Actually (according to the timetable):

SEA-FAI: 4 flights daily (corrected to 2 by FCYTravis)
FAI-SEA: 2 flights daily
SEA-ANC: 11 flights daily (plus one more five days a week)
ANC-SEA: 12 flights daily (plus one more five days a week)
ANC-FAI: 10 flights daily
FAI-ANC: 9 flights daily

(Actually, I'm surprised there are as many SEA-FAI flights as there are--I was with you and thought there was only one...)

Two of those are one-stoppers via ANC... so two non-stop round-trips daily.

Er...thanks. I swear I was paying attention to the "stops" column...chalk it up to lysdexia or something...

I'm still surprised there's even more than one

And of course the one-stoppers are the worst of both worlds - longer flight time, hassle of the stop AND no extra EQMs.

Congratulations on your decision! I've been to FAI twice - both times in March and have loved it. It's kind of hard to describe to people who haven't been.

Just curious if you're going to attempt to maintain any FF status while enrolled up there? I'm contemplating relocating to FAI or ANC but am seriously concerned about what the cost would be to maintain top-tier status on a *A carrier (UA or US)... Looks like AS MVPG would be easy to do with 7 r/t a year between FAI-LAX. Isn't it sad that that's a primary concern of mine?

Anyway, congrats again - what an experience it will be! ^

Sean

Yes, actually, I am - that's why I status-matched over to AS

There's no *A presence at FAI at all, even seasonally, and AS is the only major carrier serving Fairbanks year-round. So, it's pretty much the only choice.

I can maintain at least MVP with four RTs a year OAK-SEA-ANC-FAI. Two of those are automatic (trip there at the beginning of each semester and back home at the end), and a third trip should be fairly easy to fit somewhere (spring break, et al.) so that doesn't leave much of a gap to fill.

MVPG might be a bit more problematic - I guess we'll see how things shake out.

Fairbanks fares, unfortunately, can only be described as absolutely insane - think $700 round-trip to the Bay Area, and that's the "Value" fare

Well, even though all of my family's on the west coast (Paso Robles and Simi Valley, primarily), I never go down there unless a bargain pops up or I have a need to, since it's hard to find anything under $500. When the need to get out of state starts grabbing me, the bargain fares (in the cent-per-mile comparison, anyway) are to the east coast--there have been published and available fares ANC-CLT and ANC-NYC (and occasionally to PHL, WAS, BOS and even YYG!) for under $400 r/t. Those are for ANC, not FAI, but you can usually find an ANC-FAI r/t for ~$150 (worst case, look on Frontier Flying Service and Era, though they don't give you EQMs). By the middle of January, I will have visited CLT three times in the last six months, even though I don't know anyone there--though CLT's not a bad jumping-off point to visit friends in Charlottesville, take a trip to the coast, DC/eastern VA, the Great Smoky Mountains, the Blue Ridge Parkway, or even take a road trip (as I did last time) down through Charleston and Savannah to visit a friend in MCO.

The downside is that these are all partner miles, so it makes it a touch harder to qualify, but it's still half the cost of spending $400 r/t each on a half a dozen ANC-SEA runs...

Great choice! I'm sure you will have a great time & get an excellent education.

Congratulations Travis! I hope you enjoy your experience in Fairbanks.