air fare

[hurricane317]

<p>I'm in the process of booking my daughter's flight home for Thanksgiving. Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a student rate for air fare?</p>

[swimcatsmom]

<p>I don’t think so. A good site for comparing fares is kayak.com but they don’t have all airlines - I think Southwest is not on there.</p>

[walkinghome]

<p>[Cheap</a> Tickets for College Students and Faculty: Airfare, Rail and Hostel Deals](<a href=“http://www.studentuniverse.com/]Cheap”>http://www.studentuniverse.com/) works sometimes.</p>

[juillet]

<p>Sometimes you can get discounts if your daughter has an ISIC (International Student Identity Card), but not usually. AirTran has a standby program for university-age people between 18 and 23 - you pay something like $70 per leg for a flight, and $90 per leg for longer flights to certain destinations, but like I said, it’s a standby program. No booking.</p>

<p>I second Kayak.com to find the cheapest fares, but you will have to crawl Southwest and JetBlue on your own (they are sometimes cheaper). I also don’t think Virgin is represented on there.</p>

[RochesterMom]

<p>SideStep.com is another site to look at.</p>

[dt123]

<p>Anybody else think that Thanksgiving fares are higher than ever this year? On the route I was checking it seemed about twice the usual gouge.</p>

[thumper1]

<p>We made DD’s Thanksgiving reservation in July. Last year her roundtrip on American was $125. This year she’s flying Southwest for $212. Yes…prices have gone up.</p>

<p>We also made the Christmas reservation. Last year $299 on United. This year $438 on Southwest.</p>

[Skyhook]

<p>Do you assume the last possible day before break, or do the professors know this early?</p>

[LongPrime]

<p>If you find a good price, grab it. Airlines learned some lessons eight years ago (9/11) when they couldn’t cut capacity in response to demand and again in 2008 when they couldn’t raise fares fast enough to variable costs. </p>

<p>[American</a> Airlines says planes more fully loaded | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Airlines | Dallas Business News](<a href=“http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/airlines/stories/090509dnnbusairlinetraffic.1486d7787.html]American”>http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/airlines/stories/090509dnnbusairlinetraffic.1486d7787.html)</p>

[EngProfMom]

<p>Professors should put on their syllabus whether they will be giving an in-class final exam. </p>

<p>I’m glad that the cost of one-way tickets, which used to 3/4s of a round-trip, have changed, and that frequent flyer programs have made it easier to get one-way tickets. </p>

<p>Although the fares for flying close to Christmas are fairly steep, I find that I can use frequent flyer miles for the other part.</p>

[thumper1]

<p>We make the Christmas holiday reservations the day after exams end. Our kid likes to stay and visit with friends anyway after HER exams are over. </p>

<p>I DO wish the colleges would NOT have classes starting on Jan 4. That previous weekend is a mighty expensive time to fly. It would be very nice if they had classes start on Wednesday so the kids could fly back when the airfares were not quite as pricey.</p>

[northeastmom]

<p>One reason that my son is not going to apply to one school is because they have final exams on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and another detail is that they do not offer shuttles (I do not have problem paying for one) to the airport. I felt that they are really catering to the student that lives within 4 hours of the school and are not accommodating those that need to fly. Sure a student could probably reschedule a final, but why deal with it when there are so many schools that think of the needs of the OOS student. I do not want to be forced to pick my child up at an airport on Thanksgiving Day if he could not get a flight on Wed. evening. This is something that schools should consider if they want to increase the number of OOS students at a school that tends to get more regional students.</p>

[anxiousmom]

<p>Lots of schools technically have exams on the Wednesday, but often those get rescheduled for earlier… and if there are many students who go to the airports, there are ways to get there (private shuttles, etc). They may not be organized by the college, but if there is a need, usually some enterprising business will fill it.</p>

[Jimmy28]

<p>just an interesting thing I found out about airline prices recently. We were looking into flying for a college visit, and I found great deals on the USAirways site. These were the same prices offered through expedia and other discount places.<br>
I procrastinated, and when I went back a few days later to look again, the prices had gone from $64 each way to $185. Then, a few days later, they were back down to $60. Until then, I had no idea that prices would increase depending on the day in which you were doing the searching (not the day of the flight, which we already know, some days are more expensive to fly on). In my example, the rates were MUCH cheaper when searching during the week.</p>

[twinmom]

<p>Check out StudentUniverse.com, though it’s generally better for international flights.</p>

[patsmom]

<p>[Great</a> travel deals for the college-bound - Well-Mannered Traveler- msnbc.com](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32735772/ns/travel-tips/]Great”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32735772/ns/travel-tips/)</p>

<p>I learned a few new things from this article, including:

Southwest’s program may be fading away, but several other airlines, including Lufthansa, Air Tran, United, JetBlue and American continue to offer some sort of perks for students. Here are some of the more popular travel discounts:</p>

<p>For the past ten years, AirTran Airways has offered a discount standby program not just for college students, but for anyone 18 to 22 years old. (College student or not: on your 23rd birthday, you age-out of the program.) Re-branded AirTran U in 2006, the program lets young people fly standby for $69 on short segment flights and $99 on long-haul segments. There are some blackout dates and a variety of restrictions, but during 2008, more than 83,000 young people took advantage of the program.

</p>

<p>

That’s the idea at Lufthansa, where the GenerationFly program offers any U.S. college student with a valid .edu email address discounted fares to Germany and most every destination the airline flies. As a nice bonus, part-time students, teachers, and faculty members are also eligible to participate in the program. And while Lufthansa doesn’t promise that all fares purchased through the student-oriented program will be lower than those that might be found elsewhere on the Lufthansa site, the airline throws in a few valuable extras just for students. For example, while the rest of us usually have to pay a hefty fee to change the departure date on a ticket, Generation Fly tickets include one free date change before or after departure. The program also sponsors the GenFly lounge, a Web site where program interns and other student travelers can get and share travel tips.
Several other programs have special airline offers for students as well. The discounts promised by the Student Advantage Card (about $20/year) include a 10 percent discount on American Airline flights. And on its Web site, American Airlines offer discounts on vacation packages to students at about two dozen participating universities. JetBlue offers an 11 percent discount to students who have an ISIC card (International Student Identity Card), which costs $22 a year. Holders of that card can also book special discounted fares with STA Travel, one of the major discount student travel agencies, which offers tickets that allow changes for just $50.

</p>

<p>

And, while United Airlines United Airlines doesn’t offer any special discounts for college-age students, the carrier’s College Plus program gives students enrolled in both the College Plus program and the Mileage Plus frequent flier program a graduation present of 10,000 bonus miles.</p>

<p>The deals for student travelers don’t end at the airport. Amtrak and Greyhound and even some hotels also offer discounts to students who have either the ISIC or Student Advantage card.

</p>

[tango14]

<p>Southwest doesn’t have student fares, but they do have a student RapidRewards account that, I think, offers double credits for flights flown. I paid a bit more on Southwest this year than I might have paid on another airline to get him home for Thanksgiving. However, I am sure they’ll get him there, barring blizzard. </p>

<p>Last year, we took a somewhat cheaper ticket (he has to have a connection to get home) on another airline. For no known reason (plane was there, no weather issues on either end, flight crew was there), his first leg left late and he missed his connection. Kid is now stuck in Chicago, and other airline says they can’t get him to his destination until the next evening (this is Thanksgiving Sunday afternoon & he needs to be back for classes on Monday) but they can send him to a city an hour away. </p>

<p>We’re trying to deal with this on the phone in the car (on our way home from the airport) where I didn’t have internet access to check anything. However, I figured on that particular day, no one would have much availability, so I told him to take it. Then he ended up having to take the bus to the bus station, wait several hours, take the bus one hour to his destination, and then a taxi to his dorm because it was after midnight. </p>

<p>I swore never again. If there’s an issue with a flight, SW tells you what it is, clearly, honestly and often. If you miss connection, they often already have you rebooked on the next flight so you don’t have do stand in line waiting for an unconcerned airline agent to maybe find you something getting your from Chicago to Washington via LA. And I have never seen a rude SW employee, no matter how irate or demanding a customer might be.</p>