Traveling Before Med School: anyone know anywhere to get good deals?

[winsicle]

---

Members don't see this ad.

for flights to Europe, or a place that has good last minute deals for underbooked flights?

 

[reddyroo]

for flights to Europe, or a place that has good last minute deals for underbooked flights?

if you are still considered a student you could try www.studentuniverse.com

 

[drdr2010]

i don't know about getting to and from Europe, but once you are there, try easyJet (www.easyjet.com) for flying around. much cheaper than a Eurail pass. i once bought a ticket from London to Amsterdam for $9.50. don't let the name and the bright orange seats scare you...its worth what you pay for it!

 

[riven5]

My friends and I will be in London and Europe (France, Amsterdam, Prague etc.) this July...at this point there are a whole lot of crappy fares but if you don't mind flying some weird airlines or out of some random places check out The Best Travel Store online. Sometimes they have some less expensive stuff. To add to the intra-Europe travel, Ryanair also has some very reasonable fares albeit to some random locations.

Have fun! (I know I plan to)

 

[DGhiker]

I have used www.hotwire.com in the past to travel to CO from NY (not international, I realize) and I got a pretty decent fare. If you're flexible with your departure and arrival times (not days), this may be a good option. You don't see what airline carrier you're flying on until you book it, but if I remember correctly I think they guarantee you'll be flying on a well-known carrier. I went on Northwest I believe. Seriously though, you should check this site out... I get emails from them and one of them said they have fares to London as low as $88. I'm sure it depends on what airport you're traveling out of, but even so.... G'luck

 

[nockamura]

www.mobissimo.com
It searches over 100 travel sites (expedia, hotwire, etc) and lists results as per your criteria.

 

[shantster]

if you are still considered a student you could try www.studentuniverse.com

That's a site I'm definately going to be bookmarking for when interviews come! Thanks!! 👍 👍

 

[hwong14]

www.skyauction.com

It's a great auction site for airfare, hotels, and airfare+hotels. I've used it multiple times to go to Taiwan, the Dominican Republic, Europe, and places in the U.S. Definitely check other sites, though, cause if/when crazy people get into bidding wars, the deals end up being not so great anymore.

 

[Mistress S]

My BF and I are flying to Europe and backpacking around Spain, Morocco, and Italy during July and August. This is pretty much the worst time to travel there due to heat, costs, and heavy tourism, but it's the only time we can go between work and school. We paid ~$1000 each for our tickets 😱 , flying from Seattle to Madrid with one layover. This was, after hours of searching around online, the best deal we could find. Flights to Europe in the summer are expensive, you may get lucky though. A friend of ours who is also going to Europe bought his tickets back in March and paid ~$600 total to fly from Portland to Italy, however he built his itinerary by buying the tickets for each leg of his trip seperately so he will take 3 days to get there. Student universe is an option, but they are very strict in their definition of "student"--even though it is summer, you must be currently enrolled in your fall classes already to qualify (and they verify this with your school). I have been out of school for a year and will be starting med school this fall, they said my acceptance letter or even a letter from the registrar wouldn't be enough, I would have to be enrolled in classes or have paid tuition already (which won't happen until after we get back 🙄 ). But in searching their flight deals I didn't see a huge difference in price anyway. Another student/youth site that is less strict is STA travel (www.statravel.com). Expedia (www.expedia.com) was having a summer sale on flight/hotel packages to Europe, don't know if it's still going on but they had some decent deals (unfortunately for me, they were all for people flying from east coast locations, but this may help others out there). Also try www.virgin-vacations.com, they had some decent packages too. With some of the package deals, you're getting a cheap flight and the hotel almost for free, and you can keep the hotel for only the first couple nights of your trip and have your flight return date later so you can travel around staying in cheaper accomodation and extend your trip if that's what you want. If you have flexibility in your travel dates, try the flexible date search on www.travelocity.com -this is how we got our tickets. It allows you to search for the cheapest flights in any month or longer period, but you have to be patient as often when you try to select a date it will show it as sold-out, so it can be time-consuming to find a flight that actually has availability on dates that are within your range--obviously, the more flexible you are the better. Also keep in mind when looking at flight prices that the initial quote on a website often doesn't include taxes and fees, which can significantly raise the price. Basically, the sooner you can go the better--flights are most expensive July and August, even June will be cheaper; and if you are flying from the east coast it will be cheaper than the west coast. Good luck!