Suki

So, my daughter has to book her ticket to Rome by April 30th. She would prefer to fly from PHL but could fly out of Newark. I think her flight out would be on Aug 29 or 30th and she is unsure of the date of return (I'm hoping she gets a firm date soon.) She is looking at one-way tickets. If she has a firm return date, I'm assuming the best thing to do would be to book round trip. Can you do that with a 3-month or so trip? I'm also betting that she would like to keep the return open in case she wants to travel. Any comments are appreciated.

dutyfree

Suki-I replied to your other thread too. I am assuming that your daughter will be returning to the states in December before the holidays. The two weeks before Christmas are quite busy with the airlines with all of the college students abroad and military returning home so keep that in mind when booking along with the usual hassles of holiday travel.

When my kids went for their overseas semesters, I found that you had to either book through a special tour agency that specilizes in beyond 90 day return tickets or buy two one ways.You also have the choice of booking a roundtrip and then paying the special change fee for rebooking to another date but I would be careful and double check that.Because she is doing the fall semester and she will be in Rome, she can do a heck of alot of weekend traveling during her semester both on the train and using the cheap airlines out of FCO.
If she does not get out of school until around Dec. 11th or so she really is not going to have alot of traveling time to do Europe before returning home?

Suki

dutyfree, thanks for your comments here and on my Europe thread. I think she is going to try to nail down a return date, but we may have to do the two one-way tickets. Ah well, it's only money.

frogoutofwater

One-way tickets can be very expensive. Book the flight, pick an approximate return date and then pay a change fee if necessary if the date doesn't work out. The airfare plus change fee is unlikely to be as expensive as two one-way tickets or an open-ended ticket. Just make sure that you check that the ticket is changeable for a fee. You're probably better off booking such a ticket directly with the airline, instead of through a booking site like travelocity or expedia.

socaltraveler

When my daughter studied abroad we booked her ticket through a student travel agency. She knew she wanted to travel after her program ended, so we picked a date (random) based on when she wanted to be home for her summer job. When she tired of traveling, she was able to pay the change fee and return home a week or so earlier than planned. A round trip ticket booked that way is probably the best way to go, tho I imagine December might be a harder month to make a change.

Jack

Suki,
The best way to get a student ticket if you are unsure of the return is through the student travel agency http://www.statravel.com/ They are much cheaper when it comes to changing the return date.

clevelandbrown

When my son studied in Europe, it was under the auspices of his school in the US. The school in the US had experience and information to schedule classes, arrange housing, arrange transportation, arrange health insurance, and arrange the necessary student visa.

I suggest your daughter contact her school and see what services they offer. I think their advice would likely be more suited than you will get here where we are more familiar with tourism than with studentism.

To avoid the crowds of people rushing home for the holidays, your daaughter might want to tour a little and return in early January, just in time for Winter term. It's a good opportunity to see a few things at relatively little cost. I would guess that planes will be almost empty on, for example, January 1.

Suki

Thanks for all the additional info. I will pass that website onto her, Jack.
The school offers 1 suite of apartments but they are expensive and my daughter would rather not live there. Anyway, she has used their packet of information but she is on her own for flights, etc.

dutyfree

Cleveland Brown-Just a quick note to say that quite a few kids DO NOT use their own university to do study abroad semesters-in fact if you want something more geared to your specific major/interests you have to go outside of the university and search on your own. Some of these other study abroad programs offer housing within families;housing in the actual dorms or previewed apartments that have been proven reliable and in good areas.