<p>O.K. DD made up her mind that she needed to fly home for spring break 3/9 this past weekend. dad has been mentioning this since she returned at Christmas by fellow student’s car. Get this , somehow it seems that she can’t find a single soul headed to Texas by auto among the 125 Texans attending Rhodes. Grrrrr. So off dad runs to the computer. Southwest doesn’t serve Memphis. Travelocity, expedia, aa.com, kayak.com, orbitz - nothing reasonable . Again. Just like Thanksgiving only on this short notice we are talking big bucks, not just high but stupid high. Over $600. </p>
<p>On Thanksgiving I was able to get a student.universe fare for $360 inclusive. Bad but gee, it was the best I could find. So I go back to them and find $406 inclusive. $200 less than anywhere else I was finding. So I grit my teeth and book it. </p>
<p>I could fly her from Nashville or Little Rock for half that. I just can’t get her to Nashville or Little Rock when she needs to get there. </p>
<p>I know I’m whining but still - there has to be something better out there that I’m missing. At least I keep thinking there is. </p>
<p>Now I have to get her to Madrid mid May and back in June. I’m not getting anything reasonable again because the program dates are inflexible. (She could get there early and stay late but at her expense.) Anybody got any more secrets I could try? </p>
<p>Tip: If you book on studentuniverse you can still get frequent flyer miles on some airlines. Including American for domestic flights. I found that out Sunday and am now trying to credit her with her T’giving miles.</p>
<p>I feel your pain.
My daughter is not coming home for spring break this year. In January she said that was fine and she could wait until May to come home. I had a feeling that she would change her mind and booked a flight for Easter weekend. Now that it has been a few weeks she is very glad I did ( a tiny bit homesick). I don’t know the answer, but it seems like if your areas aren’t served by a discount airline ( ie Southwest) you can’t find very good fares. We kind of knew this going in and factored it into the costs at school a vs school b, but it is still annoying.
I still keep hoping that Southwest will start flying into her airport!</p>
<p>Yikes ! I just checked her flights - I paid $274, the same flights are now $1274 !!!
I will definitely use this as an example for her to PLAN ahead!!
It’s funny because I recently booked flights all the way across the country for little more than these.
I will be following this thread for future moneysaving tips as well.</p>
<p>Another student web site -
Sometimes its prices beat studentuniverse’s. Make sure you scroll all the down and look at all the fares. The fares at the bottom of the page may be lower than what’s on top.</p>
<p>Another idea -
If there is still availability and you have sufficient miles, you might consider an award ticket using miles.</p>
<p>Ugghhh don’t you hate that. I try and force the issue each time D is home. Each time she comes home, i want to know if she is coming next break, and she complains that none of her friends have to make these decisions that early.</p>
<p>Now wait just a cotton pickin’ minute. Those fares stink. I’m with you on that.</p>
<p>But didn’t you have a few small pennies, and some crinkled-up dollar bills tucked under a mattress for the dreaded-EFC you might have had to ante up? Pull 'em out. No sense having them go to waste now that the dreaded EFC went up in a puff of silver-lined smoke ;).</p>
<p>This is another thing to look at when deciding colleges. I know we took this into consideration for colleges more than one days drive from home (for me that’s about 11-12 hrs by myself). If an emergency occurs, can you get there in a reasonable time and at a cost that will still let you pay off the hospital bills from the emergency? I know they are considered adults but in an emergency, I want to be able to get to my kiddo, especially that freshman year. If they get mono so bad they can’t get out of bed for several days, I want to be able to bring them home for a week to rest. So, when making decisions, look at fares made a long ways out and also look at fares if you had to fly quickly. </p>
<p>When flying overseas, we found the extra cost of hotel, taxi, etc to send them one day early was sometimes less than ticket cost for actual day they needed to be there. A big advantage of the one day early is they have 24 hours to adjust to jet lag before having to join the group.</p>
<p>Thnks I have sometimes had to fly them back on Sat. If they fly in the afternoon, they don’t miss too much at home and then they can sleep late Sunday, get papers done, etc because no one is back in the dorm until later and if flight is delayed, more likely they can get another flight than on Sunday. Had to do this once to get decent fare and my kid now kinda prefers this. Same thing for Spring Break. If they decide to come home late, they sometimes end up having to leave school a day late or return a day early. </p>
<p>Oh, and definately sign up at aa, delta, whatever and kayak for fare alerts for your particular city combinations. I have been able to get them a trip home at an unexpected time because of this.</p>
<p>Don’t fly much so I don’t know the rules. Since d is a freshman and you have a few more years of this can you book early and cancel later without penalty?</p>
<p>LOL jmmom - I don’t know if that was directed at me or curm , but yeah, we did figure out that with the additional costs of transportation it was still a deal to send our daughter OOS with a scholarship. And it’s not the actual $$$ as much as the annoyance that you have to pay 5 times more if your kid doesn’t plan in advance. Good lessons for them I guess. ( wait I’m paying … oh, well, she does have to listen to me nag about it…LOL)
Her second choice school was on a route that we could get fares home for about 1/2 of the cost of her number 1 school. Of course she could fly home over every break and still spend less at #1 so it’s all good.</p>
<p>'Mudge, D got an education about airfares rising over time on one Thanksgiving. Under terms negotiated, she paid the differential between what she could have gotten and what she did get out of her own funds. Funny thing is, she hasn’t been “late” in arranging airfares since. </p>
<p>(For logistical reasons, I’ve been making some of her intra-Europe travel arrangements while she’s on her semester abroad, but she has gotten the final travel dates/times to me sufficiently early…I think one fare may have bumped by about $30 or so but that may have been an artifact of settling on a Easter weekend travel date more than any delay.)</p>
<p>I agree with KMS about sending them abroad a day or even two early; D has been ahead of the curve and hit the ground running by the time the main wave arrives.</p>
<p>And sometimes, anent Spring break, the answer may have to be, “No, I think you have to stay and make arrangements. Or else it’s on your nickle.” Or sometimes we’ve gone halvesies. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that they start learning–and absorbing–economic consequences of their choices. But then we’ve been up front: home for Christmas, sure. Thanksgiving/Spring break…one but probably not both.</p>
<p>None of which is probably helpful data here and now.</p>
<p>Would a “slow boat” instill the need for advance thought in the future? Have you checked out the bus/train possibilities? She could catch up on her sleep and reading. I’m sure the scenery is quite “soothing” this time of year?!</p>
<p>(Son on opposite coast is in charge of making his own arrangements after a similar late request which this parent, by shear dumb luck, was able to put together with only moderate financial pain.)</p>
<p>Cur- Isn’t anyone driving towards Nashville that could drop her at the airport? I would be glad to help you out but we’re out of town this weekend.</p>
<p>I feel your pain, Cur.
I too was trying to book X-country last night. I could have done this weeks ago, but was foolishly waiting for approval from work.
I know my S hasn’t made plans, and his break is 2 weeks away. In the past, he’s made plans to stay with friends at other colleges.
In the future, I’ll make plans for both of us well in advance. For $50-70, one can then shift dates.
How long is your D’s break? Can she visit a friend in area, or one who is driving home?</p>
<p>D found flights to take herself from Portland- with planned stops in Pittsburgh, NYC and Chicago and back for $300, on Priceline- it might be worth a shot.</p>
I calculated that was coming. LOL. Yeah,yeah,yeah. I know. I said I was whining. </p>
<p>Couple of good ideas there. I need to find out the hotel rates in Madrid and see. I keep telling her to get with some kids and make some plans. The transfer from the airport to the hotel could be horrible but horrible divided by 2 or 3 ain’t that bad. She doesn’t get it. The financial motivator device is a good one. I’ll say “Here’s your spending money. Spend it on taxi transfers if you want to, but it’s all there is.”</p>
<p>Gee, curmudgeon, did you forget about your pal in Franklin (just a smidge south of Nashville)? For future trips that may need to be taken on SWA out of Nashville, keep my DD (in school in Arkansas) in mind. You can always check with me ahead of time to see if DD will be driving home at a specific time. If so, your DD is welcome to catch a ride with her since my DD comes right through the middle of Memphis on her way home. DD will be coming home this Friday, but her overly-generous grandfather has offered to fly over in his toy plane and pick her up in Conway. Download the SWA DING alert for Nashville for future possible trips.</p>
Yeah,yeah,yeah. I know. I said I was whining. </p>