Budget Travel - I really want to go home for Thanksgiving...

I'm a college student and don't have a lot of money. I really want to go home for Thanksgiving, but I can't afford to fly. Do you know any way I can win a free, or heavily discounted airplane trip back home and forth?

(Btw, I'm looking for DCA/BWI/IAD to SMF.)

Thanks, everyone!

Are you a Maryland or York County (PA) resident?

Mix 106.5 in Baltimore is teaming up with Southwest Airlines award round trip tickets good thru November 2008 as part of their "Home for the Holidays" contest. I didn't catch the entry deadline, but the winners will be chosen next week - November 12 to 16.

Full details at http://www.mix1065.net/Home-for-the-Holidays/1146943

If I wanted to go anywhere really badly, I certainly would not count on winning a contest. Nice when it happens, but not something to plan an important trip around. Besides, if anyone knew of a sure way to win tickets, do you think they'd post that information here? :D

Yea, you can get 25,000 miles on United really easily. That's enough for a free tix. BUT you must do the following in the EXACT order below.
1) Get a United FF number at United.com
2) Then get a United Visa card with 20,000 bonus miles with this link:
http://www.firstusa.com/cgi-bin/webcgi/webserve.cgi?partner_dir_name=united_signature_20k _1styrfree&page=cont&mkid=60NS

You have to use the card 1 time (buy a tank of gas) to get the miles. No annual fee for the 1st year.

3) Sign up for Netflix for one month ($4.99) with the following link and you must use your United Visa Card to pay for it. This is worth 4000 miles:
http://secure.unitedmileageplus.com/MP0703NFO.jsp

4) Sign up (its free) for United's Dining program (Gives you points if you dine at restaurants in the program) with this link. 250 mile bonus:
https://mpdining.rewardsnetwork.com/registerbonus.jsp?id=UA45&cm_mmc=UA-_-email-_-external-_-Aug07MMP

5) Go Paperless for statements for the United card and get 500 bonus miles with this link: www.chase.com/united

6) Sing up for epay at www.chase.com/united for 500 miles.

When you are all said and done you will have at least 25250 miles for a grand total of $4.99.
There are more small bonuses out there if you look, in the case you don't want to do any of the above.

Some notes to follow:
1) Do not agree for paperless statements on the phone when you activate the card unless they specifically state that you will get the bonus miles if you accept.
2) When you activate the card, they may offer 1000 miles to sign up for the credit protector plan. It costs nothing unless you hold a balance. Take it if they offer it.
3) While the United card is free for the 1st year, don't cancel it until you have all your miles (will take 1-2 months).
4) There is another United Card that will give you 25000 miles straight up after you spend $250. (Go to www.freefrrequentflyermiles.com for the link.)
So, if you buy all your presents with the card, you can get a free tix.
5) You can not get the points in time for Tday, but maybe Xmas, as you need at least 1 month to get the miles.
-W

The OP has asked a question that really isn't appropriate for the Travel Contest forum. Regardless, he has received some very helpful and kind responses.

Thank you to all the members here.

I'm going to move it over to Budget Travel, in hopes that readers there have creative ideas for affordable ways to fly during the holidays.



SanDiego1K
Senior Moderator

2) When you activate the card, they may offer 1000 miles to sign up for the credit protector plan. It costs nothing unless you hold a balance. Take it if they offer it.-W
Be real careful here! We signed up and never carry a balance, but got some hefty charges. They're hard to get a hold of to question. Turns out, the minute you charge anything, you get the fee - it's a percentage of the charge. We pay everything on ourcc and average 2500 a month. I missed the fee at first, but wheni went back and checked, I was paying as much as $50 or $60 a month.What a rip off. They consider a "balance" whatever you put on your card, from the minute you charge it. If your company is different, let me know.
Eileen

Southwest is probably your best cheapest option, though at this point you may be out of luck. Airlines used to run last minute fare sales to fly on Thanksgiving and the Friday after, but these dates now get booked fast as well.

Maybe you can buy a voucher on craigslist, or try a trade in coupon connection.

You could do XFares/Airtran U to go IAD/DCA/BWI to SFO... $90 per segment, standby. You'd have to fly out on Nov 20th or earlier and return on Nov 23rd or 24th. Nov 21st and 25th - 27th are blacked out. It looks like your best bets for clearing are DCA-SFO on Nov 19th and SFO-DCA on Nov 23rd. If you flew confirmed on these flights it'd be $300 + tax r/t vs. $180 r/t.

You could do XFares/Airtran U to go IAD/DCA/BWI to SFO... $90 per segment, standby. You'd have to fly out on Nov 20th or earlier and return on Nov 23rd or 24th. Nov 21st and 25th - 27th are blacked out. It looks like your best bets for clearing are DCA-SFO on Nov 19th and SFO-DCA on Nov 23rd. If you flew confirmed on these flights it'd be $300 + tax r/t vs. $180 r/t.
Unfortunately, AirTran doesn't fly direct between SFO and DCA, you have to change in Atlanta. This means you would have to pay for two segments in the AirTran U program, bringing the cost up to $158 each way, plus at least $10 tax, which is as much as you would pay for a confirmed flight on these days.

Unfortunately, AirTran doesn't fly direct between SFO and DCA, you have to change in Atlanta. This means you would have to pay for two segments in the AirTran U program, bringing the cost up to $158 each way, plus at least $10 tax, which is as much as you would pay for a confirmed flight on these days.

Sorry for the oversight.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

I just had a thought, its too late to do this for Thanksgiving but many people get free or cheap companion tickets with airline cerdit cards. In the future with some planning maybe somone would offer unused companion passes to bring someone along with them on long / expensive trips. This would work well over special holidays where everyone is flying at about the same time +/- a day or 2

At this point your best bet is to buy a full fare on WN on a flight you expect to oversell. Then if it oversells take the offer and fly on the next flight. You will get a credit for the amount you paid for the ticket plus ~$200. Then use the credit to book a flight on the airline you want and cancel out the other flight for a full refund.

At this point your best bet is to buy a full fare on WN on a flight you expect to oversell. Then if it oversells take the offer and fly on the next flight. You will get a credit for the amount you paid for the ticket plus ~$200. Then use the credit to book a flight on the airline you want and cancel out the other flight for a full refund.

You can only use Southwest LUV Vouchers on Southwest. So, without assuming too much, I believe ClimbGuy meant using the credit to book the return flight on Southwest. However, this is good advice. I appreciate your position as a "broke" student Andy1369. Look at it this way - if the flight doesn't oversell, then right before departure, you can cancel and still get all of your money back.

You can get a Southwest Airlines credit card that gives you a free ticket after your first purchase (with a $59 annual fee).

It's a bit too late for it to work for travel this Thanksgiving but for future reference if you have a friend/relative that has as few as 10K orphaned Continental miles they can be eventually be turned into a free roundtrip on Southwest in as little as two weeks, see
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=747394