time is not valuable.</p>
<p>There are few deals for students. I’ve checked Student Universe many times and only occassionally found better deals than booking direct with an airline. And when I’ve found slightly cheaper prices it’s been at odd times and required unreasonable layovers. </p>
<p>Ask your parent’s to use a airline affinity credit card. We pay for most of our childrens’ flights with free miles.</p>
<p>Don’t under estimate the value of the 2 free bags with SW. That plus the easy changes and cancellations polices and easy one way fares makes them hard to beat. Even with the change in the promotions.</p>
<p>Jet Blue, Alaska and Southwest will let you buy a one-way ticket for the same price as if it were a part of a roundtrip. If you accumulate 15,000 miles on Alaska, it is good for 50% off of a roundtrip ticket across the country (they will send you e-mails with promotions like 10% off as a birthday gift and double miles). Alaska lets my H use his miles to buy tickets for our D. And I second the value of the two free bags on Southwest - that is easily worth $40-60.</p>
<p>We have never found a less expensive ticket using Student Universe. The prices have been more expensive than the lowest airline price found online. YMMV.</p>
<p>^^Agree! We use FF miles for most of our student’s cross country flights, except the one way home this spring for 109.00.</p>
<p>I think the best advice I can provide after 2 kids in college who both went fairly far away, it’s this: Start shopping early for deals for any holiday travel, especially Thanksgiving. I’ve learned the hard way not to wait too long (prices USUALLY climb, but almost more importantly, it can be tough to find seats on the flights the days you must have them.</p>
<p>Use several search engines to scope the best deals, ie kayak.com. Another good one is bing.com (?) used to be Farecast. After you find the flights, go directly to the airlines to book directly. As mentioned by several others, you can’t go wrong with Southwest–it often (but not always) is cheaper. But mainly, YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR FLIGHT WITH NO PENALTY. I just had to change a ticket with Delta–the change fee was $150!</p>
<p>Southwest doesn’t fly everywhere though. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fly to our city. If it’s an option for you, having them in the market helps keep the other airlines more competitive.</p>
<p>Also, sign up for email alerts for the city pairs you need. That way, you’ll be notified when there are sales. Pricing is an ephemeral thing on airlines–it can be really high one day and drop quickly (and for only a few hours or less). I’ve found these email notifications have saved me tons of money over the years because I know when to book a flight at a lower fare.</p>
<p>Agree with curiouser. We used Kayak for our search and then booked through the airlines directly. SW actually was a little more expensive than going through another major airline.</p>
<p>The KEY thing is don’t plan on making ANY changes to tickets–ticket change fees + increase in fare will eat up any “bargain” fare you got before you were positive about the dates. We’ve eaten change fees of $150/ticket + increase in ticket charge for 3 tickets so far. Now, I look at the last possible date for their exam & have them leave the day after, even if they finish earlier, they have to cool their heels. I have them go back the weekend before school starts, just in case the flight is cancelled or delayed.you</p>
<p>Programs keep changing. It is key to find which airlines have a good connection between your home airport & your school airport. Sometimes there is considerable savings if you’re flexible about these airports (but be sure to add in any travel expense to get to & from these airports). Some airlines have better connections & fares between your cities than others. Also, if you plan to check luggage, add that fee to your ticket cost in each direction so you have the REAL total price. My kids have gotten very good about carrying all their gear on the plane & have no checked luggage (they like saving $ too). Good luck!</p>
<p>I hope you were joking on the “time is not valuable” thing, OperaDad. I’m in graduate school in New York, and no way I want to be traveling from the airport at 11 at night. LOL! I travel relatively often because I go to conferences to present my research and to special training opportunities for grad students.</p>
<p>AirTran has a special deal for people ages 18 to 23 that allows them to buy one-way stand-by tickets for $79 (+ fees/taxes). I don’t remember the new name of the program – it used to be called X-fares – but it is standby flying, which means that you have to go to the airport and buy the tickets at the counter, and you’re not guaranteed a space on the flight. However, I’ve used it a couple times and only once have I not made the flight I wanted, and in that case I was just bumped to the next flight out. </p>
<p>Everyone always raves to me about Southwest, but Southwest didn’t service New York and won’t until the end of this month, when they add service at LaGuardia airport. Same thing with JetBlue – cheap flights, but it doesn’t go to a lot of the cities conferences in my field are commonly held in and it doesn’t go home. I use kayak.com and I find the cheapest flights that way – recently booked a round-trip mid-afternoon flight to Toronto, flying out on a Sunday and coming back on a Sunday, for $187 (taxes and fees included). I also recommend lastminute.com if you need to make last-minute flight arrangements. An emergency happened and I had to fly home to Atlanta from New York, but I only found out about it the week of. I was able to book a round-trip flight AND a car AND a hotel for $250. I booked it on Thursday and left Friday!</p>
<p>I also agree with HImom’s advice – don’t book flights until your dates are set. This includes finals times and spring break trips. Professors are notoriously steadfast about not allowing students to test early simply because they’ve already booked a flight home or to their spring break destination and don’t want to pay the change fees (and anyway, it’s rude to ask your professors to move up your finals dates because you want to start your vacation earlier). Also, like she says if you can help it, don’t check any luggage. I pack all of the clothes I need for up to a week in my little rollaway carry-on, and then I pack my other things (like my computer and books) into my bookbag. Helps since the airlines are now charging you to check even one bag!</p>
<p>for overseas flights (study abroad?) google best travel store. They have amazingly cheap flights.</p>
<p>If there is a preferred airline that serves your cities well, explore the credit cards offered in connection with that iarline & see if any of them are helpful & have any deals as well. Some are better than others and it’s only a “deal” if you always pay off everything & don’t incur huge finance and interest charges.</p>