Hey soz.
My approach is a bit sideways (I think).
I start with the website for the airport I'll be travelling from - and looking for the page that tells me what airlines travel through.
In your case ...
http://www.port-columbus.com/flight/airline/contact.asp
... which turns out to be a great page - cuz it has all the links attached (not all airport websites are that helpful
)
I've found, in most cases, that the airlines own sites will match any deal I can get through travel sites - and I can sometimes get 'points' that I wouldn't get by booking through a travel discounter.
On the ack side, CMH is not the easiest place to find a travel deal for.
NWA has some flight/hotel combos starting at $321/per person for a weekend trip.
Quote:Destination This Weekend Price per Person
Minneapolis/ St. Paul Vicinity, MN
Leaving Thu, Jul 13
Returning Sun, Jul 16
Returning Mon, Jul 17
Returning Tue, Jul 18
from $344
from $368
from $391
Minneapolis/ St. Paul Vicinity, MN
Leaving Fri, Jul 14
Returning Sun, Jul 16
Returning Mon, Jul 17
Returning Tue, Jul 18
from $321
from $344
from $368
Minneapolis/ St. Paul Vicinity, MN
Leaving Sat, Jul 15
Returning Mon, Jul 17
Returning Tue, Jul 18
from $321
from $344
Definitely sign up for all the different airline promotion emails. One of the ones I have let's me know when WestJet is going to have one of their special Thursday promotions. Or when they were having a post-election promotion - based on the traveller's name.
Not sure if you can get to Cincinnati easily or if Sozlet could sit on a bus for 7 hours at a time and not sure what the stopover would be in Chicago but...
Minneapolis to Chicago for as cheap as $1
Cincinnati to Chicago for $1
www.megabus.com
a little reading about the bus...
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/06/01/megabus/
It looks like they used to have a route to Columbus but stopped it because of low ridership.. (You should have taken it last month.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabus
Really good stuff, thanks guys!
I had found the ~$300 NWA bundles, Beth, thanks -- I've been hoping for much cheaper than that, but maybe that's not practical. The best price I've found so far was United, about $200/ each. (Just airfare, no bundle.) That's fine, and if I'm taking it as a given that I'm going and I'm looking for the best possible fare, that's quite good. But I'm hoping to use flexibility to get something way beyond fine -- we'll see what happens. (What this is about, short-term, is that both of my parents' birthdays are coming up soon -- they're within a week of each other -- and while trying to think up birthday presents I thought a surprise daughter+granddaughter appearance might be cool. But it would have to be a short trip, and we simply don't have much money to spare just now. So that's where the "hmmm aren't there some crazy-cheap options?" thing comes in.)
Kayak.com (from the about.com link) looks promising, doing that now.
Really interesting about Megabus! Maybe I should petition 'em or something.
Hey, Southwest has good Columbus --> Chicago rates -- maybe get to Chicago, than Megabus from Chicago to MSP.
Did you try opodo or expedia?
At least, I get as good prices from their sites as $200 each.
