<p>I would like to attend accepted students weekend at Georgetown with my daughter since they have several programs for the parents, but I just checked non-stop flights and they are $487 apiece on U.S. Air. AirTran has a non-stop for $187, which makes it affordable for us both to go. I am not familiar with this airline. Can anyone tell me about it? Also, it goes into BWI so it seems to be further from the school than the other airports. Is this a tremendous hassle? Thanks for any info.</p>
<p>as mentioned on another thread, Sunday (or Friday or Saturday) are NOT good days to look/book (for) airfare…two choices:</p>
<p>1) wait until Tuesday and check again
2) sign up for an airfare watch alert on <a href=“http://www.kayak.com;%5B/url%5D”>www.kayak.com;</a> they will email you daily with the cheapest fare for your itinerary…</p>
<p>BWI can be a good alternative, as is Dulles. You can take Amtrak from BWI to DC-Union Station where you could pick up the Metro-subway (or cab) to a DC hotel. For Dulles, however, you’d need to take a shuttle bus into town.</p>
<p>Altho I haven’t flown AirTran, they’ve been around for awhile and have a pretty good sized hub at ATL. btw: Southwest also flies into BWI.</p>
<p>Are you renting a car or relying on public transportation? Both Baltimore and Dulles aren’t far by car. </p>
<p>I like flying into Reagan National and taking the metro. My niece goes to Georgetown and used to find it cheaper to fly into Dulles and take Super Shuttle. Then one of the airlines started flying into Reagan, making it much easier to get there. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>farecast.com is another good site to check airfare prices.</p>
<p>I’ve flown Air Tran with no problems. They’ve been around for a while. From Dulles, you can take a cab to Georgetown for about $50. From BWI, you can take the train to Union Station and cab to Georgetown. From Reagan, the cab fare to Georgetown is about $18.</p>
<p>Air Tran is good and cheap. My family is in the midwest and I’m near DC, over the years about half of our flights to visit each other have been on Air Tran. Keep checking the Air Tran website for specials. They post new ones each week, I just can’t remember if it is on Tuesday or Thursday.</p>
<p>From Reagan Nat’l Airport, to get to a hotel at (essentially) 23rd and H, is the Metro easy and doable, and if so, what stops? Thanks, DC folks :-)</p>
<p>Re: AirTran. Perfectly fine budget airline. It used to be known as ValuJet – do you remember the crash over the Everglades, maybe 12-15 years ago? After that, the name was changed to AirTran.</p>
<p>The Foggy Bottom metro station is at 23rd and I, one block from your hotel. Take the blue line from National Airport to Foggy Bottom. It is some distance from Georgetown (37th and N), so you might want to take a cab from your hotel to the campus. And if your hotel is at 23rd and I, you might as well check out George Washington-you’ll be right in the middle of its campus.</p>
<p>D flew AirTran many times during her four years in school in DC. Several times it was cheaper to fly to BWI and then take the Super Shuttle than to fly into either Dulles or Reagan…even with the cost of the Super Shuttle added to the airfare cost. Plus Super Shuttle will take you directly from airport to your hotel (or in D’s case to her dorm or apartment) and will pick you up at hotel for return trip. Just be sure to allott enough time—Super Shuttle will usually recommend pickup times.</p>
<p>I prefer Airtran over Delta. Where my daughter had to fly to school, Delta had the monopoly so she would fly into an airport an hour away where both Delta and Airtran flew. She liked to fly Airtran as the planes were larger as Delta used the 50 seaters and she hates small planes. </p>
<p>Go with Airtran if the flight is cheaper. If for some reason you can fly Southwest you might find an even better fare.</p>
<p>My niece has had a couple of issues with Super Shuttle, before. </p>
<p>Once, even with a reservation and a confirmation, they were an hour and a half late picking her up at her campus going to Dulles. She nearly missed the flight - only because she planned on a huge gap before flying out did she make it, and then her bags still ended up coming a few days later. </p>
<p>Right before Christmas, when DC was socked in with winter weather, she called to check on a possible ride, after her taxi fell through to Reagan (as well as busses, metro closed and friends couldn’t get their cars out from the white stuff). The dispatcher for Super Shuttle was pretty funny. He told her to call Santa Claus. “Perhaps Santa could pick her up in the sleigh, because we can’t”, was his explanation. ;D</p>
<p>Renting a car at BWI may be the way to go, if you accompany your daughter. (Rental car agencies in Maryland are far more reluctant than those in some other states to rent to very young people, so this will not work if she goes alone.) Renting a car enables you to avoid the long waits for SuperShuttles and the awkward fact that the MARC commuter trains (the other customary way of getting from DC to BWI) don’t run on weekends. Also, a car may be helpful in DC itself; the Metro trains don’t go to Georgetown, and buses may be difficult to figure out.</p>
<p>As someone else already mentioned, AirTran isn’t the only budget airline that flies to BWI. Check out Southwest.</p>
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<p>Thanks! We’re checking out all 3 - GWU, AU and Gtown.</p>
<p>Renting a car is OK, but parking anywhere in DC is a royal pain. In addition, hotels in DC charge about $30 per day for parking. Cabs are plentiful, reasonable and more convenient. Between the metro and cabs, you’ll be all set. Remember, Super Shuttle takes many passengers and your stop may be the last stop and unless you don’t mind taking a super detour to your destination,it can be tiring after a long flight.</p>
<p>I second the “take a cab” suggestion.</p>