Making Airline Reservations

[ZekeMD]

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Does anyone know a good way to find reasonable flight deals. I have at least 5 schools I'll need to fly to. I've tried travelocity but everything is VERY VERY expensive. There's no way I can afford to fly to 1 school, let alone 5 if the round trips will cost $400 each!

 

[Fritz]

Try Expedia. Sometimes is like 240 for a round trip.

 

[coachB]

i usually have the best luck with orbitz. also, depending on your route, southwest and jet blue are often good deals and they won't show up on the major sites.

 

[HKDO08]

I had the best luck with Expedia.com. You could also try smaller airline companies such as JetBlue--they tend to have cheaper fares. Also don't forget to try Southwest.com because Southwest is not on Expedia and they can be cheap at times too.

Also it helps if you book flights as early as possible if you can. You may have to move interviews to a slighly later date to get a cheaper flight.

Lari

 

[Gleevec]

I agree, Southwest, JetBlue, orbitz.com, travelocity.com, expedia.com are all good to look at.

 

[docquaker]

see if ata or jetblue flies to any of the cities that you have to go to. southwest also. whether or not $400 is a bad deal depends on the flight...a coast to coast flight for $400 isn't too bad...

probably the cheapest way to go is priceline.com, but remember, if they find the flight, they'll automatically bill it to your credit card.

good luck!

 

[ZekeMD]

hahaha it wasn't quite coast to coast, it was buffalo to boston. Normally I would drive, but the weather is so unpredictable here in December.

 

[Fritz]

Just drive. I lived in NY state, if there something that it is really terrible, the interview will probably be cancelled as well. From Buffalo to Boston it is really not worth flying.

 

[jtn]

If your schools are all on one side of the country, you should try to coordinate them all in one week or something. Then use a cheap airline like JetBlue or Southwest. It saves a lot of money. That's what I did to the school in the east coast (I'm from socal). jtn

 

[woolie]

Dude, I flew Jetblue from Salt Lake to NYC ($112), took the train to Philly ($100 R/T), then flew back NYC to SLC ($112).

Including lunch and snax, the trip cost me like, $350. That beats the $500+ quoted on the cheap tix sites.

Jetblue baby - all the way!

 

[Megalofyia]

I used priceline quite sucessfully. If you way underbid it does give you the option to take the deal they find or not if they can't find one that is that low.

 

[trudgingalong]

another one of those cheap airlines you might want to check out is spirit airlines (they list flights on orbitz). for a recent interview, i paid ~$350 for a one-stop flight, while a fellow interviewee had paid ~$130 for a nonstop flight (both from ny area to detroit). and of course, advance purchases are always better to have and sometimes saturday night stayovers make all the difference in the world...

 

[Neuronix]

I had a lot of luck last year with student universe. http://www.studentuniverse.com/

Alot of times the harder to find tickets or tickets close to the flight are alot cheaper on there.

 

[edmadison]

Here is one very important tip:

After using any of the websites like orbitz, travelocity, et al. and finding a low fair, go to the website of that airline. I have routinely found a cheaper fair on the airlines own site. Once I saved over $100.00, but usually more like $30.00

Ed

 

[Brickhouse]

TRAVELZOO.COM = sign up to get their weekly emails, they have a top 20 list, the most recent one had fares as low as $29. No joke. I flew from L.A. to NY for less than $200 using their site.