<p>For a number of reasons, D wants to fly home to the midwest from Boston but return to school via New York.</p>
<p>One way flights tend to be outrageously expensive, as are multiple city itineraries.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any tips on making this work for a reasonable dollar amount?</p>
<p>I haven’t found a round trip such as the one you describe to be unusually expensive, particularly if you’re talking about going through a major hub such as NYC. It really shouldn’t make any difference, IMO. However, if I’m wrong in this case, it’s an easy train ride from NYC to Boston.</p>
<p>Try Orbitz or Sidestep. I do not find such flights to be more expensive, though there may be a differential city by city.</p>
<p>Has reasonable one-way tickets.</p>
<p>You can also try statravel. Students, for $15/year can get decent discounts on airfare. When I bought a 1-way ticket through them from Madison to Raleigh/Durham 3 weeks in advance in July, I paid just over $100, much less than I was seeing anywhere else.</p>
<p>Another option I like is just going direct through airlines, it seems that the discounts don’t really exist with the middle-man search engines anymore. But that’s just my opinion.</p>
<p>Southwest, which does one way travel very reasonably, does not show up on search companies like orbitz and travelocity. We often book my daughter one way to or from her college near St. Louis. From Boston area, Southwest leaves out of Providence.</p>
<p>i love you all for this imformation, but SHHHHHHHH, we don’t want everyone ELSE to know the secrets otherwise, the tickets will be goonnnee</p>
<p>JK- but those sites are very helpful, even a 40 saving covers the youth hostel, and food…</p>
<p>How does it work if parent is traveling with student, do we book on seperate sites?</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone can use studentuniverse except students or staff at a college. When my son registered for it he had to prove his student status through the colleges website. Of course, they are happy to take anyone’s credit card to pay for it, but I think it’s only the college communtiy that can travel. I got my son a pretty cheap plane ticket for fall break through them.</p>
<p>My travel strategy is to look at the airports I’ll be traveling to or from and get a list of all the airlines they have. Then I’ll go to orbitz or sidestep, etc. and do a check on the actual trip I want. If they don’t mention all the airlines, I’ll go direct to the missing airline and do a search for that trip on their website. If I find the best price from orbitz/sidestep/travelocity, I will go to the airline that they are saying has the low price and book that flight through the airlines website.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your suggestions. I figured it out using the AA shuttle from Boston to New York and then a round trip back and forth from/to New York.</p>
<p>Based on a lot of internet checking, I think I can state that for the most part multiple one-way flights are much more expensive than a round trip.</p>
<p>There should be a Nobel prize awarded to anyone that can figure out the airline pricing strategies. They really make no sense (to me) at all. Why should a one way flight more expensive than 1/2 of a roundtrip?</p>
<p>Bring back Student Standby. I travelled extensively in the 70s using Student Standby.</p>
<p>Take a look at JetBlue. It serves NY and Boston pretty well, and depending on which Midwest city you are talking about, you might be able to put together a reasonably-priced triangular flight.</p>
<p>Student Standby in this day of packed flights? I think I’ll pay regular fares for my D, thank you.</p>
<p>Why do airlines price the way they do? To extract as much money from travelers as they can, of course. The majors still think one way trips are primarly business travel, a good assumption in my book. That said, I’ve found good deals on one way travel too. </p>
<p>BTW, UMdad, if money is an issue, you might have your D look into the cheap buses from NYC to Boston. If she’s anywhere near chinatown in NYC, to use one example, she can take a 4 hour bus to Boston. Not much longer than the time to get to/from airports, wait for flights etc., maybe even less.</p>
<p>If she takes a bus between NYC and Boston, I’d have her avoid the Fung Wah busline. S1 has talked about using it, but I am convinced the bus will catch on fire somewhere in Connecticut! Stick with Peter Pan or Greyhound.</p>
<p>My D traveled on Peter Pan a lot. The buses broke down all the time. (though none ever actually caught on fire.) I think in one trip just between NYC and Middletown, CT, she had to switch from Princess Tiger Lily to MIchael and John to Nana (yes, they are really named like that.) On the return trip, she realized she was back on Michael and John, whose engine was smoking a couple days before. They made it, though the drive had to keep stopping to let the engine cool.</p>
<p>D takes the Greyhound from Boston to NYC and says it isn’t much more than the discounted buses. Cheaper than flying…</p>
<p>Fung Wah had a rollover accident in Worcester a short while ago. There are many issues with their safety. I still wouldn’t want to ride on one.</p>
<p>Eating with chopsticks while driving a bus is even worse than cell-phoning.</p>