<p>If your S/D lives far enough to have to fly, do you just get them to book the ticket in one of the common internet travel agencies, or are you aware of any entity that gets better rates for students?</p>
<p>There are no special fares for students, sorry!</p>
<p>There is student universe ([Cheap</a> Tickets for College Students and Faculty: Airfare, Rail and Hostel Deals](<a href=“http://www.studentuniverse.com/]Cheap”>http://www.studentuniverse.com/)) and sta travel ([Book</a> cheap student and teacher flights, hotels and hostels with STA Travel. | STA Travel | STA Homepage](<a href=“http://www.statravel.com/]Book”>http://www.statravel.com/)).</p>
<p>We have checked airfares on Student Universe several times. BUYER beware…they are often more expensive than booking straight through the airlines.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ve never seen any special bargains on Student Universe that I couldn’t get elsewhere, or do even better seaching the travel websites online by myself.</p>
<p>But Dad<em>of</em>3, I don’t have my kid do the booking himself. Since I’m paying, I want to be the one who does the comparison shopping. Plus, I’m better about watching for the low price points. ;)</p>
<p>We found the same thing at Student Universe – slightly higher than the roaming gnome. How is it that they’ve got every student in the world convinced that they have fantastic rates?</p>
<p>There are no student discounts domestically unless you count Southwest’s youth fares which aren’t online and not the cheapest fares. Internationally, there are few and sta or studentuniverse don’t seem to have them and are often higher than the airlines themselves. I normally check the online agencies and then book on the airline’s website (Southwest only lists its flights on its website).</p>
<p>Generally, students could care less about the price or airline, so the parent should book. I’ve taught myself the intricacies of airlines and airfares for the last 7 years, so I book flights for family and friends. Airlines get confused when an 18 year old does all the talking/planning and the parents barely know the airline and connecting city, but my parents are not very computer literate and trust me.</p>
<p>There’s no way to get better fares for students (unfortunately!). The only thing to do is to use kayak.com so you can at least search a bunch of websites efficiently (make sure you check the boxes to do a simultaneous travelocity, expedia, hotwire, and priceline search in conjunction with your kayak search). And if Southwest or JetBlue fly to your city, it’s worth checking out their sites too (Southwest doesn’t come up on the usual travel search sites, sometimes Jet Blue does, sometimes they don’t). </p>
<p>Where you really save money with Southwest is that they let you bring two free pieces of checked luggage in addition to your carry on. This used to be airline policy for all airlines (ah, the good old days) but now they are one of the last ones to do this. For a college student, this can make a big, big difference, especially if they are the kind of kid with a lot of stuff.</p>
<p>SEA_Tide, Speak for your own friends. My kids are not only travel savvy, but they are also bargain hunters. My daughter went to college in IL and she made all of her own travel arrangements whether it was driving or flying all by herself starting as a freshman, save for the first winter break. Since she’s been out of college she’s found bargains on trips to Hawaii (under $300 RT from JFK), and other places overseas and stateside. She realized last year that it would pay off in the long run to get a Continental credit card because it gives you free baggage and it code shares with several other airlines. My son is so tight with his money and ours that he needs to be encouraged to spend it. But while there is a learning curve for travel deals, it’s really not that hard - for 18 year olds or their parents…</p>
<p>To the OP, Get your kid hooked up with a fare alert system through one of the Travel sites like Airfare watchdog that gives weekly updates on any airport they choose. The reminders that I felt I needed to give my daughter were ones about timing, as in, Southwest books out no further then 6 months and thats when the prices are the lowest. If you need a trip in June, you should book Southwest in January.</p>
<p>KathieP, did you get your daughter a credit card? Just wondering because I think I need one but my parents are not keen on the idea.</p>
<p>whiteagle, She used her debit card for three years and then got a credit card her senior year of college. That was a mistake on both of our parts because she could have been using those three years to build up her credit history. I think she was able to use it for flights, unless she used our credit card. It’s hard to remember since it was a few years ago. By the time she got a credit card her senior year we could only get her one with a very low credit limit and it took quite a while for them to raise the limit. Our son got one as a freshman in college.</p>
<p>Student universe is worth checking - sometimes their prices are much lower. (Often they are higher though, so be sure to check Orbitz, etc. as well.) You usually have to book very far in advance though.</p>
<p>My son flies out of a Tier 3 airport, with only 2 choices of airline to a hub and the plane to the hub is small, maybe 30 seater and hundreds of kids trying to fly out on the same day. I just signed up for fair alert with those airlines and I grab the Christmas ticket when the fares are low. Usually occurs quite early in the fall, but the difference can be as much as $600 per round trip. There is one route once per day that only requires 2 plane switch instead of 2 and avoids O’Hare…that’s the one I’m ususally after. His was the only plane that landed last year during a blizzard…everyone else got stuck at O’hare. The airline fair alert e-mails work really well for us. With a Blackberry I can grab stuff immediately. My son could book his own tickets, but isn’t as ‘connected’ as I am and able to react quickly. Next year I’ll most likely have 2 at the same place, so I’m going to have to be even more alert for the holiday travel. My advide, get fare alert. Plan ahead and shop it and avoid O’hare in the winter if you can.</p>
<p>D is likely to be attending a college that requires traveling by air so this is an interesting thread. The one question I have is how do you coordinate buying the tickets in advance, particularly the return portion? (when the student leaves the college to return home for a break, holiday, etc.?) I wouldn’t think you would know their school and exam schedule that far in advance and you may end up having to change it and pay more money. Any ideas?</p>
<p>At my son’s college exam schedules are posted for the year. If he has an exam scheduled on the last exam day, it’s been our experience that most of the kids vote to take it early. Regardless I purchase tickets for the morning after the last exam day just to be safe. If he doesn’t have any exams on the last exam day he appreciates having that day to pack and clean and relax. Going home after break he prefers to get back a day early (before classes start) again just to relax for a day and to allow a day if there are plane issues. If you have a frosh or student living in the dorm, check their policies. Freshman year my son had to be out of the dorm by 5 PM the day of the last exam. That year my son crashed that night at a friend’s off campus apartment and flew out the next morning. Some colleges will bend abit on the dorm schedule for kids who have different plane schedules especially at places with the majority of kids out of the region, but be aware of the policies especially at the Christmas break.</p>
<p>Bobby CT: This is my D’s first semester, so I don’t know how end-of-year will work. But for Christmas break, she apparently got a pretty exact exam schedule early on. As it turned out, her only exam on the last exam day is for History, and she was “pretty sure” that that would only be turning in a paper, not sitting for an exam (the 2 hour difference determined whether she could get the flight she wanted). I did insist that she confirm with the professor, for the reason you stated. </p>
<p>The way you worded your question, it sounds like you’re thinking of the round-trip as out to school in August and then back home for the break. The way we do it, each individual break is considered the round-trip; e.g., we booked the Thanksgiving visit as FROM school TO home, and back to school again. Which means that the beginning-of-year and end-of-year trips are one-way. Does that make sense? This alleviates the need to know end-of-semester details 9 months in advance.</p>
<p>If I didn’t have these credit card airline miles I don’t know what I would do. Sure I had to cash in 40k “points” instead of 25k to buy his ticket that retailed for over $700, but somehow cashing in points doesn’t have the same sting as paying $700 - something I would not have done; he would have been on the bus! </p>
<p>Plus, I pay his tuition with this credit card, so that practically earns a plane ticket home.</p>
<p>I WISH son’s school would let us pay by credit card for that very same reason. However, they charge a fee that equals about the cost of a roundtrip ticket so it’s a wash. I did roundtrip to school and home for Thanksgiving. Roundtrip back after thanksgiving and home for Christmas. Still have to get him a flight BACK after Christmas, but because of spring sports schedule, i think it’s probably wiser to do a one-way. Ugh. And unlike Northwest, they only allow 250 off of airfare, so it’s almost never a free flight.</p>
<p>Just an FYI about Orbitz and Travelocity types of bookings…sometimes their flights are less costly…BUT if they change your flight times it is sometimes very difficult to fix a problem if one occurs.</p>
<p>E.g. We booked one of DD’s cross country trip through one of them. It was a San Jose/Denver/Hartford flight…perfect departure time (about 9 a.m. giving DD the chance to use the free shuttle service, etc). Well…the “company” changed her flight to a different departure time AND also changed her connection. Her flight was leaving San Jose at 6 a.m. (public transport doesn’t start until 7) AND they stupidly had her connecting flight arriving in Denver AFTER the connection had departed. There is NO way to contact Travelocity or Orbitz when you get one of these “we changed your flight” emails…in fact, the first line says…DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL. Needless to say…we had a problem. So I went directly to the airline website and guess what…there was a flight to a different connecting airport leaving at the same time as the originally scheduled departure time. SO…I called (I had booked the ticket) the airlines directly and luckily got a very understanding agent who said “we usually do NOT make these changes. BUT why did they do that??” And she made the changes, gave us an airline co. confirmation code and that was that.</p>
<p>I vowed never to use an online travel company again. Too much hassle. OH…did I tell you that this change was the FOURTH one that the company had done with this trip?</p>
<p>We do as others do…trip out in the fall is one way. Trip at Christmas is round trip. Trip in summer is one way. DD does not travel to our home at Thanksgiving or Spring break (too much money to fly her cross country…she goes to relatives who live nearer to her school). </p>
<p>We booked her SW flight home for Christmas in the early summer when we also booked a round trip ticket for her to come here for two weeks this summer. She called me in October to say that she didn’t have to stay for the last day of exams. SW has a very nice change policy…no fee to change but you do have to pay the difference in ticketing price if there is one…DD made the change to one day earlier for $8.50.</p>
<p>Another great thing about SW - among so many others - is that it makes no difference if you book round trip or one way. So we just book the one way out to school, the round trip home for Christmas and the one way back in spring. She no longer tries to come home for Thanksgiving and spring break.</p>