<p>It may be silly to ask about tickets before the kids have even started school, but as a person who doesn't book a lot of flights I would like to know the following:
How far in advance should I be looking for flights for holidays for the best prices?</p>
<p>Any tips for finding the best prices? - We only have one airline that goes direct from Charlotte, NC.</p>
<p>When will the students know when their last exam is?</p>
<p>Any other tips would be appreciated.</p>
<p>There’s a calendar posted on the Tulane website that lists the Finals Schedule for each semester. Here’s the one for this Fall:
[2009</a> Fall Final Examination Schedule](<a href=“http://www.tulane.edu/~registra/finals/final093.shtml]2009”>http://www.tulane.edu/~registra/finals/final093.shtml)</p>
<p>As soon as I had a sense of my kids’ schedules for the semester, I/we tried to determine when their last final might be. This method usually worked pretty well, although some professors changed their finals (typically EARLIER), some didn’t have finals at all, or maybe my kids dropped a class. </p>
<p>Mostly what I learned was not to book the flight home too early. Even if my D or S was finished, there was often much to catch up on before coming home: sleep, finding one’s clothes, cleaning a dorm room for inspection, whatever. I learned not to fly them out until the next day (and never early in the a.m. if possible). Of course, this approach had to be determined with the dorm closing schedule in mind. For example, one semester, D (different school) had her last exam in the morning, and had to be out of her room for the holidays by noon that same day. This was very stressful for her and meant that my strategy of flying her home the next day wouldn’t work.</p>
<p>You are not too early in thinking about this, although from experience it seems that Thanksgiving holiday flights can be much more challenging to book from a scheduling/pricing perspective—more people traveling over a shorter window of time.
I always booked the T-day holiday flights well before the Christmas vacation ones.</p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>I’ve already made a flight home for Thanksgiving as this will be my biggest headache and I wanted a direct flight for my son instead of connections…I scheduled it for the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving without knowing if he’ll have classes, but it’s the only thing I could do…I think I read or heard somewhere that there won’t be classes the day before Thanksgiving because so many students travel long distances, but I’m not sure about that. Either way, I told my son he’d have to discuss this with his professors if it turned out to be a problem. Those Wednesday flights fill up very quickly and I decided I would not wait and take the chance I couldn’t find him a flight…especially a direct flight.</p>
<p>If there is any way you can fly Southwest, do that. There are wanna get away, web only prices that are very cheap. What I love about Southwest is their cancellation policies. If you have to cancel the wanna get aways, you will have a credit that you can use within a year. You have to get in fairly early for them, but not ridiculously early.</p>
<p>Because you mentioned Charlotte, I’m thinking you may be looking at United. We were able to get cheaper flights through United than Northwest because of booking about a month ahead of time, but they do fill up quickly and I don’t think they have a very good refund policy for cancellations.</p>
<p>Another good thing about Southwest is the Rapid Rewards program. College students earn double credit, so it’s even quicker to earn a free flight. </p>
<p>You may want to use Southwest when you have a longer break and have or want to pick them up and if airline ticket price is a big factor, but when they only have a short break, like Thanksgiving, it’s better to pay the extra money to get them home quicker.</p>
<p>Good luck on your child’s first year at Tulane. It is a beautiful campus, and I hope they take the time to ride the streetcar up and down Saint Charles to enjoy the beautiful homes. A very inexpensive and relaxing way to see New Orleans.</p>
<p>I like to be on top of these things so I already booked my S r/t flights for Fall break in October and for Thanksgiving. Fall break was cheap (about $250 r/t to JFK) but Thanksgiving was a lot more. I have my son coming home Tuesday night (5:00 pm flight) and returning Monday morning (7:00 am flight) and I am still paying $420.00. It would have cost me $200 more (YES, $620.00) if I had booked his return flight on Sunday, rather than Monday. He arrives at 10:00 am and his first class is at 12:00 noon. He should make it. I am waiting to book the Xmas/New Year’s vacation flights until I have a little more info on his schedule. I think there is still time for that since S will be coming home a week before Xmas and those dates usually are not a problem. For best available prices, I always check <a href=“http://www.kayak.com%5B/url%5D”>www.kayak.com</a> first. This is a good source for hotels, as well.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it appears that Southwest Airlines is ending its college student rapid rewards program. Too bad.</p>
<p>Since Tulane does not have classes on Wednesday before thanksgiving, I booked my s for a Monday night flight as he has the quite common MWF schedule, so no classes on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Thanksgiving Break is the most troublesome by far. DD never had a Wednesday class in four years. My recommendation is to book the flight as early as possible, because fares can get very pricey otherwise.</p>
<p>You should only be concerned about a Thanksgiving Day ticket at this point. The return flight for the end of the semester will remain cheap until late November.</p>
<p>gv00928 - That is overly broad and rests on the hopes that the airlines don’t change their policies, a feature they are not famous for. Wiser, I think, to get the ticket as soon as you know for sure when the last final is, which one should know a week after classes start. The only exception would be if the student drops a class and that happened to be their last final, but that is a small risk and worst case they hang out for an extra day.</p>
<p>This is actually another question relating to travel plans. Do most students travel home for fall break? I guess I just assumed since it was so close to Parents’ Weekend that they would just use the time to relax and enjoy campus life and their new friends, but maybe they’re ready to get out of there by then. (?)</p>
<p>And I guess I should add - Do most parents attend the Parent and Family weekend? As I look at the schedule, it really looks like it is mostly geared toward alumni.</p>
<p>Hi rcf - For your first question, most students stay at Tulane for fall break, although I imagine those whose homes are within driving distance (i.e. Louisiana, nearby gulf coastal areas, etc.) may choose to go home. Those that have made friends with fellow students from further away often invite them to come along. But the vast majority stay.</p>
<p>For your second question, it is a fun weekend for all, with the game, free food, and a chance to see the campus and city at a time when the weather is often close to perfect, if you haven’t had that experience yet. Many have only seen it when it is hot and humid. Also, it is nice the freshman year because it is the first chance your child has to show you around with the knowledge of things they have learned in their month+ there. But it is homecoming and they traditionally do cater some to us alums. But I am also sure you would have a great time. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t go after the freshman year though. Did that with my son at another school and while it was great to see him of course, it was not really worth the trip otherwise after freshman year.</p>
<p>As per the plane tickets - fares go down and are pretty cheap in September and October.</p>
<p>And fall break? This is the first year (in a while, if not ever) that Tulane has a fall break, so no one knows how it’s going to go. However, the break is merely a four-day weekend, so it can really go any way.</p>
<p>We had a fall break way back when. Maybe they got rid of it and brought it back. But back then most people stayed. It may have been only a 3 day weekend, I can’t remember for sure.</p>
<p>Regarding flights home after finals - I learned the hard way not to book them too early. It’s a tradeoff between locking in a cheap fare now and finding out in early December that several posted final exam dates were not used and papers were assigned instead - or final exams were given the last week of classes. That left an unhappy kid who wanted to get home already (days before the ticket I had booked). So I ended up paying change fees. Midweek fares in mid-December have generally been relatively low and farely consistent in the past.</p>
<p>Now I end up nagging my S periodically during the semester to ask his professors what their plans are for the finals.</p>
<p>Ah, good stuff altmom. I wouldn’t have thought of that; my how things have changed. Especially good to know when you have a kid majoring in liberal arts like Creative Writing and Asian Studies. I suspect these, and especially the former, might be very likely to be as you describe. Maybe I will hold off after all.</p>