Wanted to pick the brains of those who commute from out of state. Best airlines, non-refundable tickets/refundable (how far in advance is it practical to purchase tickets), cheap hotels with no bed bugs/roaches. Just curious. What works for you? I’ll be commuting from WA.
Southwest. Two bags fly free and no change fees if you need to reschedule. I have heard some people book two return flights (one for the evening of crew change and one for the following morning) and then use the credit for the one they didn’t use to go to a future ticket.
Booking two flights, dam thats smart. I’ll put that one in the bag of tricks when I start flying again.
Yes to Southwest, for the same reasons. I quit using Delta when the office of the company I was working for at the time sent my relief to Fourchon rather than Freshwater City, and I did, of course, miss my flight. Cost me big bucks, and the company declined to reimburse me for their mistake.
If you need to rent a car, use Enterprise. You can rent one way in Louisiana.
Chateau on the Bayou in Raceland is great place to stay before or after a hitch.
http://www.achateauonthebayou.com/ Neat and clean, mariner rates, wifi, etc.
I always have 2-3 Southwest flights booked at a time, every tenth or so flight is free and you can change your flight whenever.
Sometimes the price may have gone up if you change too close to the departure date and you have to pay the difference. (at least for the Want To Get Away flights)
And as mentioned bags are free up to 2, with one carry on.
Good call on Southwest, wished they flew my route. Chateau on the Bayou has been a great refuge for me these last two plus weeks. Thanks again Miss C! I’m also trying the app TripIt to organize travel docs etc. Looking forward to a positive, and informative thread…
Definitely SW for flights, I did the 2 flight thing for 3 years while working OSVs, never a problem. As for hotels I had good luck with hotwire and priceline, I stayed in by the Airport and had a one of the crew pick me up in the morning on their way to the boat. Works good if you know someone passing through the area to get to work.
First mistake I made was to check in the day of the flight. Not used to open seating on the flights. The lower the number the better on your boarding pass. Live and learn. Did 9 years in govt service and resigned the other day. Heading to LA to look for work. Hope they need mates. Fingers crossed.
I live in New Hampshire and if I fly Air Tran to Boston then Concord Transportation bus to Portland and get picked up there which is 1 and a 1/4 hrs from home. Its $164 to Boston and $30 for the bus. There is a bus to my town but it takes 4 hours from BOS.
I was wondering about this topic recently. The two ticket approach seems great. Plan on flying in from Norfolk.
JetBlue has some good connexions into NOLA, especially out of New England. I have used them for a few years with minimal complication, but I can pick my travel dates pretty accurately. There are some fees for changes on most fares. Might not work with “crew change” dynamics. They also fly to Portland, OR (PDX) as does Southwest.
I fly from PDX to MSY and back 9 times a year give or take. I buy one way tickets on Southwest only after I got screwed one time for about 900 bucks one way at a different airline. That year I spent over $10,000 on plane tickets and only have flown southwest since! Chouest is always fucking up crew change it seems like anymore. I always buy at least 2 return tickets, one the last flight out on crew change day and one the first flight out the day after. I then sometimes buy a 3rd tickets later the day after if crew change might get messed up. The tickets you dont use you just move ahead for free to your next crew change dates. I have about 6 months of flights booked at any time to maximize the savings. I h haven’t made a same day crew change flight in about a year.
If you buy the early southwest ticket and miss it . They will put you on the next available flight
Yes, but once in awhile the next flight is a day or 2 out. I found that out the hard way last year when we crew changed the day after a MASSIVE convention ended. No hotels, over 24 hours sitting in the airport waiting for a flight.
United from alaska or to alaska from houston runs me about 270 - 550 depending. Thats to anchorage and cheap would be two weeks early and the expensive of course would be within a week of travel. If I had to buy the day of travel it would be close to 800.
For me it’s usually US Airways, ORF-MSY. Stop thru Houston.
I have stayed all over the place in NOLA before, but the first rig contractor job I had, I was given pi$$ poor gauge by my so-called account manager (who should have been castrated with a nail clipper) and ended up staying in a hotel in Gretna. A cheap joint. Dope deals going down outside the “lounge.” You get it.
If I had been better informed by my company I would have stayed at the Crown Plaza and rode the shuttle bus to PHI heliport in Venice (driving there on rt 23 with a hangover at 3am is a real MF), but you live, you learn, and you post on gCaptain.
To repeat…driving the length of 23, in a tiny crap-box rental car from Gretna to Venice, only to sleep on the bench outside the main entrance for an hour is quite an experience. Hope you are a boat crew and don’t need to deal with weighing in at 6AM. 
The Crown Plaza and a few others are offshore crew friendly. Call the Crown Plaza first.
Good luck and good hunting!