<p>My son was awarded a scholarship to the oxbridge program this summer. He is thrilled and so are we, but the only part of the trip that is not covered by the scholarship is the airfare.</p>
<p>so what that means is that we have to buy him an airline ticket to England. I am trying to find out the cheapest way to do that – I have only booked a domestic flight before (and not many of those).</p>
<p>he is a high school student and will need to travel at the end of June. The program he is going to is at Cambridge, but he wants to go up a week ahead of time and check out England and stay in a youth hostel.</p>
<p>I was wondering if it was cheaper to fly into another city other than London and then take public transportation to get to Cambridge.</p>
<p>Any suggestions would be appreciated – I am trying to get an idea of the general price of a ticket and when it needs to be booked.</p>
<p>Try sidestep.com or orbitz or studentuniverse.com Sometimes Gatwick is cheaper than Heathrow. Depends on the airlines. Plugging in dates around the beginning of June and coming back mid August yields fares around $1000. Check with a travel agent or sign up with travelzoo.com for weekly updates.</p>
<p>you;ve got to be able to get a better fare than that, considering business class to london on maxjet is only like $1100 (leaving end of june, coming back august, didn’t play around with the dates) Check out expedia.com or kayak.com for more options</p>
<p>Why don’t you fly out to Manchester/Edinburgh or some other city in the UK and then try taking a RyanAir flight to London? It may work out to be cheaper but it could be more of a hassle with changing flights etc.</p>
<p>If you can wait a bit, sign up for Orbitz, Virgin, British etc weekly discount newsletters. Also Smarter Travel letter. I see some great deals come through each week. DD1, who does a festival in Switzerland and so met tons of European students/young adults is sure that London is the best priced city, in general, then get RyanAir low cost flights to other cities.
Besides sidestep you can also do bookingbuddy searchs. You can set up Orbitz with a favored LOW price for the date/flight. Orbitz will email you every time the price drops.
If still in high school I don’t think you can do student universe.</p>
<p>Make sure you get the final price too. Some sites will quote the basic price and some will give you the final price with taxes and add on’s. My daughter flew to Heathrow in December and got a pretty good price on Bristish Air. I would suggest going directly through their website. My daughter used their generous layover policy: She was on her way to Kenya but since they re-fuel in London both ways, she was allowed to stay in England for a week without paying extra.</p>
<p>Do not consider going to some other city then using trains to get to London. There’s been a spate of articles in the UK press about outrageous fares and trains that stopped in nowhere land late at night, stranding passengers. London is a hub and fares to London are probably the lowest.</p>
<p>I did a quick check of Denver to Heathrow on BA and found fares in the $1200 range, which doesn’t really surprise me for summer. We’ve gone to Europe in the summer numerous times (we have lots of frequent flyer miles) and the fares are always stunningly high (I like to check before I use up miles). I wouldn’t expect the prices to drop at this point, since they’ve already gone up. You’re also stuck with specific dates and no flexibility. </p>
<p>Orbitz shows cheaper fares on Virgin Atlantic, but not a lot cheaper. I also looked at flying into Ireland, which was the way to get there cheaply twenty years ago. Not anymore. Amsterdam is also much more expensive.</p>
<p>I have flown Ryanair, it’s lovely, but it flies from secondary airports, so any use of Ryanair needs to factor that in. (We flew from Pisa, Italy to Stansted, England for 20 pounds–and then spent another $100 taking the taxi to Heathrow. Still cheaper than the $600 standard flight from Florence to Heathrow.) (Oh, and they charge if you want to check your luggage.)</p>
<p>Given the possibility for disaster, unless your son is an extremely experienced traveler with a high tolerance for sleeping in airports, I would stick with either British Air or Virgin Atlantic and book a direct route, and I would do it soon. Summer flights to Europe do sell out.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info – I am working on this all weekend. </p>
<p>I think he can do the student universe because he also takes college classes.</p>
<p>He is thinking of maybe flying into Paris and staying there for 4-5 days and then taking the chunnel to London and checking it out for a few day. Would that be a possibility? Any flaws in that plan? the chunnel ticket isn’t cheap (~$90) but he found a some flights that are cheaper to Paris than London, so the cost might be the same.</p>
<p>Can a student reasonably negotiate Paris if they don’t speak French?</p>
<p>My son, who speaks French poorly, had no problem with Paris. My D, who speaks French well, had no problem with Paris. Especially in the summer, there are lots of people who speak English. Paris is actually cheaper than London since it’s easier to eat out of the street markets and small grocery stores than in London.</p>
<p>The Chunnel train is a blast. Terminals are easy to get to, in both cities.</p>
<p>thanks – he has not been to Europe before (other than a 12 hour layover in Amsterdam last summer) so he is eager to see a few things. His program will include a day trip to London and they will probably also do some weekends in London (Cambridge is 50 miles away) so he thought he might want to see another city in Europe. Time and money are always constraints and he figures that if Paris is anything like NYC, you can’t see it all in a week. With Paris being easily connected to London via the Chunnel, spending time in Paris seems to be a fairly simple prospect.</p>
<p>I’m going to London next week with my two sons. I bought the tickets for my youngest and myself through expedia.com and paid around 650.00 round trip out of Houston. My oldest bought his through the student travel service at UF for about 600.00 out of Orlando. We bought them in December I think. I kind of kept my ears open for discount ads on the radio and that was when I went online and bought them. We’re all flying Continental into Gatwick.</p>
<p>Also, I did a summer in Oxford between my junior and senior year in college and it was incredible!!! Punting on the Thames, watching a cricket match in the fields behind Christ Church, sneaking into the proctor’s gardens in the late late night, all wonderful cherished memories! I hope your child has a fantastic time :)</p>
<p>I was shocked at the fare for d. to go to fly NY - Paris ($1200) this summer but have been told by more experienced travelers that that’s normal. I just checked and it’s gone up $40 - not a lot, but I think the sooner you book the better.</p>
<p>Hi–My D participated in the Oxbridge program at Cambridge–then traveled to Paris–We elected to have her fly on miles w/United–family member had oodles–she was met at Heathrow by Oxbridge staff, driven to Cambridge…The program offers a program in Paris afterwards…I was very impressed with the conscientousness of the staff, as D was there in '05 during the bombings. I know Virgin, BA, UAL & AA offer 24-48 hours specials on their sites. Prices even better than orbitz et all.</p>
<p>My S attended a study abroad prgram in Spain last summer and went over early to travel around. We found the cheapest flights were to London on Bristish Air. He spent a few days in London in a hostel and then took the Eurostar (chunnel train) to Paris for a few days. Eurostar youth tickets (about $75) are available for ages 25 and younger which provided a savings. After attending the program in Spain, he traveled to Rome via Ryanair before returning to the US. He was able to navigate all cities and travel on his own fairly easily and had the time of his life. Your S should have a wonderful experience. Let me know if you need info on hostels.</p>
I’m attending that program this year too. But I’m going to Oxford. </p>