To escape rent, student flies to college in the US – 05/20/2023 – Market

A college student from Los Angeles decided to adopt a different solution to avoid the high rent costs in the Californian city, while attending the University of California, Berkeley, in the San Francisco area. The story was shared on the social network Reddit by a user and garnered mixed reactions in the comments.

The young man had a rent-free place to live in Los Angeles and chose to fly to all of his classes in the city of San Francisco, 540 km away. To that end, he booked tickets for the fall 2022 semester and spring 2023 semester. A portion of the tickets were reserved using Alaska Mileage Plan and Southwest Rapid Rewards miles.

The student booked tickets for every day of the week, in case he needed to go on those days. If it was not necessary to be in person, he would simply cancel the reservation in advance so as not to be fined. He would also always book the cheapest ticket for the day and then use same-day flight changes to get the desired time slot.

sacrifices

He says he never missed a class, but it took some sacrifices. Typically, the door-to-door commute between her home in Los Angeles and her classroom at Berkeley was four to five hours each way.

In the fall semester, his first class was at 10:00 am on Mondays and Wednesdays and 8:00 am on Fridays. For the 10:00 am class, he would wake up at 3:40 am, catch the 6:00 am flight, have breakfast in the San Francisco lounge, and then take the Bart (rail transit system) to campus.

For the 8:00 am class, he would wake up at 3:30 am and catch the 5:30 am Southwest flight from Los Angeles to Oakland. In the spring semester, her first class was at 11:00 am on Mondays and 12:00 pm on Wednesdays and Fridays. For all these classes, he usually woke up at 5:40 am and caught a Southwest flight at 8:20 am from Los Angeles to Oakland.

In the other direction, he used to catch a flight back home at 6-7pm, although some days he would catch a flight after 9pm if there were after-school events.

hundreds of flights

The student calculated the cost of this journey. In the fall semester of 2022, he made a total of 138 flights and flew 55,593 miles. He spent 45,972 minutes on his commute, equivalent to nearly 32 full days. In terms of money, it cost him $3,812.83. In terms of points, he redeemed 307,500 Alaska miles, 43,732 Southwest points, 6,500 Avianca miles and 5,500 United miles.

In the spring semester of 2023, he made a total of 100 flights and flew 36,496 miles. He spent 29,983 minutes on his commute, equivalent to nearly 21 full days. In terms of money, it cost him $1,779.82. In points, he redeemed 113,213 Southwest points and 100,000 Alaska miles.

Despite the routine, certainly the amount he spent on all these flights was less than what he would spend if he rented a decent house in San Francisco, one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. According to a survey, it costs an average of more than US$ 3,000 per month to rent an apartment in the Californian city.