<p>I am a parent for a college freshman starting in August. My son's college is far ( 1000 miles) away and I am planning to pre-purchase the air tickets. Some questions and hope experienced parents can share your experiences.</p>
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<li><p>Should I buy his first ticket as one way because I am not sure his return date? His return date could be Fall Break, or Thanksgiving? Even for Thanksgiving, I am sure if he can depart on Wednesday as the school says it depends on his courses, professors, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>There is also a Family Weekend in late September and a Fall break in early October, do you usually go visit your son/daughter or you let them come, or just don;t do anything?</p></li>
<li><p>Most airlines will charge you to change the ticket date or time, is it worth to pre-buy tickets now to save but you may end up paying more if you have to change dates?</p></li>
<li><p>Besides the popular travel websites, is there a travel website for college student that you can buy the same itinerary several times for the year at a cheaper price, or give you some discount for students?</p></li>
<li><p>For the first trip orientation, do parents (both?) ususally go with the student? His college said that the parent has to say good bye the first day. After first day, if I stay in a nearby hotel, can I still stay a few days to him dorm necessities, etc? I don't know if they allow us to take the student out during orientation.</p></li>
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<p>Thanks and any comments are appreciated.
Fisrt time freshmen parent</p>
<p>You will get more specific answers if you give a general idea of the start and destination of the flight. For example, we always fly Southwest, but Southwest doesn’t fly everywhere.</p>
<p>We went for family weekend; our daughter came home one weekend and Thanksgiving her first semester. Both parents and little brother went to drop her off and stayed a day, I think. She was ready to start something new and was just fine with us leaving sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>I will be subscribing to this thread since I have the exact same situation. As far as your questions:</p>
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<li><p>I was given the advice to buy the first ticket one way because of not knowing the return date. One way or the other, one of the tickets will end up being one way.</p></li>
<li><p>We also have a family weekend in Septemeber and a break in October. We will go down for the family weekend and, since it is her first semester, would have her come home for the short October break. It is a little less than a 2 hour flight. </p></li>
<li><p>I don’t know whether it is worth buying tickets way in in advance since prices can go up and down. I will probably book at least 30 days in advance once I have her exact dates.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t know about any special student web sites for travel but they probably exist. We basically only have one airline carrier to choose so we usually book through their web site directly.</p></li>
<li><p>Each school will have a slightly different orientation policy but most that I am familiar with, as well as my daughters, want to get the students acclimated as soon as possible. Separation anxiety is going to set in one way or the other. Our family will be bringing her down for the move in and to see if we forgot to bring anything that we can pickup at the last minute. D’s school also includes a few required parent events. When our activities end, they pretty much want you to say your good byes.</p></li>
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No, no and no! If the college says “leave”, PLEASE leave! There will be people on campus or ways for your kid to get what he/she needs without you there. Really! Kiss 'em good-bye and then leave. :)</p>
<p>It would be helpful to know the specific airports. </p>
<p>We did a one way ticket OUT to school.</p>
<p>Round trip for Christmas and Summer and Christmas and Summer and Christmas and Summer and Christmas.</p>
<p>This year is our kid’s senior year…she is getting a one way ticket home (she chose the train).</p>
<p>She didn’t come home for the other breaks but went to other relatives which was a short air shuttle ride (round trip).</p>
<p>We made both the Thanksgiving and Christmas reservations in the late summer…August. The summer was made closer to summer vacation, and so was spring break (mostly because we seldom KNEW the destination in advance).</p>
<p>Our kiddo flew Southwest any time she could.</p>
<p>If pricing is the same, it’s easier to buy a one-way fare for the student in August. You never know when he/she will be returning. The exception to this is Thanksgiving - get those tickets early, as early as August if you can, when you have a school calendar in hand and an idea of how the new airport works. Depending on the market, you could be shut out or paying extremely inflated prices for Thanksgiving weekend. I try to book as early in the day on that Sunday as possible because bad weather can make a mess of things.</p>
<p>DD bought a one-way ticket to her school 3000 miles away. She didn’t come home for Thanksgiving, so bought a round-trip ticket for Christmas after she got her finals schedule. She always had good luck finding last minute tickets, or great priced one-way tickets.</p>
<p>Other DDs school says to leave after they claim your student for orientation since you will not see them again.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that Thanksgiving is typically the toughest time to get reasonably priced airline tickets because almost everyone is traveling at the same time (Tues or Weds, and then Sunday.) Book those tickets as early as possible</p>
<p>Our child traveled to school on an opposite coast and came home Thanksigving and Christmas first year, and only Christmas break after that first year.</p>
<p>Fortunately at least 3 airports on both coasts to fly into or out of…so…usually got decent fares and always booked just 1 way (except for the Freshman Thanksgiving trip.)</p>
<p>Our Ds are 1,100 miles away. Since Atlanta is an AirTran hub and all tickets on AirTran are one-way - no penalty for not getting a roundtrip - we’ve always done one leg at a time. But in retrospect, it would have saved us money to have gotten Thanksgiving and Christmas travel way in advance along with September travel - the holiday peak fares have cost a mint.</p>
<p>Always check the price of one way and round trip, even if you only intend on using the ticket there. There are many online travel sites where you can pop in a series of return dates and times to see if any of them by chance happen to lower the price below the one way price. It does happen…</p>
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<li>I’d be cautious about buying a ticket (one-way or round-trip) until the school tells you what date your child can move in – you might not want to get there more than a day or so before that, or even the day of if he is flying in by himself. At D’s college, move in dates were spread over a four-day period.<br></li>
<li><p>Get a copy of the school’s academic calendar (probably on their website) – if the school is off for the entire Thanksgiving week, I wouldn’t see any reason why you shouldn’t just price RT tickets for arrival in August (or whenever school starts) and departure Friday evening the week before Thanksgiving. If the school is only off Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving week I’d consider waiting on that ticket since your son’s classes will probably determine what time he can get away Wednesday. D had a professor who did some pretty preferential grading for students who were in class on the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, and I’ve heard of other kids with Wednesday labs that also felt like it was a very bad idea to miss them.</p></li>
<li><p>We went to parents’ weekend, but ended up not choosing to do any of the group events. I’m not big on football games, and I really have no desire to sit in an auditorium and listen to the Deans talk – I’d rather see my daughter and meet her friends. If I had to do it again I’d have chosen a different weekend – hotel reservations would have been easier (and cheaper), there would have been a lot fewer people around, and I think we’d generally have had a little easier time. I’ve heard that some schools do a wonderful job with the weekend though, so it might be helpful to check with some other parents who have had kids at that school. </p></li>
<li><p>With respect to the parent going with the student the first time, we found it was nice. We got a hotel room for the night before check-in, had a car to drive to Target, grocery store,… none of which were within walking distance (hauling distance) of campus, and dad brought a really handy toolbox to help get things set up. Those tools got borrowed a lot. We left the second day, and I think that was fine.</p></li>
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<p>Thanks all for the comments. Our home state is NJ (EWR) and my S college is in Atlanta. I just checked the school calender and found that Fall Break in two days Mon and Tue in early October. Thanksgiving recess is from Wed to Fri only. I also checked one way ticket and it is not available (or more expensive than round trip) from EWR to ATL. However it is available from La Guardia at a reasonable half price.
Based on all comments so far, it seems one way for the first ticket is better choice. I can probably start booking RT tickets after school starts for Thanksgiving, XMAS, etc and may be Fall Break. I probably have to skip the Family weekend as it is only Sat and Sun.</p>
<p>Wow, thanksgiving and fall break? That’s generous. I only got tickets home for Christmas and summer holidays, but I lived a little further than Atlanta/NJ. Frankly, I liked having the extra few days at school during Fall Break to catch up on what I was missing, and for Thanksgiving I tagged along to a local friends’ house every year. I did however really look forward to seeing my parents on Family weekend.</p>
<p>Thanksgiving Wed- Fri likely means last day of classes are Tues (fly home Tues eve) and return Sunday after Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>Atlanta is hub for Delta too so you should have lots of flights to choose from.</p>
<p>We book a flight to school in August (one way), Thanksgiving RT for one son (the other son has yet to come home for Thanksgiving) and then RT for winter break.</p>
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<li>sometimes but not always studentuniverse has the best one-way tickets for a college student. There is one other student discount site but I have not used it so I don’t remember the site - sorry.</li>
<li>at least on Continental, if you use frequent flier miles, you can change your return trip without a change fee if you do it more than three weeks from your return, so sometimes we use frequent flier miles for D’s trip when we don’t know the return end. If you have frequent flier miles to use, check if they have good flexibility that will help you.</li>
<li>I agree that if it works out with the cities you are trying to fly between, go for Southwest</li>
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<p>We get a one way for student’s drop off day, but (dah) round trip for us. We arrive the night before move in day, spend the day of “move in” at a Bed Bath & Beyond as well as parents activities. Son is happily ensconced in new school activities. We leave the following day after one last hug and a picture to remember how excited he was. 2 nights, 1 happy child.</p>
<p>Went to Parent’s weekend. Wouldn’t miss it and Kids would be very lonely if mom/dad don’t come. Even brought younger children. Always a fun time.</p>
<p>The tricky thing can be not know schedules of finals, classses cancelled etc. Err toward caution. </p>
<p>I do know that airline tickets for Boston students can be tough, especially at Thanksgiving. Since we have family nearby, we may opt to visit them (with son) instead.</p>