Best system for the student?
 

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

I think the combination of SJC, AUS, and SDF usually signals flying American Airlines, at least for the connecitons. Generally, most airlines will be matched by at least one other airline in a market (say, SJC-SDF will usually be priced the same by two or more airlines). That helps to keep the costs down. I would start researching historical fares on the routes you want to fly using farecompare.com and farecast.com to get an idea of what you might expect to pay.

Use search or travel agent sites to check flight availability for your travels (check Southwest on its own site). Check each airline's FF program and check which airlines have FF partnerships with each other. Check how much flying it would take you to get the awards you want from each program.

Note that FF partnerships can be used to pool multiple airlines' flight miles into one program. For example, Alaska has mileage partnerships with American, Continental, Delta, and Northwest, and United and US Airways / America West have a mileage partnership with each other (but American does not have a mileage partnership with Continental, Delta, or Northwest).

UA will give you bonus miles when you graduate.

Rats. How did I miss that? :o

I found some student fares on studentuniverse.com and statravel.com.

With Student Universe, the only requirement is .edu email account.
STA requires you purchase International Student Identity Card for $22.

I lived in Ausitn for two years (until this August), and my family lives North of San Francisco, so I've flown AUS-SFO/SJC/OAK quite a bit.

The SJC-AUS nonstops on American are very convenient; I believe they're three times daily. Otherwise, flying via DFW is not too bad. United has one nonstop SFO-AUS, but I've never taken it.

At times, I found that flying "the (very) long way" on NW or DL works out nicely because it allows for a red-eye on the SFO/SJC/OAK-AUS route and earns almost twice as many miles as the nonstop. With DL, flying via ATL, you earn 5856 for the round-trip vs. 2942 on the nonstop on American.

Alex

Not trying to seem paternal... but being not too far away from your age range and situation, my advice to you is to focus on the long term. Get your career going strong. Rather than strategizing about how you're going to maximize your FF miles, strategize how to take your salary from 30k to 60 or 80k in the next 5-10 years. That's going to take you more places than all the FF strategy in the world might do for you now.

The pursuit of miles and status can become a low-grade obsession and I'm not sure it's the best use of your time right now given your current income. When you find yourself with tens of thousands of dollars annually in CC expenses and/or a regular and consistent need to travel, then gaming this system starts to make more sense.

That all said, you might strategically look at opportunities to buy miles in unexpected ways. For example, when I was a few years older than you and in more or less the same financial situation, I took advantage of an opportunity to buy a few hundred magazine subscriptions and got ~300,000 miles on AA for it. It cost me about $2000 and was one of the better investments I've made. I used all of those miles to go to professional conferences and ramp up my career. Now the wife and I are spending enough on our credit cards that that spending is becoming a significant factor in our mileage earning.

Once you buy a house, you will get scads of credit card offers on favorable terms and you can start "churning" for miles. You do not want to do this until you have already purchased the place to live.

Summarizing my just-IMHO sanctimony:
+ grow your career
+ grow your salary
+ choose a mate carefully. It is the single most important choice for you happiness and prosperity. In a few years here, the good ms. fine will be able to buy me all the miles I could want ;)
+ buy property, preferably a house
+ save for your Roth IRA first, and max out a 401/403b plan second
+ for now be on the lookout for opportunities that give you miles that won't distract you from the preceding stuff, which is bluntly a whole lot more important than mileage scheming.
+ keep reading FT, the advice here is gold.

When these ducks are in a row, you'll be well-positioned to join the rest of the loons on this board full-time, at least half of whom seem to pursue the miles thing as a kind of worldly hobby. Look around, there are a lot of very successful people here. For many here, it seems the financial rewards of their schemings are decidely secondary to their intangible enjoyment of travel and the pursuit of the good deal. Maybe a lesson to be had there. ;)

Good luck! ^

-KF

Yeah, what he said. :D

Save your money. Invest in a pair of webcams and use the phone. Or, if you are feeling particularly romantic, write letters by longhand and pretend that you are living 50 years ago.

As a graduate student, your time is important and it might be better for you to not take off every 4 weeks on personal business.

In terms of flights, calculate what a frequent-flyer mile is worth to you (probably less than 1 cent) and factor that into weighing your options on hotwire, studentuniverse, and priceline.

Having just finished my PhD, I thoroughly disagree with you! The time of a graduate student is worth much less than the time of someone "in the real world." Also, graduate school can be (and often is) very stressful and isolating, and trips away, especially to see one's romantic interest, are very well justified, IMHO.

Alex

Southwest told me that there is an "in between" offer that you will get on your birthday. Right now it seems that southwest is going to be the best program for you because of the great awards they are giving you. No one else can match that.

You don't seem to be interested in status right now and in terms of price, you won't usually find another carrier that can beat southwest (and if they can, it's not by much).

On your birthday, southwest will still likely give you the best program. That along with the cheap flights seems to be the way to go all around for you.

Of course only you can decide what to do...but I would advise you to consider the cheapest flight rather than working a frequent flier program. Us flyertalk nuts usually pay more on our flying to earn miles. Most often our goal is to get elite status...which is not of much value to you right now.

I feel you. I'm a grad student at your rival school in the East Bay. Grad student pay sucks, huh? :p

Sorry, don't have system designed for your setup. But these are some things I've picked up on travel since I've been here. Hopefully some of this will help you some, but it might be redundant too, in which case I'm sorry.

Southwest is probably your best option and basically designed for our situation. Low fares booking in advance and easy to pick up rewards. For this area, if there's someway you can make it out to Oakland, it might give you a bit more flexibility, since I believe WN operates more flights out of OAK. If you can't get to a car and you don't really care too much about time, you could get there thru CalTrain/BART. It'll probably cost you an hour more than getting to SJC by CalTrain. Oh yeah, get Ding! if you haven't already.

For some last minute trips, United E-fares can be pretty good. Every Monday night at midnight (actually, sometimes later. search for united.bomb) they come out with E-fares that apply for that week and the following week. Trips have to be Sat departures and Monday or Tuesday returns. Fares are around or slightly higher than early booking, but if your past that 14 day window, its worth checking out. Destinations vary from week to week, so its a bit of a crap shoot. The plus side is that since SFO is a United hub, there's usually a fair selection.

Don't know much about American, other than they tend to have cheap flights out of SJC. Hopefully another board member can comment on that.

I mostly use WN and UA. I have the UA MP College Visa. No annual fee, 1 mi for every $2. Not too useful at racking up RDM. Kind of like that jewlers axe in Shawshank Redemption. Maybe do a search for the Citi PrimierePass or other cards on the board with travel rewards points. Although, I usually try to defer to cards that give me cash back (ie Amex BlueCash)

I do look through the posts for UA MP promotions, like the NetFlix one a while back, or the 125 mi from Safeway. As mentioned in an earlier post, if your within 12mo of graduation they'll give you 10k miles if you mail them your transcript. You get 3k miles if you sign up, and if you do it via referal from a current MP member, they get something like 1k miles too. Through odds and ends, I have earned one short hop from SFO to LA saver award for an family emergency. Later on, if you end up flying to conferences though and the univ. or research money pays for trips and they end up being fairly long, it might be worth it to book it through a legacy carrier and pick up miles vs. segments. I'm earning about 10K miles from two conference this winter plus the miles on my card plus EasyCheckin bonuses.

Otherwise, Kayak and Farecast are my price searching friends =)

For Tahoe, IMHO, it's probably best to just find a group of friends and drive. The airport is in Reno and you'd have to get out to the lake. Not a total pain, but it's more fun and cheaper to all go up, rent a cabin (I think you guys might have a student one you can rent as well?) and go about it that way. Tahoe can also easily be a day trip as well.

That's my $0.02. Hope it helps you some!

I think you need to re-evaluate both your budget and your priorities. Making $30k per year while paying $10k in rent is going to leave very little for travel. I'd be more worried about being able to buy food and clothing. Remember, you will have deductions from that $30k even though you'll end up not really paying any income tax. If you're being paid bi-monthly, each check will give you about $998 take home. Your monthly budget will give you $1267 for your monthly budget. Out of that you'll need to pay for clothing, utilities, bills, transportation, food and other living expenses. That is also excluding medical insurance and any retirement saving.

My point is, you might want to re-evaluate the idea of monthly travel home or to your girlfriend. You also might want to stick with whatever airline gets you the cheapest flight. Not my normal advice, but given frugal you will have to be to get by it is a reality.

My advice in general for you would be to have your girlfriend ante up for some trips to So Cal. Also, skiing trips to Tahoe are pricey and given that you're a student might not be the best use of your money. You live in SF bay area, there are plenty of things for you to do there in terms of vacation. Stay out of debt, stay away from using credit cards and don't end school in a hole from the start. Remember that most FT people here don't pay for their own travel. Their employers do.

I'm not denying the usefulness of taking trips or even going skiing as a graduate student --- I did all that when I was a graduate student. The problem is that the original poster wants to take these trips regularly in a very planned out fashion, and this strikes me as a very bad, not to mention expensive, idea. The student's mind should not be looking forward to their next trip a few weeks from now. The student needs to develop connections with his peers. And any time inspiration hits him, he needs to be able to go down to the lab or library and get working.

Basically, getting a doctorate is *supposed* to be an all-encompasing obsession and is hence inherently isolating. Why would anyone (from a developed country... I can understand how some people from poorer countries get PhDs in order to get their foot in the door immigration-wise) go for a PhD if they did not want to completely immerse themselves in the academic life for at least a few years? To get a job, it would be better to just go and get an MBA, MD, or JD.

My feeling is that he would be better off taking last minute trips as needed. Hence my recommendation to invest in a webcam. I actually think that it might be a good thing for him to have a romantic interest far away --- more time to concentrate on his research and less time spent in courting her.

Read the MR forum and track farecompare and when a great deal to one of your cities shows up - jump on it and book as many weekends as you can.

Wow...you guys are harsh! When I was in my early 20's (about ten years ago), busting out on weekend trips was a high priority for me! When else are you going to do it? If the girlfiend in Austin is so serious that he's seeing her every four weeks, chances are good she's The One and five years from now he's going to be worried about buying a minivan and some carseats, not taking weekend trips.

So I say...do it now. Fly often! You have limited cash, so you're always going to be looking for deep discount coach fares. For your cities, AA is a good call: you will earn full miles and elite qualifying miles on the cheap-o fares. Out of that market, they will offer competitive fares with Southwest. Ditch Southwest: at your age, my goal was to pile up the miles and get off of this continent once in a while.

At that point in my life, the value of my time was significantly lower. I was still busy, but you can study, work, whatever on a flight. So while I never took pure "mileage runs" like many here do, I would take circuitous routings quite often. I took every VDB that was offered and even got to know which flights had a high probability of needing volunteers for bumps.

Anyway, I know my outlook is different from others. I traveled a lot when I was single, loved every minute of it, and wished I would have traveled even more. My only regret was that I wasn't creative enough: I rarely leveraged partner carriers to get to the most far-flung destinations, instead opting for a lot of Europe, Central America, etc. because I could get there on AA metal. If I only paid closer attention to "the system", I would have been in Asia, more unusual spots in Europe, maybe Africa, etc.

Don't worry, travel!
 

Yes, go places now before the big commitments come around. I travel 5 months of the year around the world by myself, and spend about 15-20k a year doing it. 35-40% of this amount is for tickets. This year I will fly 180k miles or so, about 140k of it paid. If you are at the highest level earning, you can earn two RTW trips a year in coach, or about 1 1/2 in Biz if you pick the right carrier.

If you pay *close* attention to the Mileage Run forum, you will see numerous good deals every year. Just in the last year, I've booked 17 tickets to mostly international destinations. Normal price for these tickets would be about $25,000. Flyertalk price = Less than $5,000. :)

If you're going to be an academic and teach at a research university, you will have a great deal of time to travel -- at *least* 4 months annually maybe 5 1/2 months depending on whether you're on quarter (2/2/0) or semester (2/2). You'll also be given a research budget for domestic and international conference travel -- I agree with the people who are saying focus on finishing your program successfully so you have these perks to enjoy in the future.

Just for kicks I did a spot-check comparison.

SFO-LAS-SFO, leaving 11/13, returning 11/15.

Student Universe = 281.19 (all in)
AA.com = 241.70 (all in)

It does seem to me like people are being a little harsh with their responses. I'm from near ORD (and have a dotcom startup company also based in Chicago), went to undergrad near LAX, and currently am in grad school an hour from LHR (probably back to LAX in another year). For part of all this I've also had a girlfriend "back home."

While I never flew back once a month, which it seems like you're going to attempt, I certainly was/am flying back and forth every term and occasionally for something in the middle of a term. For me, it made a great deal of sense to figure out which airline seemed to have the best fares on those routes and--all else being relatively equal, of course--stick with that one. (The adjustment I use is that frequent-flyer miles are worth roughly $0.01 each to me.) AA almost always has the cheapest LHR-ORD flights, and it doesn't take very many of those roundtrips each year to get a lot of miles--particularly having done the Gold and Platinum Challenges, which I never would have heard of if not for FlyerTalk.

So, I think it's worth it to at least consider the reward programs, and you're being smart by planning ahead if this is what you really intend to do. From my perspective, they make things cheaper... every 4th roundtrip or so that I take (which would be taken anyway) across the Atlantic is free.

I've never viewed grad school (I'm in my 3rd year overall, though that's at two different schools) as a necessarily monastic experience. I don't think I could do it if it were! Quite frankly, if I didn't do some travelling and other things to make sure that I wasn't feeling isolated, I'd be miserable. If my "lack of focus" means that I don't finish the PhD, that's a good sign that I'm not cut out for a research career anyway. If that happens, I'll just go work for McKinsey or something and *really* rack up the miles. ;)

Both Studentuniverse and STA Travel are hit-or-miss. Sometimes they have great fares, sometimes they are they same as regular fares, and sometimes they are higher than regular fares. They're still worth checking, because one never knows which site/booking method will be the cheapest.

Worth checking, but I'll note that I've never personally found a cheaper fare at either site than those on kayak.com. (I've mostly been checking for the LHR-ORD roundtrip though, so it's possible that they just don't have any, or many, student deals on that route.)

Doesn't STA Travel and the like focus on international routes where true "wholesale" fares are available? Seems like using them on a domestic U.S. route would be less effective.

I used STA back in the early 90's to buy tickets back and forth between Wales and Kansas City. Every time I checked with the airlines, STA would find something significantly less expensive for me. Plus they could obviously sell all of the necessary train segments at the same time...

For me it probably has a bit to do with the fact that whatever wholesale fares they have seem to involve roundtrips only originating in the US... For example, statravel.com currently has flights ORD-LHR-ORD in December and January for under $500, but won't sell tickets originating outside the US. statravel.co.uk, which will, has their cheapest flights LHR-ORD-LHR in December and January for over 500 GBP. Ouch.

Income Smoothing
 

My theory of income smoothing states that your total income is much more than monetary income, and can also include time and opportunity.

Currently you have time and the opportunity to hang out with a fantastic girl, though the money lags. Soon, you will certainly have more money, but probably not as much time nor the chance to hang out with a girlfriend (either she'll be your wife and you'll be prohibited from seeing other girlfriends, or you'll be on to the next g-friend).

Some say this leads to irresponsible spending by youngsters, but those who use their assets most effectively tend to get more out of life, and assets include more than money.

I am in the same boat as you. Young grad student, limited budget etc... you all know the story. What I have found is, depending on your interest, find overseas opportunities that fit with what you are looking to do. They not only help build your international network, but also give you strong learning experiences to use once you graduate. If the program is organized by the school jump on it. Chances are they will pay your way through scholarships or other funding.

This year I am on my third trip to China right now. All paid, except for maybe 20% of the cost. I have two more trips to India planned for the rest of the year, again paid. School programs primarily, but all fundable through the University. They will give you money if you position yourself right.

What this equates to. Great experiences, seeing the world, and TONS of miles. I will have Exec Plat on UA as a result, and will paid a pretty minimal fee for it.

I definitely agree with what has been said. Keep you expenses to a minimum, but make use other opportunities to help you see your girlfriend frequently, at a minimal cost.

Hope this helps.

Not harsh. Some of us have lived similar lives and watched some peers succeed while others failed and flailed. We'd rather see the OP succeed.

I'm in my mid-30s travelling 100,000+ self-funded miles for the year, and enjoying myself. This is a function of time and professionalism. It's also a function of income. The travel gets easier and more available as you become richer and more specialized in your career.

Many young people would be well advised to follow amazon.com's early mantra: "get big fast." After your income is rolling in, your retirement is being funded, and your workplace has a heroinlike addiction to your bona-fide skills, you will be able to enjoy all the travel you wish.

-KF

Eh...I beg to differ somewhat. I'm a graduate student too, and making significantly less than listed above (the east and west coast students tend to make a LOT more than we do in the midwest). On top of that, I've managed to buy a house, save for retirement and am still able to take trips on a regular basis. A lot of them are for work, but on my own dime I've been to Hawaii, Connecticut and Boston this year. Will be heading to Romania next summer (thanks to the mileage run forum).

If you can do it, go for it. I'm sure that your family and girlfriend will appreciate it.
As far as maximizing mileage goes, I like the red-eye advice, especially if you can sleep on planes. Also, try to maximize the amount of mileage you acquire through meetings, etc. They'll help you out tremendously.

Also, remember that depending on the airline and ticket, a lot of fares on Student Universe and through STA earn MINIMAL (like 500 max) FF miles, if any.

Well, in order to do that, we'd need to understand the OP's definition of success. I'm not sure that maximizing net worth at the expense of all else is it. If it is, by all means, he should not travel at all.

That's great for your situation. I know for me, travel was a lot easier when I was poorer and younger. I was living near ORD and I was unmarried. If I found out today that AA was running a weekend special $99 one-way base fare to MXP or CDG (which they did in those early years of email-only fares), I knew I had the flexibility to be on that flight tomorrow. I could usually find 1-2 buddies to join me. And I was still young enough (with memories of the Eurailpass still fresh in my mind) that I thought nothing of throwing some crap in a backpack and going without a real plan for once I got there. There's always a cheap pensione with a room available somewhere.

Now I'm in my mid-30's and we still take perfectly nice vacations, but the dynamic has changed. Time is scarce - if we want to take an international trip for a week or so, we calendar it 6-9 months in advance. And of course we have to arrange the right hotels, the right flights that are easy for kids, etc.

No question about it: if your goal is max net worth fast, that's the way to do it. But who knows when or if you will get to enjoy all the travel you wish. I'd like to think that once kids are all in college, we're going to do a 3-month around the world trip. But who knows... I definitely didn't have that mindset in my 20's - then it was more like "I want to experience the world now."

Im a student and I love to travel. That's why I volunteer to go to conferences around the nation. Most of the times, my department pays for them and I get the miles for free :) So I like that arrangement. Sometimes I just have to pay for registration fees, which are like $49. So that's another thing you can look at. This year, there was a conference in Denmark, but my department didn't have money to sponsor the entire trip. Had they offered to pay for the ticket itself, I would have jumped on it.
Example: we have a conference coming up in Washington DC in feb. Most likely we will fly if we get cheap tix. Otherwise we'll gang up in a car and drive. (From CMH). Then there is a conference in Orlando. We are definately flying there and the department has already said that they will pay for the conference. So dont' worry. I guess it's only normal to enjoy travelling. I think every student enjoys it. Some just like to "drive" and some like us likey "flying" and racking up frequent flyer miles... :D

Wait a second, you bought a house and saved for retirement while you were in grad school, making, what $20,000/year including additional teaching in the summer? Did you use years of student loans for a down payment? I know a few students who put their interest-free student loans into the stock market -- but you bought a friggin house on your own? quite remarkable.