Since this process requires so much travel, what have you all found as the most beneficial air and hotel companies to use for auditions? I understand that Palmer House in Chicago is a Hilton, so it would be great to have Hilton Honors. What are some other good groups to join and what is the best way to get the most benefit from them?
I know a lot of people use Southwest Airlines, but every time I search their website for prices, they are substantially higher than other airlines. What am I missing?
Make sure you are adding in baggage fees to other airline fares so you are comparing apples to apples. Southwest lets you check two bags for free. The best thing about Southwest is their flexibility. You can cancel any flight and get full credit towards a future flight. Or, if you book something now and find a lower rate later, you can re-book the same flights and get a credit. Or, if you need to change a flight you just pay the difference in fare. There aren’t any change fees on SW, whereas the “change fees” on other airlines can go as high as $150 per ticket. Our Southwest Visa reward points covered almost all of our flights for auditions last year. As you can probably tell, we love them, but we market where they offer service to tons of destinations.
@mom2MTgal On Southwest some people qualify for a free “companion ticket” if they also have their airline credit card and a certain # of points. I don’t remember the particulars but you can probably google it. I think the free companion ticket lasts for 12-18 months…which, with their no change/cancelation fee policy, would certainly make them a more affordable option for 2 people flying. We didn’t know about this when my S was auditioning…otherwise I would have definitely have been interested in it as well.
When you are planning your travel, keep an eye on the big picture. There is an easy tendency to focus on airfare but in reality, cities like NYC, Chicago and LA can get pretty pricey per night of hotel stay. And transportation to/from the airport or audition location be it renting a car (which also involves parking the car) or hiring a cab or the equivalent will also add up. It could be that that “cheaper hotel” requires more expensive transportation in comparison to one that is a bit more, but accessible by subway to the audition location or airport. Best of luck!
I got two Southwest Airlines credit cards (with 50,000 bonus miles each), then just needed 10,000 more miles to get a Companion Pass. The Pass allows a companion to fly free with me for two years, and I have 110,000 miles to use as well (plus the miles I earn through continuing to use my card).
When traveling to auditions, be sure to check flights/prices to all nearby airports. We once saved almost $800 by driving a few hours (Frontier had extremely cheap tickets to Dallas, so we flew to Dallas and drove to San Marcos). When auditioning at a place like CCM, check Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Lexington and Dayton.
Finally, check out RocketMiles. It can be used to add miles to your airlines program.
FYI, you will get a lot more “mileage” out of your question if you post it in the generic Parent Cafe forum. Your issue isn’t an MT specific one. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/
While it isn’t totally MT specific, I think MTs do a lot more traveling ( especially in a shorter period of time) than others that are applying. Also, most MTs tend to be traveling to many of the same places, so we all have suggestions about what works and doesn’t. A non-MT would be clueless as to why the OP is asking about the Palmer House.
Just purchased Virgin America to Chicago and I amnervous. love that airline but less flights than United --into Chicago. The price was too good to pass up so I took it…fingers crossed!
Do you pay bag fees on Virgin airlines? I know Spirit has good prices, but the fees can make it much more expensive.
As an aside, I have been looking up tickets from Dallas to NYC and I’m amazed that there are several options for round trip flights for $87. If we had a weekend open in January, I’d take my d in a heartbeat and splurge on tix to Hamilton!
Another nice thing with Southwest’s companion pass: you can change the companion and change it back without a fee. In other words, I am the companion to DH, but when we were on our 5th audition trip and low on points, I called and made D the companion and she flew with DH to LA Unifieds for free. Then changed it back to me when auditions were finished. And it gave DH a taste of the crazy!