I'm looking to go visit a friend of mine in New Orleans for the weekend of the 14th through the 16th. I've checked all of the popular websites, such as orbitz, travelocity, and priceline, but the cheapest that I've been able to find is $475 roundtrip, which is fucking crazy!

I checked the sticky, but most of those sites were only for Europe, and the ones that were for the US, I had already checked.

How can I get there and back for less than $200?

bro ur best bet is greyhound, and if u get ur ticket like a week ahead of time itll be like 140 bucks 150, and that suks cock, i went all the way from texas to kentucky on a greyhound and that ran me 2 days of my life wasted, haha plane bro , it dont matta, flip an ounce of coke and than buy ur plane ticket nigga, haha free

Where are you flying from? If you're in the US, try Southwest. They often have fares at $99 each way.

Have you checked prices flying from nearby airports? For example, if you live in San Francisco, check SFO, but also check Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento.

I've had good luck using kayak.com to search for cheap tickets.

Check into flying with SkyBus

How can I get there and back for less than $200?

Drive or take a bus.

With a wife and 3 younguns I drive everywhere unless the company pays for it. Otherwise I would go broke.