jaharrison1620

I know this is slightly off topic, but I thought I'd share. Regarding international travel, here's a little tidbit that our family learned the hard way a few weeks ago. Many countries require your passport to be valid for 3 months, 6 months, or a year after your travel date. The requirement varies by country. So even if your return flight is prior to the passport expiration date, you won't be allowed to fly if you don't meet that country's buffer period requirements. Like I said, we learned the hard (and expensive) way.

neatoburrito

Also, some airports require an additional pass through security even when connecting on the same airline. My personal experience is with a Heathrow connection on BA coming from JFK and Prague. Both times I had to run the security gauntlet twice. International connections can be a pain because security rules can differ.

baystateresident

Re a comment made at the top of this thread: BigFancy school that I am familiar with hires retired teachers with the required van driver's license to take the kids to the airport in a school van and get them on the plane...

GMTplus7

bumping this thread for new BS parents who are trying to figure out how to fly their kids to school

GMTplus7

A big CAVEAT before buying a year's worth of air tickets: read the airline's policy regarding MINORS carefully!

Especially the parts regarding:
- age-requirements for taking connecting flights
- age-requirements for mandatory purchase of an escort package for supervising the kid during the flight and mandatory adult sign-in and hand-over at the airport
- age-requirements for int'l flights

Also, read up on the school's policy on what hour the school dismiss kids for breaks-- some ramifications:
- Inquire about the school's shuttle bus service to area airports, so you can book a feasible flight departure and return time
- For Int'l students, unless the school dismisses very earlier in the day, it may be too late to board a flight to certain parts of the world (e.g. Asia) and will require an additional overnight stay before departure

GMTplus7

FYI. Link to a similar thread:
Travel to and from BS from out of state

Alexz825Mom

Contact the school and find other kids going in your child's direction, even if not the same school. We met the most awesome family in the airport on our first trip to begin the school year.

Even though our kids never became best friends, they surely watch out for each other and let the parents know who they are sitting with on the other side of tsa.

I find this to be true for not just kids from her school but the bs kids sort of "lump" themselves together....it's strange....they somehow pick each other out in a crowd.

P.s.....my d still wears her school sweatshirt when she travels.

GMTplus7

Not a bad idea! I will suggest to S to wear school sweatshirt next time he travels for school. If nothing else, it will make it easier for shuttle bus driver to identify him at airport, on the way back to school.

Kittenygoodness

AA doesn't require the unaccompanied minor service beyond 12, I think. I've done that in the past with mine but last summer she flew with a connection in Dallas on her own, and she was 13. So it definitely varies.

vegas1

Southwest also lets 14 year olds fly independently. Our son has flown back and forth many times with no problem. The school drops bunches of kids off together and they usually hang out till their flights. He almost always ends up on a flight with a classmate on one part of his travels. I do try to avoid connections in weather dependent cities if possible in the winter.

Princess'Dad

The one thing I have found - even in those that do - is that they won't allow to fly if connection is LAST one of evening

classicalmama

We've found that while airlines SAY they won't let our son fly the last connection of the evening, they actually do. I don't know that they have much choice--often there is just one evening connector.

Winterfold

A lot of it comes down to doing one's research and doing plenty of planning. We are an international family and our 2 children have been travelling to BS since they were 15. Fortunately they were already well-seasoned travelers even before they started out on their BS experience.

Thus far we have experienced two 'instances' (4 if you include luggage going astray): one weather-induced missed connection at O'Hare when UA refused to put the kids up for the night as they said they were under-age and then mucked about with booking and unbooking onward connections, and another at Dulles due to a technical fault on the onward connecting flight.

My rules of thumb are:

1. If there is another child flying back to your home city (or back to school), then try to coordinate with the other family and have the kids fly together.

2. Be mindful of the seasons. In particular, don't connect through O'Hare, Detroit etc in the winter.

3. Connect using airports which are familiar to the children and are well-signposted in English, have a high level of secuirty and are not dated rabbit-warren-like structures in which the kids might get lost. As we have to do one transfer to get to the US, our preferred connecting points are Hong Kong or Seoul, both new and very efficient airports. Alternatives are Tokyo/Narita, or flying through the Middle East or Europe - both of these latter ones have their potential pitfalls and thus we do not fly that way.

4. When flying internationally, book on one of the major airlines (those with top ratings on Passenger Service Quality) who are more likely to take care of your child in the event of some unforeseen event. These days we pretty much stick to Cathay Pacific or Korean depending on schedules - both have convenient connecting times at their Hong Kong and Seoul hubs respectively. Flying within the US, I stick to one of the larger low-cost carriers, JB, VA or SW.

5: go the most direct route possible i.e. reduce connecting points to as few a possible.

These days things are made easier thanks to flight tracking tools and smartphones. The kids can call you immediately if they need advice or directions. Also, as a previous poster observed, security and 'getting lost' becomes less of an issue once inside the net of TSA.