I'm enrolled in a distance education program with the University of North Dakota and will need to attend summer school on campus in 2014-2016. Each of my three trips will be 1-2wks in length and I'm trying to figure out my best plan of getting there.

Since I have a full year before my first trip I have plenty of time to sign up for credit cards to get hotel/airline miles & get a plan together.

My dilemma is that flying in a CRJ200 tin can on DL/UA sounds equally as horrible to me as flying nonstop AZA-GFK on Allegiant. But if I fly on DL/US/WN from PHX-MSP that leaves me with a 4 1/2 drive to Grand Forks plus the cost of a car (which I prob wouldn't need once I'm on campus). Fargo and Winnipeg would both be closer but would again be on a smaller plane.

They offer on campus housing for $40/night so it may be easiest to just do that rather than getting a hotel. But doing a dummy booking it seems like I would get my best bang for the buck on cashing in points for a Marriott branded hotel. IIRC it was around 15k points a night. But maybe I should be thinking about earning points on a paid stay instead? Hilton, Holiday Inn, Super 8 & Ramada are a few of the other chains in the area.

Does anyone have any outside the box ideas for me on an efficient/safe way to get from Phoenix to Grand Forks?