Academic Travel on a Frugal Budget: Finding the Cheapest Airline Ticket

Searching for the cheapest airline ticket for academic conferences can be a daunting task sometimes, but I strive to pay the least amount for my air travel. Here is a personal guide that I follow when purchasing an airline ticket.

a) Find the HUB - Try to find the hub for the major airlines in your area. For example, when I lived in the Houston area, I flew Continental Airlines. Houston International Airport is one of the many hubs for Continental Airlines. Therefore, their airline tickets will usually be less expensive than other airlines that fly from that hub. Since I live in the DFW area, the Southwest Airlines and American Airlines tickets are usually cheaper than the tickets from other airlines. However, this has not been the case for the past few months.

b) Arrive or Depart on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday - Usually, these days are the cheapest arrival or departure dates for airline tickets.

c) Make Monday - Wednesday Your Purchase Dates - It seems the airline rates tend to increase after Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I will usually check a particular route that I am interested in after I receive the weekly special from Continental Airlines and American Airlines on Monday afternoons. Monday is usually their "reset" date for airfares.

d) Compare Your Rates With Other Airlines - I will usually submit my route to http://www.bing.com/travel (formerly http://www.farecast.com). This website compares the rates from This website will usually tell you the rates from AirTran, American Airlines, etc. For example, I used this website to search for a fare from DFW to IAH (Thu, Jul 23 - Thu, Jul 30|1 adult) and here are the results:

AirTran - $547

American - $118
Continental - $116

Delta - $547

Frontier - $487
US Airways - $497
United - $497

In addition, this website enables you to see if the rates are projected to increase or decrease in the future. However, I used this feature last summer to find the cheapest rates to San Diego and the website told me the rates were projected to decrease. The rates were already inexpensive ($250 or less), but I wondered if the rate would decrease. The next day, the rate increased to $325. Since that point, I decided to use the website for comparison purposes only.

e) Continue to Monitor the Airfare Rates - Most websites suggest that people purchase their airline tickets around 90 days before the travel date. However, continue to monitor the websites for sharp decreases before the 90 day period. For example, I purchased a ticket for the National Communication Association Conference in Chicago, IL for slightly less than $200.00 (I monitored this rate since April 2009).

I hope to offer more tips as I purchase additional tickets for the fall/spring semester. If you have any additional tips, please let me know! Contribute a comment!

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Academic Travel on a Frugal Budget: Finding the Cheapest Airline Ticket

Academic Travel on a Budget... (Post One of Many)

Before I consider attending a conference, I will usually ask myself the following questions:

a) Is this conference important to my academic career (i.e. - Is this conference a communication, higher education, or service learning conference)?

b) Will I be able to present a paper, presentation, or interactive session at the conference? This is important for my career, because I improve my CV everytime I present a paper at an academic conference.

c) Where is the conference located? If the conference is in Texas AND is at least five hours away, I will usually send a proposal submission. If the conference requires airline travel, I will check the rates on my preferred airline (Continental Airlines). Then, I compare other airlines' rates with the Continental Airlines rate. Usually, the Continental rate will be cheaper than American Airlines and Southwest. (*However, American Airlines was cheaper for my November conference.)

d) How much is the hotel rate? This is VERY important for me, because I will usually work on several papers in my hotel room and I need some peace and quiet (not a roommate).

What do YOU usually ask yourself when considering an academic conference?

Next post...Finding the Cheapest Airline Ticket

Millennial Professor

Academic Travel on a Budget - Post 1/5

Readers,

I usually travel to at least three academic conferences per year and the inpending state of this year's economy has pushed me to be very frugal when traveling. During the next few posts, I will provide you with tips on traveling frugally. The topic will range from booking the flight to hotel dining. Please check back every few days for a new tip.

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Adopt THIS Technology: The Perils of Twitter (An Opinion)

I love twitter as much as the next professor. However, I am quite skeptical about providing specific real time updates for my readers. I caution my students and friends against posting tweets like, "Going to Mom's this Weekend" and "Going to Spring Break in South Padre".

Two weeks ago, I read an article in the Houston Chronicle (from an undisclosed location by the Houston area :) ) titled, "Do 'I'm on Vacation' Posts Pose Security Concerns?". I was alarmed by the fact that someone's house was bulgarized because of the real time tweets that someone posted from their vacation spot in Kansas City. Here is a small exert from the article:

Like a lot of people who use social media, Isreal Hyman and his wife, Noell, shared real-time details of a recent trip on Twitter. Their posts said they were "preparing to head out of town," that they had "another 10 hours of driving ahead," and that they "made it to Kansas City." While they were on the road, their home in Mesa, Ariz., was burgularized.

Hyman had over 2,000 followers on twitter and "he thinks his updates tipped the burglars off" (Allen, 2009, G9). As a result, I am quite skeptical of posting any twitter updates (tweets) pertaining to my current location. In addition, any tweets that I post to twitter automatically go to my facebook account as updates for my 450+ friends on that website. I have met about 90% of my friends on facebook in person, but not on twitter.

The day before this article was published, I decided to protect my twitter updates and my "follow list". As a result, I have to give permission to my students to have them follow my twitter updates and they have to give me permission to follow their updates.

I continue to use the twitter assignment that I posted last month and it seems that more students are interested in this new type of social media. I cannot wait to see what the next new social media application will be in 2010. To maintain a strong awareness of social media, I follow Jane Hart from The Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (C4LPT) on twitter and I read her daily RSS feed -Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day.

In addition, I add her website suggestions to my del.icio.us account - http://delicious.com/drjtedwards/.

If YOU have any technology suggestions, PLEASE let me know. I love technology and I try to remain at the forefront of social media adoption.


Have a great weekend!

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