<p>I saw a thread on this a while back but paid little attention. Now that my S is committed to attending school on the opposite coast - could someone fill me in on how to find cheap airfares?</p>
<p>We use Cheaptickets, but sometimes the airlines' websites can be cheaper. PLanning in advance seems to help. Make sure they know when their finals are going to be over and exactly when their last class is around Thanksgiving and Christmas.</p>
<p>Southwest Airlines, Yahoo, and a filtering search site-Sidestep, which consistently gives upto the minute pricing although filtering takes time.
We've noticed that longer flights have increased in price in just last week and that short hops are nearly the price as coastal flights. </p>
<p>Sometimes cheaper or nearly as cheap to fly to alternative city and then ply to destination on a separate ticket.</p>
<p>I watch for sales. Which cities are you talking about? Most coastal cities have at least one discount airline, but which one varies. Orbitz has the cheapest one-way fares, which can make sense for some situations.</p>
<p>I also use frequent flyer mileage for my son's tickets, because of the long stayover, which sometimes makes standard prices higher. I have gotten $299 Seattle to Boston non-stop roundtrips on several occasions by watching for Alaska's sales. I get the newsletter for all relevant airlines.</p>
<p>My son goes back and forth regularly between DC and LA. We get good fares from <a href="http://www.studentuniverse.com%5B/url%5D">www.studentuniverse.com</a>. They don't beat the rockbottom fares of Southwest et al, but since it takes him so long to decide what date he wants to travel on, between exams and projects, we usually lose out on the really cheap fares, and Student Universe has been a lifesaver in terms of last-minute (or nearly last-minute) discounts.</p>
<p>Use the Super Search feature at Travelzoo.com
You enter you departure and destination locations, dates and preferred times once, and you then can do searches on Orbitz, Travelocity, Cheaptickets, individual airlines, etc.</p>
<p>specific cities are NY (any NY area airport is ok) and central California - any airport from LA to San Fran would be ok.</p>
<p>Try JetBlue..they have good fares from JFK to Long Beach, which is a much easier airport than LAX. They put theri seats on sale approx 6 months in advance and if you ctach them as soon as they go onsale you can get them REALLY cheap, but even if you don't, they have good prices.</p>
<p>studentuniverse.com has worked for me!!</p>
<p>I set up a search on Orbitz.com with "airports within 80 miles" and "search one day before and after" using SFO and NYC and dates of Aug 25th and Dec 15th (picked at random) and got fares as low as $215 round trip. Routing: Frontier from SFO to Denver to Phila (which is within 80 miles of NYC, but...) </p>
<p>My next step would be to check Frontier's web site and maybe the sites of the other cheap airlines. </p>
<p>And if I really could get $215 for a coast-to-coast route I liked, I'd buy it.</p>
<p>(Incidentally, using this kind of thing--flexible dates, etc.--I once got $145 rt from Seattle to Orlando on Northwest. That was fun.)</p>
<p>The good thing about Southwest is that yu can change the tickets and receive credit for their full value.</p>
<p>When visiting we flew LA-Phila & Hartford-LA and the tickets were about $250 RT, plus tax. You <em>can</em> get them as low as $99 each way if you shop the sales.</p>
<p>Lots of choices on the net from PHL to SFO in the $220-250 range, sometimes less, excepting holiday travel.</p>
<p>I second student universe. It has worked for us getting D from Boston to Anchorage also best fares from BOS-SEA - she has had no problem catching AKAir flight home to Anch.</p>
<p>thanks for all who pointed to student universe. I looked at some sample fares and they look great. They require a student email account and since my S doesnt have that yet (Fall Freshman - dont know when his email will actually be activated) I guess I cannot book now for Thanksgiving...bummer...</p>
<p>Same issue for my D...no email account til school starts. So a question to current users: do you get to pick airlines, flights and times on studentuniverse.com, or is it like Priceline where you don't know until you buy? Thx.</p>
<p>NY to Oakland, Jet Blue pretty consistently has had lowest fares. Son booked one way trip home for May: $89.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info on the other sites!</p>
<p>tborr123: It's not like Priceline. They give you a choice of airlines, flights, times, and prices. Sort of like the Orbitz and Travelocity screens, only cheaper.</p>