Traveling to Portland- cheapest ideas?

[oompa loompa]

Portland seems to be an expensive city to fly to no matter what time of year it is! The cheapest ticket I found in November was $418 (departing from Pittsburgh); in December, it is a little more; in January, a little less.

One option I thought about was flying into Seattle (significantly cheaper) and then renting a car to drive to Portland (~3 hrs away).

Does anyone have any other ideas or tips when traveling to Portland? Thanks

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[NotAProgDirector]

Southwest flies there, and they are not listed on Orbitz or most of the other search engines. The cheapest I could find from Chicago to Portland was around $336. before you have a heart attack using Southwest's reservation system, the prices listed when you start choosing flights are per-leg. If that doesn't make sense, you'll see when you actually start using their site and you think you'll be getting a flight from Chi to Portland for $154, which you are not....

 

[gutonc]

Portland seems to be an expensive city to fly to no matter what time of year it is! The cheapest ticket I found in November was $418 (departing from Pittsburgh); in December, it is a little more; in January, a little less.

One option I thought about was flying into Seattle (significantly cheaper) and then renting a car to drive to Portland (~3 hrs away).

Does anyone have any other ideas or tips when traveling to Portland? Thanks

Yes, for reasons that aren't entire clear to me, it costs a crapload to fly here from most places. I have done the "fly to Seattle/drive to Portland" thing a few times and it invariably sucks. The main reason is that flights from the East Coast tend to get here late in the day so, after getting up at the crack of dawn, spending 4-8 hours in planes/airports, you now have to get in a car and drive another 3 hours, usually arriving in Portland after 10pm. If you now have to get up at 5 or 6 and rally for an interview, it'll be painful. I've personally decided that if I'm not saving $300 on a ticket, it's not worth the drive. Besides, if you have to rent a car, you're probably talking about at least $100 for rental, gas, etc for a couple of day which will probably eat up any savings on the plane ticket. YMMV of course. Also, keep in mind that your return flight to the East Coast will probably leave @ 7am or so, making the trip back even more painful.

Check out Southwest. Frontier and JetBlue fly here too but aren't all that cheap. Consider a multi-city flight if you're going to interview other places out west. It can often be cheaper to make a big loop than 2 or 3 RT flights.