Score some $500 tickets to Australia with STA Travel

by Grant Martin on

Jealous of all of those blokes who got in on the first round of tickets to Oz on V Australia? It’s true, some of us snagged sub $500 fares to Australia late last year when The Pacific’s newest airline started selling tickets, but it’s not too late to cash in your chips.

The latest installment in STA Travel’s “fast finger fares” give students one last chance to score that dream vacation down under. As a bonus, a welcome package with two nights of (dorm style) lodging, meals and extras is also included in the price. That’s a steal. So how do you get in?

  • Twenty packages will available at exactly 12PM on Monday, the 9th of March. That’s tomorrow.
  • You can only book the packages by going to your local STA travel or by calling (800) 360.9273, so you either need to get to your local office and sit on a travel agent or use four cellphones and call non stop starting at 11:58. Yes, you can wear your Kappa Kappa Gamma sweatpants to the STA office. No, they don’t make your butt look big.

In the worst case scenario, if you miss out on the twenty best deals, STA still has Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne on sale from Los Angeles for about $650, which isn’t a bad deal.

You can read more about the sale at STAtravel.com.

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Budget Travel: StudentUniverse.com

by Alison Brick on

Do students know how good they have it? Discounted travel, I mean. They even have their own discount student travel agencies that book travel that’s cheaper and tailored to their needs, which anybody older than 26 years-old couldn’t cash in on.

When I was a student, I tapped into STA Travel, which is still going strong with those spring, summer, and winter break deals. But it’s only recently that I’ve heard of the other student discounter on the block: StudentUniverse.com.

They’re an online travel agency out of Waltham, Massachusetts that gives students the resources to research and buy discounted travel products (hotels, flights, rail, cars, hostels) online. They get the extra-good deals because they have special agreements with 30 airlines, including many of the big players like American, Air France-KLM SA, United, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, and British Airways PLC.

Which do you like better: STA or StudentUniverse?
At a glance, STA and StudentUniverse are similar–both target the same demographic of 18-25 year-old students (as well as teachers), focus on student travel periods, and work with most major carriers and offer hotels, travel packages, destination guides, etc.

You can book with either company to get the perks of a student ticket:
• Book closer to the departure date
• Buy one-way tickets at half the cost of a round-trip ticket
• Stay up to one year (whereas other round-trip tickets are restricted to 30 days)
• Get reduced fees for refunds and changes, in comparison to non-student tickets

All of these things are ideal for students who need the flexibility when they don’t know the exact dates of exams or returning home from a summer abroad.

But each company stands out for different reasons.

STA:
• Offers in-person consultation at more than 100 offices across the US. Students may enjoy researching online, but find that it’s comforting and encouraging to talk with someone in person.

StudentUniverse:
• Doesn’t require an International Student Identity Card (ISIC), and instead verifies student status through its own proprietary web technology
• Offers flexible date search, which allows you to simultaneously search three days before and after your preferred dates
• Gives you the chance to offset your carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with renewable energy credits (REC) through ECO2llege Class service for less than $10 per round-trip flight

But when it comes down to it, it’s all about price, right? I compared prices for myself: testing out StudentUniverse and STA (along with Orbitz, Cheaptickets, and Kayak) on routes within the US, and between the US and the Pacific, Europe, Asia, and Central America.

What I found surprised me. I figured that StudentUniverse and STA would be neck and neck, with the flights on the other websites coming in as more expensive. But Kayak and STA ended up tied as the strongest. It made sense that StudentUniverse’s prices improved compared with the others when I tried to book closer to the departure date (four weeks in advance, rather than seven weeks), but Kayak and STA still proved to be the cheapest.

The exception was the US-Europe route and several of the one-way tickets, where StudentUniverse was the best. At four weeks out on a round-trip Chicago-Paris flight, StudentUniverse was $508, STA was $556, Orbitz was $574, Cheaptickets was $574, and Kayak was $563. For a one-way Chicago-Paris flight, StudentUniverse was $231, STA was $264, Orbitz was $468, Cheaptickets was $468, and Kayak was $279.

Lesson learned: I’d recommend that students take the time to search several websites, and consider StudentUniverse for its strengths–one-way tickets and US-Europe flights.

If you’re in the middle of booking your spring break trips through StudentUniverse, let us know your experience. While you’re on the website, you might want to sign up for the chance to win $100 every day in their Spring Break Oh-Nine Giveaway.

You can also stay connected with StudentUniverse on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

A low-cost call: $100 round-trip fares for first 20 callers next week

by Alison Brick on

Get that dialing finger ready. STA Travel is following up on last month’s Fastest Finger First promotion with a Travel Bailout. Starting next week, they’ll be selling flights to five major US cities for $100 round-trip–but only to the first 20 callers each day.

That’s cheap, no matter where you’re flying from in the US. But even better, the price already includes all those extras (taxes, fees, fuel surcharges).

Each day from February 9-13 at noon (CST), 20 round-trip tickets will be available to a specific destination city from any departure city in the U.S. To be one of the lucky 20, you’ll want to speed-dial 800-360-9273.

Miami is the destination of choice for Monday, but you’ll have to check STATravel.com at 10 a.m. (CST) on each of the following days of the week to see what destinations will be featured. We’ve been told that New York City, Chicago, Denver, and LA will be the others, but we don’t know the day for each city.

To be eligible, you must be either a full-time student, teacher, or under 26 years-old; and own or purchase a $22 International Student Identity Card (ISIC), International Youth Travel Card (IYTC), or International Teacher Identity Card (ITIC). The tickets are valid for travel through March 31, 2009.

For those interested in the featured destination cities but didn’t make the cut, you can buy cheaper tickets on the same date. Fares will be as low as $25 one-way and $50 round-trip.

First 20 can pick up $199 round-trip tickets to London. Any takers?

by Alison Brick on

Travelers to London, here’s your deadline for squaring away your trip plans: Wednesday, January 21st at noon (CST).

If you’re under 26 years-old or a student, and you’re even remotely interested in heading across the pond in the next month, you’ll want to speed-dial STA Travel on Wednesday.

Why the rush? STA will be offering a mere 20 round-trip tickets from the US at $199 under their “Fastest Finger First” promotion. Those tickets will surely go as quickly as you can say “God save the queen.” Who’s heard of $199 round-trip flights from the west coast to London? Amazingly enough, they even include tax and fuel surcharges.

The promotion applies to travel from 16 US cities: Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland.

Tickets won’t be available online–you’ll have to call 800.360.9273 or visit your local STA Travel branch.

You’ll be required to have a valid ISIC/IYTC identity card to buy the ticket, but you can always buy one at the same time for $22.

The promotion is good for travel through through March 22, 2009 on British Airways, and tickets are non-refundable and non-amendable. You’ll have to be prepared to pay in full when you book, and you can only buy one ticket per person.

STA Travel looking for interns to travel the world for free. Any takers?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Quick: What’s better than a three-month trip around the world? How about a free three-month trip around the world?

STA Travel, the world’s largest student and youth travel company, has just begun its search for its 2009 World Traveler Interns, and I must say this sounds like pretty much the best internship ever. Your potential duties: Travel the world on STA’s dime for three months and write blog posts, take photos, and shoot video about your trip. A lot better than that internship at Target you were going to get, huh? (Main duties: making coffee for mid-level managers, cleaning up spills in Aisle 7, watching soul leave body.) Here’s how to apply… (for the good internship, I mean):

  1. Be under 26 years of age.
  2. Fill out this application form and submit a video detailing why you should be chosen as one of the two World Traveler Interns.
  3. Tell all your friends to vote for your video on Youtube.

The top 20 videos will advance to a round of phone interviews, which will whittle the number down to ten, and then those ten will each submit a video that takes the judges on a tour of their hometown. Top two videos win!

For a little more info about the trip, which goes to Fiji, India, East Africa, and Ireland, among other places, click here. To see some of the winners from past years, this‘ll do.