Yeah, farecompare.com is great for putting in your origination point and finding what's cheap to various destinations. Travelocity has a similar feature called "Dream Maps" which can help you bag cheap fares sometimes too.
flyertalk.com (which I think is what coldfeet meant, not flyertalkER.com) is a great resource for learning how to play the frequent flyer programs to the hilt. You can find info about good "mistake fares" there that are good for mileage runs.
But flyertalk is not a "how do I get a good deal on airfare" site at all, and in fact asking that type of question would be a violation of their terms of service. It would also be like going to TGR and asking about the best green trails at a resort.
What those of us FlyerTalkers like to find as "good" mistake fares often have multiple stops deliberately so we can earn extra miles to get "elite" status with airlines. They're not "good" in any normal sense of the word! Thus deals like flying from Denver to Kansas City via Salt Lake City and Atlanta, something nobody in their right mind would do if they really wanted to get to KC. But I earned some 10,000 frequent flyer miles and requalified as "elite" on one of my airlines from $98 fares that let me do that. So you can learn about deals, but they're not likely to be the kind of deals that will get you out west to ski.
Farecompare is great. Also even some of the fare "aggregator" sites like kayak.com do searches of all the major and smaller airlines, all the online booking sites, etc. Good way to find out what's out there. Of the "main" airfare booking sites, Orbitz.com has in my opinion the best fare comparison displays and presents the most flight options, including some that the airlines' own websites doen't always show.
Sometimes flying the airline that does NOT go non-stop to your destination is cheaper, sometimes the other way around. I also have found a lot of $220 fares nonstop on United Denver-Boston, which I do pretty regularly. But last summer, when United was charging $450 for that route, I was finding $218 fares on American all the time with one stop either in Dallas or Chicago. So getting from NYC to SLC might be most direct on Delta, since SLC is a hub for them and they have lots of nonstops. But maybe on a given day, a one-stop on a non-hub airline such as American NYC (EWR, JFK, or LGA) to Dallas to SLC might be cheaper, or Northwest with a hop through Minneapolis or Detroit.
Standby is not cheaper at all - the idea of "discounted standby" disappeared years ago. In fact some airlines (US Airways) charge you to standby!
Play around some with various dates you'd think about going, on Orbitz, Kayak, and Farecompare, and see what's out there. If you find an attractive fare, go for it.
Make sure you're earning miles for free tickets too, whenever you fly on a paid ticket: NEVER NEVER NEVER get on a plane without getting frequent flyer miles for the trip, even if you think "I'll never get enough miles fora free trip". If you don't sign up for a mileage program, you're guaranteeing you'll never get it.
Also "don't spread it around" - you only need to sign up for a total of 3 frequent flyer programs to cover all 6 major US airlines, and it's foolish to be an active member of all 6. 10,000 miles in Delta and 10,000 miles in Continental and 5000 miles in Northwest gets you absolutely nothing, even though you've flown 25,000 miles which is enough for free (capacity controlled, plan months in advance) ticket. But those same 25,000 miles flown as 10,000 on Delta planes, 10,000 on Continental planes, and 5,000 miles on Northwest planes but all booked to the same ONE frequent flyer number on just one of those three airlines gets you a free ticket US/Canada on any one of those three. Why? Because they are all partners in an "airline alliance" called Skyteam.
Skyteam (in US): Northwest, Delta, Continental. Pick one program, join that, and credit all your miles when you check in to that one program. In my case I use Northwest's program and give my Northwest number to Delta and to Continental when I fly them. I just flew to South America free on Delta using Northwest miles that I mostly earned flying Delta and Continental.
Star Alliance (in North America): United, US Airways, Air Canada. Pick one program, join that. Give that number to any of them (and their European or Asian partners) when you fly. In my case I use United's program even though about 25% of the miles I earned on United were from flying US Airways when they were cheaper. Lisamarie and I are flying to Portillo in August free, in Business class no less, on a mix of Air Canada, United, and Swiss airlines from United miles earned from paid tickets on United, US Airways, Air Canada, and Lufthansa. If I had spread those miles over United, US, AC, and Lufthansa's separate programs, I wouldn't have enough for even one coach ticket at all, never mind two in Business clase. But by dumping them all in to one program, we're going in style for free.
oneworld alliance (in North America): only American Airlines. But they do partner up with several other airlines in Mexico, South American, Europe, Asia, Australia. Join one program (probably AA since you're in the States, but in my case I perversely am earning on their South American partner LAN), and use that number whenever you fly AA, LAN, Qantas, etc. I'm about 2/3 of the way to another free coach South American trip (Las Lenas next year maybe?) using a LAN award, but most of the miles were earned flying on American Airlines here in the States.
From the amount you're saying you want to travel for skiing, if you pick one alliance and only one program in that alliance, you should be able to bag a free ticket at least every couple of years. Sooner if you also earn miles on the same airline from using their credit card, renting cars using their FF#, giving that FF# when using their partner hotels, using the shopping mall links on the airline's FF website, never sending flowers without getting frequent flyer miles, etc.
Nice thing is, bagging the miles for the occassional free ticket is totally combinable with getting cheap paid fares from searching on Farecompare or Kayak. However if you use Priceline you won't get miles, and you won't know your airline until you pay for your ticket.
Final comment: Don't believe the Capital One ads about how you can't get free tickets from airline frequent flyer programs - they're just trying to sell you on their card and "psuedo-frequent flyer program" which is much worse than being in a "real" airline frequent flyer program. Plan in advance, earn lots of miles from flying and from everyday spending, and you'll do fine. You probably can't use miles on a ski trip ticket for next week. But I'll guarantee you that with some flexibility you can use miles right now to book a trip somewhere you want to go next December. If you earn the miles smartly.
: You can always find much cheaper fares into SLC or DEN than $500 any day of the week.
: That's pissin' me off, although I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
) you might be willing to pay a little more and stay that extra saturday and sunday 
i'm planning to fly delta to utah in february for about $300 roundtrip, nonstop both ways, from jfk.
