Budget Travel - Cheapest Airline from Calif. to Mass.?

Bottom line:
I'm looking for the cheapest fare (round trip)

From: SF Bay Area, CA (SJC or SFO)
To: Boston, MA or Providence, RI

I'm a college student.
I'd like to stay for more than a week although I know that may substantially increase the price.
I plan on making this trip during the summer.
My dates and times are very flexible.

Anyone with experience or knowledge that could point me in a good direction?
:D Thanks

www.orbitz.com
www.expedia.com
www.travelocity.com
www.kayak.com
etc
etc
etc

Check http://www.studentuniverse.com

As others have already suggested, you really just need to look and look and look. You can glean tips by reading and searching the boards. There are student-oriented travel sites, so do a search for those. Also, check the Budget Travel (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/budget-travel-597/) forum for additional tips and resources.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

aaron728, welcome to FlyerTalk. Please follow the discussion as we move to our Budget Travel forum, Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Welcome to FT! There is no "cheapest airline"; they all offer good and bad deals. Staying more than a week need not make the trip more expensive. As pointed out, the secret is to look, look, and look. One of the best places to look is matrix.itasoftware.com.

As your dates are flexible, choose "month long search". I looked for 6-8 day trips starting Feb 15 - one month later. (Repeat with March 15, April 15, etc to scan a longer period.)

As your cities are flexible, use

From SJC;SFO
To BOS;PVD

ITA gives you a calendar with each date showing the lowest price found on that day. To look into detail, click on any price and you'll see lots of options on that day.

Eventually do the round trip search for specific dates.

I found fares between $230-$240, including nonstops. If your goal is just to get there, a nonstop is shorter and also minimizes things that can go wrong. Many of the annoyances associated with air travel involve connections.

However, many in FT prefer convoluted connections in order to to earn "miles" even if it means covering a one-hour distance in 17 hours - Hopefully you are not there yet. :) Regardless, do join one a few Frequent Flyer programs (for example, start with AA, UA, DL), concentrate your flying in one airline and its partners, but do get miles whenever you fly.

Please know that ITA does not sell tickets. It just tells you what is available. Many of us feel that by having no commercial incentive for or against any airline or flights, its information is most objective. Once you decide what you like, you can go to that airline's website to buy the ticket.

Others like Kayak, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, Vayama, etc will sell you a ticket or link you to such a site. They are worth looking at but may have incentives to push/suppress specific options.

Remember to look, look, and look, and at many places. Good luck.

Thank you all for the advice. I have flown maaany times but only recently will I be having to actually buy the tickets (previously used my father's miles, etc). I've been to a few of the sites mentioned before already but there are definately some new ones.

One more quick question... when you say "look..." when is the best time to do that relative to when I want to go? It seems like on at least some sites the fares have great deals, but it's close to the departure date as if the airlines are trying to fill seats. Waiting up to book your ticket could jeopardize your chances of getting to where you want when you want.

Thanks again, I'll be "look"ing into those, haha.

There are no hard and fast rules on the best time to buy a ticket. Generally 2-4 months earlier is good, but different occasions/destinations have their own patterns. Christmas, Olympics, Obama's inauguration, Hawaii in winter, etc., that long may not have been enough; other times and places, two weeks might suffice.

Basically, it is a good idea to start looking when you know you might be traveling but don't buy until you understand what would be a good fare. Ask here; somebody is bound to be experienced with those times/cities. One site that tries to judge a fare in light of historical data is FareCast.com (a good site to learn to play with).

Of course you can't find fares that don't exist (great deals during Summer rush). Or have not been announced yet: hence 2-4 months; airlines need to see how a travel season is going before announcing sales in response. A good site to track airfare announcements is AirfareWatchdog.com.

The point about buying early is to lock in a seat at a price. If the fare goes down, you'd feel bad, but just think how you'd have felt if it had shot up or seats sold out. :) So it depends on the occasion: if the trip is very important, you'd want to make sure you have a seat rather than wait and push your luck; if discretionary, you might wait longer.

Hi, Aaron, welcome to FT. :)

You've already gotten great advice. As far as knowing when fares are going to rise, it's a gamble. If it's a high fare already, I will also check:
http://www.farecast.com

It runs a predictor as to whether you should buy now (because the fares are expected to rise) or wait for a fare drop based upon various data indicators. You can check their site on how they do this. I just want the info.

If you are considering flying into Providence, make sure you check Southwest. You need to go directly to Southwest's website because it is not normally included in aggregators' data like Orbitz or Expedia.

IMO, $250 is pretty darn cheap for a non stop transcon flight but I would still check out student websites including http://www.statravel.com but don't rely that they're the cheapest over going directly to an airline for a ticket.

Good luck!

You've all been a lot of help. There's enough resources here to keep me busy for a while. Thanks a bunch. Wish I could return the favor. If anyone needs any computer help I may be able to be of use, although if you're all on here on forums you're probably decent with computers. Anyway, thanks again.