<p>I know it is early to think about this, but as I am watching gas prices and airfares going up, I wonder what parents do about making airline reservations for Thanksgiving break for their kids? Do you make them months in advance (D will be traveling West Coast to East Coast) or closer to the holiday? All advice about sending kids across the country to school would be appreciated (ie too far to drive)\
Thanks</p>
<p>Short answer, for Thanksgiving, buy them as soon as you know the correct dates and can get a reasonable price. Thanksgiving is one of the most traveled days of the year.</p>
<p>My daughter told me about a travel website just for students and college faculty called <a href="http://www.studentuniverse.com%5B/url%5D">www.studentuniverse.com</a>. Discounted tickets are offered to these people with a valid college e-mail address. I'm pretty sure you can use your own credit card to pay for them. </p>
<p>Biggest tip is to just become familiar with all the choices out there. I prefer to fly in and out of our local smallish airport but sometimes the small airlines are not on the big travel search engines like orbitz or travelocity, so I'll check those airlines directly. Southwest also does not show up on all search engines and they only start selling tickets within a 6 month window, with the best deals on a first come first served basis. To get Southwest tickets for Thanksgiving, you would purchase them at the end of May.</p>
<p>Also, remember, if you purchase a ticket and the airfare for your travel dates gows down between the purchase date and the travel date, you are entitled to recieve credit for the difference. So, like Kathie wrote, buy the tickets and continue to watch for fare reductions. Once the fares go down, call the airline for your credit! You can do this more than once, so if the fare drops a second time, you get another credit. As long as you aren't changing travel dates/times, there is no fee for them processing the credit for you - at least not with the airlines I have used. </p>
<p>I think Travelocity still has the service where you can ask them to notify you when an airfare to and from your designated cities goes below a certain price. Just set it to notify you via email when the fare dips below whatever you paid.</p>
<p>I got a very good price for my D, chicago to Boston, wed before returning Sunday after, booking in late October. These days it is hard to generalize.</p>
<p>One thing to remember is that SW Airlines allows you to credit unused tickets to future flights, so you can gain some flexibility that way. They are not always the cheapest, though.</p>
<p>Thanks to all of you--great ideas!</p>
<p>I just made my Ds reservation (for summer) from east to west on lowestfare.com, which has pretty good deals. I'm a bit picky about times because I don't like her to return to school after dark, which means she has to leave here (LA) by 7:00am. I usually pay in the high $200s for a roundtrip on major airlines.
Thanksgiving is by far the hardest to schedule because everyone seems to want to leave at the same time. If you're flexible and can go a bit early in the week, it's much easier.</p>
<p>Yes, ASAP, we've found Thanksgiving not too hard to book esp if kid can leave Tues or Tues nite. We wait to book till Oct to book Thanksgiving round trip Chicago to Newark. We book Sept/June flight using frequent flyer miles in the event we need to change June flight once those finals are known; so far it's been easy to change June return in March or April.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting this qx, wornoutmom. I had already begun to think about booking for Parents Wkend in early fall (we will be travelling 2/3 to all the way x-country, depending on final choice), but I never thought ahead to Thanksgiving, Xmas. This is very helpful. Thanks to all.</p>
<p>FWIW, my son never came home for Thanksgiving - the reason was that at his school, winter break started mid-December, and he had a full month-long break. So it just seemed silly to pay the cost for him to make a round trip flight home for a few days in November, when he was going to be coming home for a month only 3 weeks later. Of course, it's also rather inconvenient to spend 2 full days dealing with long flights, waits, and airport transportation for a short trip.</p>
<p>There were plenty of invitations for Thanksgiving dinner with kids whose families lived closer to the college. My son refused them, but that was his problem. There are also plenty of kids who do stay on campus over Thanksgiving break, and they do get together for meals & socializing on their own.</p>
<p>I have a related question - what if you need one way tickets? When my D was in college (1998-2002) we had some difficulties because she didn't always do a round trip within 3 months. Do airlines still have such requirements? I have heard there are some websites that do one way tickets. I know SW does but not sure they'll be going where S is going. I am concerned because generally one way tickets are much more expensive than round trip. Any suggestions? Thanks!</p>
<p>I got my son one way tickets when he first went to college, then roundtrip home for winter, spring, & summer breaks. For the one ways, we were using Jet Blue, which does not charge more for one-way and has very few restrictions; but you need to book fairly early to get the best deals -- the more their planes fill, the higher the cost of the remaining tickets.</p>
<p>I never thought about the one way issue. Something else to consider......</p>
<p>Like Calmom, S never came home for Thanksgiving--just the winter break and about a week or so during the summer. D will be out there next year, and we're anticipating the same thing with her. Travel can be such a nightmare during that holiday, we just decided to forego getting together. Fortunately, we do have relatives in LA, so they can spend the holiday there.</p>
<p>DD says she wants to apply to colleges in CA. We said fine...but only because we have close relatives out there who she can spend Thanksgiving with (they usually go to Lake Tahoe for Thanksgiving...I'm sure she would LOVE to go with them!!).</p>
<p>I am figuring S will not come home for Thanksgiving but will for winter break. I'd be surprised if he came home for spring break, but I imagine he will at the end of the school year. So we may need two one ways (Aug and May). Since I don't know that Jet Blue will help us either, any info on one ways on the traditional airlines (American, United, Delta, etc.) would be most welcome.</p>
<p>When my daughter flew to school as a freshman(fall 2003) we knew that she would be driving home for her winter break and then back in January to college but weren't sure about Spring break. She decided to fly home for Spring break (she had to make this decision before college even started) so we got her a round trip ticket with departure in September and return in March. It was alot of trouble and some stress because we were really not sure how it would all work, i.e. would she still be friends with the person she intended to drive home with, would they still want to go home, etc.</p>
<p>Now that Southwest is in Philadelphia, we have a lot more freedom with one way tickets. This fall when she started, she drove to college with a friend, drove back home at winter break then we all had a vacation over Christmas in New Orleans and flew there. From New Orleans, we flew home and she flew back to college. Because I booked all the tickets early, we were able to get round trip tickets for most of our family for around $200 and just under $300 for her. And this was travel two days before Christmas and then January 2nd.</p>
<p>In the past, we have booked our S's flights home for the winter holiday in September/October. Fortunately, he's on a quarter system, so he would leave mid-December and return around January 4. That avoided the crowds that appear later in December. D's school is on a semester system, so that might be more difficult; however, she's close to a Southwest Airlines airport that should help.</p>
<p>One airline not yet mentioned that we've used is Frontier. S flew out his freshman year (fall 2001) on Frontier one-way and that worked out well. There was just one stop enroute, and the fare was quite reasonable.</p>
<p>Several other things that might be helpful. Most airlines post their special sale fares on Monday or Tuesdays. Even though Thanksgiving is a busy time, if you book early enough you can probably get a reasonable price. If there are particular airlines that fly between the two cities, sign up for the information on specials. You will usually get a weekly update with fares and the valid dates. We have snagged some very good deals this way--$149 rt from Chicago to L.A., $98 rt Chicago to Miami, etc.</p>
<p>Also, using the travel sites such as Expedia allows you to easily compare costs from other closeby cities. Lastly, there is a website that supposedly includes all airlines (Southwest included) and even some fare consolidators. I haven't used it much yet, but you may want to check it out--<a href="http://www.mobissimo.com">www.mobissimo.com</a>.</p>
<p>Our son doesn't think it's worthwhile to come home at Thanksgiving (Boston to Seattle). Too many people flying, too little time, and school's out in another few weeks anyway. He feels the same way about spring break, BTW. </p>
<p>For his regular travel, we use Alaska Airlines and frequent flyer miles. Alaska has a 20K FF ticket (if you agree to flights that may not be at great times) and we have an Alaska mileage credit card, so no problem. We've had no problem scheduling both ends of the trip at the same time, I bought his spring travel in mid-December and it includes his return in late May. (We put EVERYTHING (yes, even groceries and gasoline) on the credit card so we accumulate a lot of miles. And yes, we pay it off every month, too.) Alaska also allows one-way flights for the same price.</p>
<p>I notice a lot of parents trying to wait and bring their kids home immediately after their last final. I schedule my son to come home the day after the last day on which finals are scheduled. This has allowed him to have time to clean up his room, relax with other friends who aren't leaving immediately, etc. And it's easy to schedule months in advance.</p>
<p>dmd's post reminded me of a related idea - when D was at Grinnell, we paid her tuition on a credit card specifically to earn the miles. That gave us one frequent flyer ticket a year.</p>
<p>Still eager to hear from people who may have tried to schedule a trip to school in Aug and a trip back in Dec, then a trip to in Jan and a trip back in May, using 2 round trips. Did the airlines ever say there was too much of a time lag between the 2 round trip dates? Maybe I am worrying about a non-problem?</p>