I am not in this situation yet. But when parents have kids who go to out of state colleges that are not really driving distance, what do they do if their kid suddenly feels the need to hop a flight and come home? How do you prepare for that? For example, I read that they don’t really have things like open airline tickets anymore. I also imagine an unplanned flight can be really expensive. But do you just make sure they have a card with enough money in case they need to come home? Do you give them a separate airline gift card with money on it that can only be used for travel? How does that work? Again this is an anticipatory question. Teen is not in college yet. When I was in college, I liked being able to get home without much planning when needed. But I was close enough that I could hop a Greyhound without much planning.
You can buy airline tickets for anyone.
You just need a name for the reservation. The ticket is issued electronically. The flyer goes to the airport and check in with matching ID.
If you are looking for an unannounced visit home, then I would just get a credit card for the kid.
But last minute flights can be very expensive.
My kids each have their own debit card tied to their checking account, but they also have credit cards tied to my account for expenses that we cover, like flights home, education-related items, and other items that we don’t make them pay for. The two credit card issuers I use (AMEX and Bank of America), do not charge to add additional cards to the primary account.
Last minute flights could be very expensive depending on the market – something to avoid if at all possible. Both my kids are at a college that requires flights back and forth, but they have never asked to fly home last minute – usually only Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks.
Many credit cards come with bonus miles offers which can be used for last minute flights.
If your kid ends up in a city served by Southwest, stock up on Southwest gift cards at Costco (typically you pay $200 for a $250 gift card, plus the loyalty points on your Costco card). They offer this promotion several times a year…
That’s all I’ve got. Travel home is expensive unless your kid is within a train/bus ride!
We used Southwest Airlines, which has no penalty for cancellations. We booked a flight ahead of time for mid-semester by guessing a good weekend. Then the student could plan and knew that a break was coming if they wanted to use it. If they decided they didn’t want or need to visit home, they just canceled and got the money/pts back.
Our parent Southwest Rewards Visa card number was saved on the student’s SWA account so they could book and parents got points. We had 1 unplanned (eta: emergency) trip each year that they had to book last minute and pay full fare. Overall, that seemed a reasonable excursion from the travel budget.
We also used SWA pts for last minute flight purchases. Much less painful.
I don’t mean for this to sound snarky, but unless there’s an emergency, my student isn’t coming home unexpectedly. I think if they want the flexibility to be able to come home on a whim, then they should choose to go to school within driving distance.
My friend used to book flights every weekend for 6 months on SW. Cancel right before and rebook 6 months out. Pretty cleaver because then he always had a flight if he chose to go visit parents for the weekend.
Exactly! One of mine is a 12 hour drive away, we paid for her flight when her grandfather passed. She flew home last weekend because she found a cheap flight, and she wanted to bar crawl with her HS friends after the parade. My kids are authorized users on a credit card they can use when traveling overseas, I have a $800 bill so far for ds21 who’s in Berlin with friends (he’s paying for everything). His twin is flying to Italy Friday, same deal. Dd19 (who happens to be in Cabo right now with my sister, my sister booked her flights) does not have a car in Boston, many times she will pay extra for an Amtrak trip that can be cancelled since many times she ends up finding a ride (who pays is based on the reason for the visit but I do always pay for gas if she gets a ride). I do let those farther away know thanksgiving and Easter aren’t mandatory, but I think this year will be the first without a couple.
We’re kind of going on faith that our kid won’t need/want to come home between scheduled breaks. The college year is pretty well broken up, anyway, with what seems like at most 8-10 weeks or so between them.
(but we also have been sending our kids to summer camp every year since they were little, for increasing amounts of time. Last summer, C24 was away for five weeks, and I suspect they’d have loved a few more.)
We use Southwest, which flies to the two airports my daughter is most likely to use to get to her college, and we have a credit card that earns Southwest frequent flier points. Both my daughter and I have access to her frequent flier account so either of us can make reservations. My daughter doesn’t come home just for the hell of it, but there have been times we’ve needed to make last-minute arrangements. She goes to Bates, and in the immediate aftermath of the Lewiston shootings in October, she really needed to get out of there (students were still mostly confined to their rooms, she has some mental health challenges, and some of her friends who had a car were heading out of town to their homes in Boston, anyway, so she took the ride). So we found a cheap flight out of Boston and she was able to come home for a few days. Another time, she was home on a regularly scheduled break and got really sick. Could not fly her back as scheduled, so we canceled and rescheduled her return trip – not only was there no penalty, but we were able to reschedule at a substantial savings (thanks, Southwest). For her next break, we paid for the ticket with points.
So it is possible to make last-minute reservations (and to get not-terribly-expensive flights, depending on schedule), but I wouldn’t pay for an impulse trip home without a really good reason.
My daughter is currently a junior in college about a 12 hour drive or 2 hour flight away. In her 2 2/3 years in college, she has only “needed” to come home once at the last minute, it was spring of freshman year for a mental health weekend. She booked about a week in advance and it wasn’t terribly expensive but it’s a very popular route between her city and ours with lots of flights available. I also went to visit her on my own last year for Mother’s Day weekend, also kind of last minute (sometimes you just need to see your mom). I used Alaska miles for that trip, she stayed with me in my airbnb for part of the weekend. Both our kids know they won’t be coming home much other than for breaks and holidays. It was part of the agreement we made when they chose to go out of state. They are also both pretty mindful about carbon footprint, so try to minimize flying when possible.
Our S22 is going to college close enough that there are non-plane options to get home as needed.
Our S25 is looking at further away colleges. But, they all have some extended family member in a couple hours distance, that could be called for pickup in a pinch. So, I don’t foresee unplanned visits home, although I am allowing for “need to get off campus for mental health” possibilities with grandparents or my aunts/uncles/cousins, etc.
Same here. When our kid chose a college 3000 miles away, we made it clear that we were funding a trip home and back at Christmas break, and a trip home and back for the summer. We funded trips to local relatives to her college for Thanksgiving and Spring break.
This kid asked for two Christmas present plane tickets…one to her cousins wedding in MD, and the other to her brother’s senior music recital in Boston (which was a surprise to her brother). But neither of these were last minute purchases.
A last minute round trip ticket for our kid would have been about $600 and would have been on the kid to pay. That was 2006-2010.
We had a situation when my DH had to buy tickets in the morning and jump on the next available flight. Yes it’s expensive but you do what you have to do. Emergency aside, many airlines have credit cards with sign up bonuses. We take advantage of those and have points we can trade for flights. I also have no problem paying for flights if my kids want to fly home but I understand that not everyone is in this position.
We had two instances my daughter’s freshman year - bad start, was missing her bf at another school and had to fly home last minute. Then our dog was about to pass and we needed to get her home to say goodbye.
As noted, with Southwest, you can change, cancel, etc. and you keep the credit. While last minute tix aren’t cheap, they sell $500 for $450 giftcards at Costco and occasionally run three day sales for $429.99. Last weekend in fact.
You’d just charge on your CC or use points.
A lot depends on the airports in question and who flies.
Last minute is very expensive - so if you think it will happen, you’d want to budget for it.
If, you’re unsure, you can go ahead and book a ticket on any airline. You have 24 hours to cancel any ticket, any airline -in the US.
Good luck.
One more vote for Southwest - this wasn’t a factor in choosing schools (maybe it should have been!) but it was so convenient to be able to change and cancel without fees when my student changed his Thanksgiving flight 2 or 3 times, and when he had to change his December flight home (only once)…. My student is an authorized user on the card I use for flights, but I’ve bought the tickets so far.
Thank you all for the input and suggestions.
We funded trips home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring break (if they chose to come home). The only time we would have funded a last minute flight home was if it was for some sort of emergency. Deciding to just come home on a whim was not an emergency. If our kid wanted to fly home outside of the holidays or wanted to come home on a whim, the cost was on them.
My nephew flew home to surprise his parents one weekend. He had to pay his parents back since he used the credit card that was only for emergencies…
If Southwest flies between your home airport and near to the college, I highly recommend that airline for their change/cancellation and non-expiring travel funds policies, as well as two free bags. In addition, a somewhat recent change they’ve implemented is the option of paying a little more ($15-$20 per one-way ticket, called Wanna Get Away Plus) for tickets where funds can be transferred to another person. Unlike most airlines where in the case of cancellation the travel funds have an expiry date (usually 12 months from purchase) and only the person whose name is on the ticket can use it, with the WGA+ fares on Southwest those travel funds can be transferred (one-time only & irreversible) to another person with a SW Rapid Rewards account which is free to set up. I like that feature for the flexibility it offers, so anyone else - friend or family - can use those funds.
Over last winter break when I didn’t know what day kiddo would come home from school because the finals schedule was released later than was comfortable for my travel planning desires, I scheduled flights on every day of the latter part of the week on Southwest and cancelled what I didn’t end up needing. Those funds don’t expire and can be used anytime in the future and there were no penalties for any of that. Using RR points is super easy and my preferred way to pay for SW tickets; opening one of the SW credit cards is the fastest way to build up a stash of RR points.
My kid opened a credit card in their own name when they turned 18, and it gets autopaid out of their checking account. But they also have authorized user cards that they can use if needed in case of emergency, and I haven’t seen those being used.