Travelling on the cheap... Airfares and such

Davion

Davion

Scholar
Colorado Staff
So, I'm kind of eager to go and visit some other chapters. I've set aside a fixed amount of money for doing some travel and vacations (some not larp related). One place I'd really like to visit is Seattle for their 4 day, and I'm sure other events will pop up on my radar. Does anybody have any advice on where to find cheap airfares and other ways to save money for larp related events? My arrival/departure times are pretty flexible, but I'm not quite willing to spend 48+hours on a bus or train to save a $100. Any advice you can give me would be very much appreciated!
 
really depends upon how far out you are buying, but more times than not I find the actual Airline sites are just as good $ as other 'multi' sites.
I have checked Kayak and Orbitz vs the airline before buying usually.
 
One good idea is to go ahead and just find out what airlines use that city as a hub then look up those prices directly.
 
Also, consider the possibility of flying into a nearby airport and hitching a ride the rest of the way. I know a lot of Seattle players come from the Portland area.
 
Also, if you're a student there is a website that offers student fares which can be much cheaper. Granted, this info is from about 5 years ago.
 
fly.com, kayak.com, Southwest (if you can).

I live on the west coast and have flown back east several times to play game and visit family, those are how I go.
 
If you're doing a lot of flying around (especially cross-country), it might make sense to find a common airline for all the places you wish to visit. By sticking with a single airline, you can sign up for their rewards program and likely earn yourself a free plane ticket or two. Might save you more money in the long run, not to mention free upgrades and hotel deals, too!

-Luke
 
Also, the further you schedule in advance, the better your odds are on a decent price.

For example, when I flew to Germany (I know, exceptional) getting my tickets 6 mo. or so in advance saved me about $300 or so on the flight. And yes, if you're flying regularly- look into rewards programs.
 
Another possibility depends on your ability to check airfares daily - many services and airlines will refund you the difference in airfare on days when there are deals.

So, if you bought a ticket at $600, and then found out a month later that the exact same flight was going for $400, you would call their customer service line and request a $200 refund.
 
I really like Hipmunk.com because you can choose to book a flight by the amount of pain in the butt it is, or the cheapest.

Also, as someone who works in the hospitality industry I would highly recommend looking at going in a day early or a day later to see if that will change your price. You can always make an offering to a local to use their couch. :)
 
If you are looking at flights turn on Incongnito mode (in Chrome, anyway). Airlines use cookies to track your activity and if they see you are frequently checking certain flights they will raise the prices of those flights according to how much you want it. Incognito mode turns off cookies and circumvents this.
 
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