I recently finished up college and have begun graduate school at Stanford near SJC (and SFO, kinda). In this situation, I am 23, and have an income of approximately $30k a year, $10k of which goes to housing. I have a girlfriend in Austin, a family in Louisville, and I need a better plan to keep my travel costs down.

My needs:
Roundtrip flights approximately every 4-6 weeks (Usually Austin, sometimes Louisville--holidays).
Cheap fares when possible.
A way to use my spending to either help get these flights, or to save for more interesting vacations with the girlfriend (skiing in Tahoe, beaches, something!).

Basically I need a gameplan of who I should be flying, where I should be buying the tickets, how I should pay for them, what credit cards I need, what I should buy with them, and any other little manipulations like balance transfers, etc I can use to my advantage.

If you guys have any advice I'd appreciate it.

Also, while I will be traveling a lot, if you know any other general tricks or systems that would help someone just starting out in life to squeeze a little extra out of each dollar I spend, I'd appreciate it. (I heard of some guy transfering mortgage payment balances around some host of cards and getting points towards a lot of free things--maybe just rumor)

So far I've been flying Southwest, and getting 2 credits per way each time I fly, since I'm still a student (16 credits = free roundtrip flight). This works decently well, but will run out when I hit 24, and I will be down to 1 credit per leg. Also I haven't utilized any credit cards, etc.

I need a system! I know someone has got one figured out!

Thanks!
Dan