Student Airfares
 

My son will be starting college in Indiana in the fall and we live between Providence and Boston. Are there any good websites for student airfares? We are particularly interested in flights on NWA, Continental or Delta. Thanks for any help.

Our son is also at college, air travel distance away. We have not found any specific student airfares or sites, but we have saved money by signing up for various "fare watcher" alerts - some airlines let you sign up for email alerts of fare drops and Delta and some others let you customize the fare watcher feature.

There are ikely one or 2 airlines that serve the airport you would use in Indiana. Make sure you and son sign up for FF program and possibly get affinity credit card for that airline. We are able to charge our son's tuition and fees to credit card - that is one free ticket a year just for that!

Take a look at

studentuniverse.com

I haven't used them, so I can't vouch for them. I seem to recall some specialists that advertise in the school papers, but its been years and memories fade.

There will likely be a student travel agency on campus if it's a reasonably large school. I also think STA travel is student oriented.

That said, just like gail, I've seen better regular fares than student fares the few times I've helped my student sister-in-law search for them.

You didn't say where in Indiana your son would be attending school, but if its anywhere near Indianapolis, your best bet is Southwest Airlines flying out of either Boston or Providence, whichever location has the best price for the dates you want. Usually, you get the best deals from Southwest when they run specials, but sometimes it is more important to buy as far in advance as possible, especially around school holidays.

Forgot to say that Southwest now offers a program that will alert you when they run specials. Check out their web site.

Thanks everyone! He's going to Notre Dame and we have used Southwest to fly into Midway. There is a bus from there to the campus (but it's a three hour drive by this bus! -- we drove a lot faster!!!) I will make sure I sign up for all the fare alerts. Gail, I like the idea of paying his tuition by credit card and actually getting something out of it!!! I'll have to see if we can do that.

Above poster brings up important point. Do not wait until last minute, even if waiting for good fares, for vacation at peak travel times, especially Thanksgiving and/or Chrismas break.

While I am at it nagging you about that, make hotel reservations for you if you will be there at beginning of school, parents' weekend, end of school, etc - in any college town the decent hotels fill amazingly fast at these times of year.

Thanks Gail! We already have hotel reservations for August (dropoff and freshmen parents'weekend) and hotel and air for a parents weekend in Oct.Thanksgiving is iffy because he wants to try out for the marching band and they might travel over the holiday.

Try Independence Air, flyi.com. They have a student travel program taking place over the summer called GLIDE. Students pay a fixed fee for unlimited travel. They may offer something similar in the Fall.