canterbury

Our niece is spending a semester in Maastricht, Nethlerands. She will leave here at the end of January 2007 and will return home in mid-June 2007.

We've been looking at the AA website and the best price so far is about $1700 for LAX-AMS with two connections.

She's not locked into traveling on American Airlines, but would like the mileage. She is willing to travel on other airlines and is willing to change planes once or twice.

Is this average for an extended stay like this? Any ideas for getting a better price?

Thanks!

kc_the_bum

kayak.com

i found flights from LAX-AMS on BA w/ 1 stop for $856. using 20Jan-15June.

i belong to just about every FF program there is. I don't think the miles earned is worth paying 2X the fare, but that's just me.

canterbury

Thank you kc. And thanks for the link.

I had checked Delta and Lufthansa (into FRA) and both of these were over $1600. Continental came in at about $1100.

So, I was interested to know if this is the pattern in an extended stay flight?? Are they always so much more monry? Or does it get much cheaper the closer you get to departure date?

She is willing to fly any airline, but if it turns out that, for instance, AA's price will be on par with BA in the next couple of months, should we wait to book?

canterbury

er, that should be "money"

crefloors

I think you should maybe wait. Check for prices everyday. It all seem pretty arbitrary to me. I had never booked my own airfare until a couple of months ago. I was looking for fares from SFO to CDG. I first went to Expedia and a couple of other sites to see all the airlines that went from SFO to CDG. I really wanted a direct, non-stop flight and it seemed there was only two choices, Air France or Delta.

When I first looked the fares were about 850.00 round trip. I didn't take one of those but did sign up for Air France e-mails. I kept checking and the fares went up to around 1,400.00..so I'm thinking, there goes my trip. So, I got an e-mail and they had a "sale" and I booked for 763.00 round trip. I have since checked just for the heck of it, and again the fares are up to 1,500.00.

You have a little bit of time and my goodness, I would think that 1.700.00 would be pretty much the high side, so check every day or so for a few weeks and see what happens. There may be a cheaper fare pop up. If you see one, at some point you just have to make the decision to go for it and then don't look back. Good luck.

clevelandbrown

I think you are fishing in the wrong lake. Your neice is not a tourist, so advice from tourists is unlikely to be appropriate.

My suggestion is that she contact her sponsoring school and ask for information on transportation (and housing, while she is at it). When my son spent a term in Finland, his sponsoring school in the US had all the information on how to get the cheapest flights and housing. As I recall, there was some travel agency they used that specialized in student travel, largely elimination the premium that a tourist would pay for such a lengthy trip.

On a touristic note, I would suggest she consider staying the summer and doing some touring. I would guess that she won't be going to school during the summer, and would not make that much at the typical summer job, so this could be a great opportunity to see some more of Europe.

lincasanova

she might be able to get a cheaper more flexible fare using her isic student card.
google for it and travel agencies that use them.

also, note that they allow less than 24 hr. stopovers, so if you have family on the east coast sometimes it is a nice way to see them before she leaves for her long term study program.

tower

Canterbury....by chance, is your niece going to Emerson College's "castle" near Maastricht?? (I'm an old grad and my grandaughter graduated in 2005)

Stu T.

Clifton

I believe the agency specializing in student travel that clevelandbrown may have been referring to may be http://www.statravel.com/

It could well be that the dates you're using are just past what the airlines consider the maximum stay expected in a round trip ticket. Otherwise, we'd just purchased tickets on AA for a much more complicated ticket for less than half that amount just this week - but our stay doesn't extend to this length. As a point of comparison among carriers, try www.itasoftware.com to search all of the majors, but do definitely check with the specialists who know how to handle the longer stays.

Clifton

I just ran a student rate on STATravel for LAX-AMS, Jan 30th, return Jun15th. It came up with $730, including taxes and fees, on United flights. Normal length connection through D.C. going, non-stop coming back.

canterbury

Thank you all for the help.

Clifton, Cleveland - The website STAtravel is a great recommendation. Thanks so much.

I don't think there will be a problem finding a reasonable airfare. She's very excited and sends her apprection to you all.

canterbury

Stu -

Sorry, no connection. She is a student at UC Berkeley. She is majoring in Business/Finance.

But, I would love to hear how you and your granddaughter liked the experience of Maastricht.

Our niece is smart, independent, outgoing but she does have some anxiety about being away for so long. Any coping tips would be very appreciated.

clevelandbrown

My son always liked to live off-campus at his home school, but elected to live in student housing while in Finland, primarily because he felt he would be hampered by his speaking only English. It was a good choice. While the language turned out not to be a barrier, he was thrown in with a lot of people his age with similar interests, and the native students were very willing to hang out with the foreign students, so he had a very full and interesting non-academic schedule. Something as simple as renting a bicycle (he didn't even know you could do that) was facilitated by his participation in the student group.

canterbury

Thank you for your thoughts, Cleveland.

Our niece will be in on-campus housing specifically for foreign students. So she will have some of that "built in" friendship like you say.

She is a great kid and happy at college, and is now in an apartment after two years in a dorm. I think she just has some jitters and she'll do fine.

Again, thanks for your help.