Saving Money in College: Travel on a budget

Post By: COYD Staff

Whether it be traveling in the summer, spring break, home for Christmas, Thanksgiving…etc., students rack up a lot of travel costs that add up especially around heavy travel times like the holidays. Like in Saving Money in College on Textbooks , preparation and planning ahead of time are key to getting the cheapest prices available for travel. Checking out all of your options is part of the planning process.

Option 1: Check student travel websites like STATravel.com or StudentUniverse.com. These sites offer cheaper tickets to students than the general public but that is not the case 100% of the time. STATravel.com not only has discounted airline tickets but they also offer good rates on hotels, hostels and rail passes.

Option 2: Depending on the time of travel, the student travel website might not have the cheapest prices. Check out the other travel websites like Priceline.com (need flexible travel times), Orbitz.com, OneTravel.com Travelocity.com, Hotels.com, Cheaptickets.com, and Expedia.com to see if they have lower prices than the student prices.

Option 3: Go to eBay. This option has to be used with caution. There are 4 types of ways you can buy travel on eBay.

a) Providers of travel: Businesses that actually provide travel services
b) Travel agents
c) Individuals: On eBay Travel Policies, it says “Individuals can sell unused air-or sea-related travel vouchers and gift certificates on eBay.
d) Travel club membership and ‘choice travel certificates”

To learn more about the eBay way, go to eBay Travel Policies.

Option 4: Lastly, go directly to the airline websites and see what their prices are. Sometimes, the airline websites themselves have the cheapest price but that is pretty rare.

So utilize all of your options to get the lowest price. Don’t just settle on the first thing you find. Be patient and be organized and you will be thankful when you graduate and have less debt than the rest of the students graduating with you.