My son will be spending his fall semester at the Univ. of Limerick in Ireland. He is to depart Aug. 30 and his checkout date to return is Dec. 21. At this point, he's not sure if he'll want to stay in Great Britain a little longer--he might make friends he'll want to visit or just travel around for a week--and Christmas will be a difficult time to find seats. In the good old days when I travelled with an open return ticket, there was no problem. Should he just book a round trip ticket and eat any enormous change penalties or are there any other options?

I hope your son has a better idea of where he is going than you seem to! Limerick is not in Great Britain.

It's not very difficult to get seats out of Ireland just before Christmas (except to eastern Europe) because the main flow of passengers is into Ireland. It can be difficult to get seats a few days after Christmas.

I know it's not in GB--he wanted to go to London and see some of England.

He should try calling STA Travel. I believe that the student fares are sometimes more flexible than standard tickets.

I had the same issue when I went to study in South Africa. To get my visa, I had to have a return ticket.
I chose a date I thought might work, also in December.
In the end, I changed it for about $100. Not sure there is any way around the penalty fee, but it was a small price to pay for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

We found the best fare for our daughter with Student Universe-go to the Orbitz website and click on the right side where it asks if you are student. We booked her return for about 9 days after classes end, but changed it when she decided to spend some extra time working on an organic farm in Austria. We had only a $50 fee for changing the ticket, but had to be flexible with the return flights that were available, and still had to fly out of the original booked airport.

Thanks for some other options. I've checked the STA website and found the price to be $200 more than going straight to the airline's website. But I'm going to call STA and see what type of penalty he'd pay for changing. It might be worth a little extra to book with an agency that deals with students and would be available to him overseas. Just got an email from Delta today that they will be charging a "surcharge" on FF travelers, so who knows what other charges will be imposed by the airlines between now and Dec.! I'll check the Orbitz site with the student link.

Our daughter had the same situation when she left to study in Florence. We used STA Travel because it has a flexible change policy. I think they know students can't plan their return months in advance.

When we changed her entire return plan-- date, departure city and arrival city-- it only cost about $75 change fee (but we bought a cheaper airfare, so it really didn't net any additional cost).

I can highly recommend STA Travel. They have offices open in most major cities, usually on or near a college campus. They are staffed with students who have traveled and understand the needs.

My daughter also used STA because of the flexible return allowed. I think she had to get an ISIC card to use STA. The ISIC gets students discounts to museums, etc.
http://www.myisic.com/MyISIC/

We had the same dilemma - daughter in France for 1 year. We booked a ticket for her to come home at Christmas and then had to book the 2nd semester tickets. She didn't know excactly when she would leave so we picked a likely date and, sure enough, had to change it. She flew Continental and changed the return about 1 month out and was charged a $100 change fee - not cheap but certainly better than booking 2 one ways.

Dublin is nearly unique in Europe in that from most main US origin points (JFK, BOS, ORD etc.) the round trip airfare is pretty close to 2x one-way fares. For example, a round trip ticket JFK-DUB-JFK bought now for an Aug. 30 departure and a Dec. 21 return is around $950.

However, a one-way ticket JFK-DUB for Aug. 30 is just under $400, while a separate one-way ticket DUB-JFK for Dec. 21 is $435, so all in $115 <i>cheaper</i> than the round trip.

Obviously the price for the return portion will probably go up as December gets closer and people start buying their holiday-period tickets, so as soon as he'd decided on a return date the better off he'd be.

Returning from Ireland (even with a plane change in London) is cheaper than returning straight from the UK, due to taxes paid to the UK government for long-haul flights originating in the UK. So if he was visiting in the UK in December he'd be better off hopping Ryanair or a ferry back to Ireland and flying home from there.

Thanks for the STA endorsements. I'll look into it further. Gardyloo--your info was really helpful--unfortunately my son's flight will have to originate in either GA or SC which will add a few $$$, but didn't know that about the one way fare differential. And that was great info about returning to Ireland to fly back. Was unaware of the tax differences.
I appreciate all your assistance.

For budget airlines within Europe:
www.whichbudget.com
www.skyscanner.net

ATL-DUB-ATL, 8/30 - 12/21, $1129 (Air Tran + Continental)

ATL-DUB, 8/30 (one way), $479 (Air Tran + Continental)

DUB-ATL, 12/21 (one way), $624 (Aer Lingus + Continental)

Total 2 one-ways, $1103

to hdjane re STA Travel: two years ago we booked with them a trip to Germany; then they told us that any changes after departure would be next to impossible. I even tested their US phone line and found that at best one could leave a message.
Fortunately no change was necessary. But this year I booked straight with the airlines, just in case.

Thanks for your STA input. I did call them and the agent was very helpful. He worked for over an hour with different variations. Unfortunately, the dates my son is traveling coupled with the airlines' financial difficulties, made it impossible to utilize one of the student blue tickets with flexibility. The airlines have not released their Dec. dates for student tickets and who knows if they will. I'd thought about the one way tickets mentioned by Gardyloo earlier (thanks--might use that with my husband another time), but decided to go with an Aerlingus roundtrip for less than $1000 out of JFK--with only an $80 rebooking fee (plus fare changes) if things change. I still had to get a domestic round trip to JFK, but that wasn't too bad. But my calls to STA have been positive.