Going home - Cheap travel tips

You have to go home sometime. Here are a few ideas on how to save money when you do:

Drivers:

Find someone with a car and a stable personality that’s driving your way and see if they want to share expenses. Most colleges have bulletin boards (real and/or electronic) to help enable ride shares.

Flyers:

1. Book early. At least two weeks early. It’s almost always cheaper, plus if you plan way ahead you can watch fares for a while and see what’s happening. Thanksgiving is a bear tho because you have little flexibility on when you can leave and return - best to get them when you can, as early as you can.
2. Be flexible with your dates if possible. Southwest has a feature called “Southwest Shortcut” which shows you what the lowest fare is for dates before and after your planned arrival and departure dates. Just enter your desired itinerary on their main screen and when the results show up then click the “Shortcut” button to the right of the page. You’ll be amazed by how much difference even a single day can make. You may find it’s a whole lot cheaper to wait around a day before flying home, or that you should come back a day or two early.
3. Book mid-week. I’ve heard Wednesday is the best but have no data to prove it. Weekends are priciest, and while a little cheaper Monday and Friday usually seem to be more than mid-week.
4. Used to be that planning your trip to include a Saturday night at your destination could make the airfare less.  Then for awhile it didn’t matter.  Now it’s coming back.  So, if you have the flexibility in your schedule, check and see if it helps.
5. If you have the option of using different departure and arrival airports then check them out as well.   I remember one trip where we saved a bundle by flying into an airport that was just one-half hour longer drive from our destination than our usual airport.
6. Sites to check. MSN has a new site in beta that I like (which is saying a lot since I’m not a big fan of MS products) called FareCast.   It not only aggregates fares from the major airlines at least as well as the others (hotwire, expedia, orbitz, etc…) but it’s got a few cool extras as well. My favorite is the fare history and forecast.   I use it for my aggregate searching.  Then go direct to Southwest and JetBlue.   If Southwest goes where you’re going they’ll probably have the best fare.  And they have that cool “Shortcut” feature that shows the lowest fare for days before and after your travel dates.   Plus, at the time of this writing they’re not charging extra for bags, window or isle seats, or curbside check-in as some other airlines are.
7. Make sure when you compare fares that you’re not comparing apples and oranges. Some sites show round trip, others show the fare each way, some quote basic airfare, others include fees and taxes. The round-trip airfare with all fees and taxes will be there, it just may not be obvious.
8. After buying your tickets, continue to keep an eye on the fares. I’m told that some airlines will give you a voucher for the difference if the fare for your flight drops after your purchase.

In summary, book early, be flexible in your dates, and check FareCast, Southwest and JetBlue for the best fares.