<p>Ok all of you tri-staters; need some advice here......</p>
<p>Is Continental the only airline that flies to Greensboro?</p>
<p>we are trying to plan a visit this spring; this is the deal.....</p>
<p>1) Junior Open House is April 10th...the same day as the ACT...no go ( not sure if Elon realized this when it was scheduled?)</p>
<p>2) Daughter has various Mondays off; airfare to and from Greensboro for a Monday visit is....wait for it......$1,000</p>
<p>3) other Saturdays Elon is closed for other events.......</p>
<p>We could drive down for a Friday visit but 8.5 hours on a Thursday night after work seems like a "bear"......may just have to fly on the only Friday she has off......</p>
<p>ANy other ideas? does any other airline fly down there? I guess we could look into another NC airport, but an hour drive for a 24 hr visit seems a little bit much......</p>
<p>It is usually cheaper to fly to Raleigh/Durham which is 45 minutes away I think.
( Never been yet but that is what it seemed to be. ) We are going for the Fellows weekend . I want to fly . DH wnts to drive. UGH!</p>
<p>Scoutmom: um, is it possible we are married to the same person??lol…I want to fly also…Husband is like, “8.5 hours; no brainer”…so, I said, “on a Thursday night, after work?”…he is still thinking like we are in our 30’s when we used to overnight it to S.C. for vacation…ugh…</p>
<p>I’ll check Raleigh/ Durham too, but I have a feeling the Sunday-Monday trip is still going to be a fortune…thanks…</p>
<p>edit: Thursday night to Sat morning…$188…Thursday-Friday $786…haha…Sunday to Monday $786…onward…</p>
<p>Hi Rodney: My daughter is a freshman at Elon and we live in NY. We fly on Jet Blue from JFK to RDU airport all the time - and the flights are quick and the fares are reasonable. The car rentals at Raleigh airport are good and the ride to Elon is 50 minutes of all highway and no traffic. Also check out Southwest Air from Philly to RDU for some cheap direct flights.</p>
<p>Try to stay at the Acorn Inn in Elon and you can walk to the school from this hotel. If not, the hotels by the highway are 5 minutes by car and are fine (Marriott or Country Suites).</p>
<p>Overall, we’re having a great experience with Elon. The college is really well run and has the best balance of academics, facilities, and cost. Of all the public/private colleges we visited last year from Delaware to Florida, Elon was the one school that had no real drawbacks and was affordable.</p>
<p>We visited Elon in September. Flew direct from Bradley to RDU on American Eagle and like someone else said, it’s less than an hour to campus and an easy drive. We booked our flight, hotel and car through Expedia and for 3 nights it was something like $800 total for 2 of us. HOWEVER I learned on our flight home that AE was going to discontinue the direct service to RDU from BDL as of April 1 which is a bummer. I think they said you’ll have to change planes in Baltimore going forward. DD is still waiting for her decision from Elon, but I’ve been looking at alternative ways to get there. Most economical I’ve found is LGA to Greenville; you change planes in Charlotte. Can’t seem to find ANY direct flights. Prices out of Newark seem better, but we live in CT and the hassle factor comes into play. </p>
<p>RDU is fine if we’re with her and renting a car–not sure how students would get back to Elon from RDU after visits home. Maybe a zip car? Don’t know if they are available at airports.</p>
<p>thanks for all the tips; looks like RDU will be the ticket; round trip LGA $188…have to stay two nights but no biggie…want to have time to tool around the area anyway…</p>
<p>tmcgloin: thanks for the hotel tips; with Marriott points we will look into that…</p>
<p>Elon runs a shuttle to/from the airports (RDU and Greensboro) at the beginning and end of all breaks. Cost is $45 to RDU and $35 to GSO, students must reserve their spot at least 2 weeks in advance. However, my son has jumped on the shuttle without a reservation. We are from Long island, so he flies Southwest to RDU ($89 each way with a stop in Baltimore).</p>
<p>If you are looking into direct flights from NY to Greensboro, US Air flies direct. I have found them to be the carrier with the cheapest fares and it is only a 90 minute flight. Word of advice, if you are flexible with your dates just keep checking their website. I looked at fares in January for my son, in the event that he came home for spring break (he is at Wake Forest and their break begins 3/6-3/14). At that time, it was $69 each way ($ 138 round trip) to fly which is really cheap. I asked him what his plans were, said he wasn’t sure that he and his friends may go somewhere, so I did nothing. 10 days ago he tells me he is going to come home so I went to book the flight and the cost was $302 which is really high, I normally pay around $200-$230 round trip. I just checked the site today and if I was buying tickets today the same flights that I have him booked on would cost $520 (and there are no seats left!). But US Air has 5 direct flights each day from LGA to Greensboro and 6 direct flights from Greensboro to LGA the only exception is that there are no direct flights to NY on Saturdays. I think Elon is even closer to Greensboro than Wake is and it only takes my son 30minutes to get from campus to the airport. They have an airport shuttle that runs from campus to the airport every hour during break travel days so because it is so easy I really only look into flying in and out of Greensboro. Charlotte has more direct flights but it is almost 1 1/2 - 2 hours away by car so it isn’t worth it. Planning ahead is key. Good Luck.</p>