I spent a whole school year commuting to class by plane to save money on rent

A college graduate has revealed that he spent a whole school year commuting to class by plane - flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco three times a week just so he could avoid paying rent.

The student, named Bill, who asked for his last name not to be shared, said he took a total of 238 flights from August 2022 to May 2023, and spent a total of $5,592.66 and 576,445 frequent flier miles on his travels.

Bill, who never missed a class, explained to Los Angeles news outlet KTLA that he was ecstatic when he was accepted into University of California, Berkeley's one-year Master of Engineering program last year.

However, he didn't want to give up his low-rent apartment in LA and knew he wanted to move back after graduating, so to avoid having to pay 'expensive' rent in the Bay Area, he decided to fly back and forth for his classes.

A college graduate, named Bill, who asked for his last name not to be shared, said he took a total of 238 flights from August 2022 to May 2023 

The dedicated student spent a total of $5,592.66 and 576,445 frequent flier miles on his travels 

Bill arranged his schedule so that he'd only have lectures three days a week, but that still meant getting on a plane more than 200 times across the 10-month program.

While chatting with the outlet, he explained that he had to wake up at 3.30am on the days he had class, so he could get on a 6am flight from LAX to SFO.

After arriving in San Francisco, he took the 8.30am BART train to Berkley, and made it to class by 10am.

After a full day of learning, he would do the reverse back to LA, and would usually arrive home around midnight.

He explained that it was no secret to his classmates what he was doing, and many believed he'd never be able to keep it up all year long - but were impressed with his dedication when he did. 

'My classmates thought I would quit week one, but I treated it as a trip more than a commute,' he explained.

'Instead of asking, "What's for dinner?" they would ask, "When's your flight back?"'

While he did spend more than $5,000 on commuting - and roughly 76,000 minutes, he calculated - he still saved a ton of money since rent near the college averages around $3,358 per month, according to RentCafe.com.

He woke up at 3.30am so he could get on a 6am flight and make it to class by 10am. He did reverse back to LA in the evening, and would usually arrive home around midnight

'This is probably one of the craziest things I've done in my life, and I'm so glad I made it through, without missing any classes. That itself is a miracle,' he said

Thankfully, he was also able to cut costs by using more than half a million airline miles he had built up.

He broke down his expenses in a detailed post shared to the online forum FlyerTalk.

He said he spent $671.29 on trains, $520.00 on parking, $1,948.27 on gas, $39.96 on inflight WiFi, $1,552.10 on Alaska flights (as well as an additional 407,500 Alaska miles), $758.24 on Southwest flights (as well as an additional 156,945 Southwest points), $71.30 on United flights (as well as an additional 5,500 United miles), $15.60 on Avianca flights (as well as an additional 6,500 Avianca miles), and $15.90 on Spirit flights. 

'This is probably one of the craziest things I've done in my life, and I'm so glad I made it through, without missing any classes. 

'That itself is a miracle,' he concluded.

Bill also spoke out about his endeavor on Reddit, where it quickly went viral, gaining thousands of likes and hundreds of comments. 

In his post, he explained that booking his flights far in advance and taking advantage of 'sales' and airline perks also helped his finances. 

'I love flying and I have a lot of frequent flier miles/points from credit cards,' he explained in his post.

'I have elite status with Alaska and Southwest, and both offer a valuable perk called same-day change.

'I always book the cheapest flight of that day and then I would call them when the check-in window opened to change to other flights of that day free of charge. 

'Both airlines have robust schedule between LA and the Bay Area.'