<p>LurkNessMonster, your idea of having your daughter fly back to school on Saturday instead of Sunday of Thanksgiving week to save money only makes sense if the dorms are open. If she has to stay in a motel, she could easily spend that $120 (and you had better check in advance to make sure that there’s a local motel that will rent to people her age).</p>
<p>dmd77,
That is an excellent thought-going to the child for T-giving. I will keep this in mind for the future. Yes, weenie, this mom is in charge of making sure that transportation happens. Would never see S otherwise.</p>
<p>Marian, thanks for pointing that out. I double-checked just now, and it seems that the dorms close for Christmas break but not for Thanksgiving. Whew!</p>
<p>^^LurkNessMonster, the nice thing about JetBlue is that if fares go down at any point after you’ve purchased your tickets they will credit the difference to your account. So keep an eye out for promotions. My H just got off the phone with JetBlue after noticing a fare change in his upcoming flight this week—they credited the difference.</p>
<p>Another value in flying JetBlue from cities with multiple flights per day is that they offer a Same Day Flight Change for only $25.00 regardless of whether or not the fare is higher for an earlier or later flight. S flies from Boston to SJ. Last year, we booked the evening flight after his last class. When his last class was cancelled, he hopped onto an earlier flight for $25.00. </p>
<p>We also have the option to fly into Oak or SF, but the same day flight change has to be the same city pairs. So if you have multiple airport options, look for the schedule with the greatest number of flight options.</p>
<p>If weather is an issue, booking the very last flight of the day may increase the chances of being stranded in the airport. The early evening flights get busy, so we tend to book those and find that moving up to an earlier flight is easier. Also, if you fly frequently it pays to get their JetBlue card so that your flier miles never expire.</p>
<p>I’ve been caught on this before. This year I bought a one way ticket to get DS to school in Sept. When it gets closer and I know his finals schedule I will buy a ticket home and back for Christmas break. Then one more one way at the end of the Spring semester. The problem I had with buying too early for Christmas break is not knowing the finals schedule and depending on the school, but at least at my kids, the date they have to get out of the dorm is based on their finals schedule.</p>
<p>I’m in the same boat as the rest of you who don’t know their kid’s final exam schedule in Dec. Luckily, Southwest sells one-way tickets, though, so I went ahead and bought his return ticket BACK to school for Jan. 6 since the cheap fares for that date were nearly all sold out. </p>
<p>I’m planning to wait till he gets his schedule at the end of August and hopefully finds out when his last exam will be, then I’ll buy the one-way ticket from school to home. But I’m going to be keeping my eye on fares and availability, and if flights start to fill up, I’ll go ahead and book something for the day after the last exam – at least he’ll have a way to get home, even if he has to hang around school a couple of extra days.</p>
<p>It doesn’t kill them to come home the last day. Then you don’t have to worry if they have to take a make-up exam, or finish a paper, or whatever else might come up.</p>
<p>well, if they have a job lined up for the winter break, then getting home a couple of days earlier than waiting for the last day of exams could matter. Also, some schools (my D’s included) have policies that you must be out of your dorm room within 24 hours of your last final. Of course there are many ways to get around that, but I wouldn’t want to risk paying a last minute airfare because someone decided to check up on my daughter and found she was still in her room three days after her last final, and kicked her out.</p>
<p>If you are buying southwest, there is no downside to buying now…you can always change times & dates with no change penalty, a big reason we choose SWA when we can for our college kids, even when they are more of a hassle with airports or non-direct flights</p>
<p>A lot depends on what airports you’re flying into or flying out of. If you live near a big airport with lots of routes between you and your kid–say NYC to LAX as the most generous example–I expect you could get good fares a few minutes in advance. Some of the smaller routes, however, like Boston to Seattle, fill up early for popular holidays and just get worse and worse from there. <a href=“http://www.farecast.com%5B/url%5D”>www.farecast.com</a> can help you see long-term trends, if you want to get truly obsessive. </p>
<p>We use frequent flyer miles whenever possible to book our son’s travel. That requires booking as far ahead as possible but also had the side effect of making it easy for him to change at the last minute.</p>
<p>We fly out of a city of about 100,000 and waiting untill the last minute is not a good idea. Prices really climb and flights fill quickly. I do like Alaska Airline though as they only charge $50 for a change of ticket schedule. I can live with that. two One way tickets are also the same price as a round trip ticket so there is some flexibility there as well</p>
<p>dmd77, thanks for the farecast link. My H is “truly obsessive” about value and will appreciate it.</p>
<p>My H travels a fair amount, and we use frequent flier miles. A related travel tip is to join a hotel chain reward program that has several levels of offerings from luxury to business to family budget in many locations including your student’s campus. </p>
<p>My H enjoys strategizing and maximizing points. Between family vacations, student program travel, college visits, & business travel, the points add up for many free trips and narrows the 3000 mi distance gap.</p>