Don’t Book Your Travels On The Fly… Use These Tools To Go Sky High!
CampusCompare is all about looking beyond the brochure. From the inside scoop from the students themselves, to dynamic media content, to the facts and figures, to our assistance tools, CampusCompare offers all the goodies you need without even leaving your home. We truly are making it possible for cross-country campus visits to be a thing of the past, yet we understand that despite the current economic crisis and higher ticket prices, some of you may really want to do the college tour thing the old fashioned way and probably want to keep it cheap. In order to find the perfect deal on how you can be leavin’ on a jet plane without breaking the bank, CampusCompare has stumbled across some sites to assist your travels. Even if your budget is ramen noodles, we’ve discovered some stellar sites that will help you find the fare that will make you feel like ordering filet mignon.
YAPTA:
Sure, your dog may have “eaten your homework” a few times when you’ve forgotten to complete an assignment, but when it comes to finding the perfect fare, YAPTA is a student’s best friend. After entering the dates, times, and other personal preferences, YAPTA (aka Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant) continuously searches for the lowest prices for your itinerary. The site alerts you when prices drop, but if you book and prices lower again, they’ll fill you in on how to get a ticket refund so that you are ensured the lowest possible price.
KAYAK:
Have you been studying up on your SAT analogy section yet? Well if so, give this one a shot.
CampusCompare: “That Big Fat Guidebook” as Kayak: Searching Directly from the Airline.
Just like what CampusCompare does for the college search process, Kayak aggregates fares from every airline and other websites and allows you to compare prices side by side. They also offer a variety of search options to narrow down your search to filter your flights to fit your criteria.
PRICELINE:
You can’t BYOB on planes anymore due to more restrictive security measures, but you still can NYOP! Priceline’s NYOP (Name Your Own Price) feature is a bargain-hunter’s dream, but it comes with a catch—after bidding on a flight, you don’t have the option to change your itinerary, and you may have to make an extra stop or leave at an unpopular hour. However, if you are flexible, Priceline is the way to go to get the cheapest fares.
STUDENT UNIVERSE:
Remember back when you could only join Facebook if you had a “.edu” email address and were a current college student? For social networking, those days are gone, but at StudentUniverse those days live on! This site partners with major airlines to offer special deals exclusively for current students and university faculty. The student-status is verified by your email address and, sorry general public, but you can’t join the party.
FLYER TALK:
These days there are social networking communities for everyone—from Vampirefreaks to people who enjoy crochet —so we really weren’t surprised to come across a forum dedicated to the topics that would interest the frequent flyer. The users log on to discussion boards and chatrooms, and offer tips on everything from how to optimize the use of your mileage points to how to score the best deal to how to earn the most reward points for your next trip.
We hope that helps! One last thing— for those of you looking to head to school in the Northeast, check this out, its a pretty great site that provides a plethora of helpful tools to wane your travel woes. Happy trails!
This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 9:53 am and is filed under Student Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
