Fly with the best of airlines at very low fares .

I will be taking my class of twenty five students for an educational tour to Washington, DC. I need to search the net for economically viable options in low cost travels, as I will have to book quite a few tickets. I am based in Florida and have a limited budget for the excursion. So I will have to settle for really cost effective air tickets as I will have to spend on other heads too. Any ideas?

"Margaret" wrote in message
...

I will be taking my class of twenty five students for an educational
tour to Washington, DC. I need to search the net for economically
viable options in low cost travels, as I will have to book quite a few
tickets. I am based in Florida and have a limited budget for the
excursion. So I will have to settle for really cost effective air
tickets as I will have to spend on other heads too. Any ideas?




--
Margaret

With that many in your group I would suggest using the good old fashioned
telephone. You will find that you can't book more than 9 (at the very
most) over the net so you run the risk that you book the first nine only to
find that the fare has changed, or worse, there is NO more space on your
chosen flight. Using the phone you can overcome this. Not only that but
you may get one or more "free" seats with that many people if you phone.
Lastly, book over the web and you have to book and pay at the same time.
You may well find that an airline will give you a little time to assemble
the money and names if you work over the phone.

This is all called "making a group booking" and will probably be handled by
a special department at the airline.

You should also look into the services offered by travel agencies; you may
even find some that specialise in study tours.

One word of warning. Be ultra careful about the names of your party. The
name on the ticket must match the name on the ID that the student will
produce. "Ted Smith" will almost certainly have an ID for "Edward Smith"
so his ticket MUST read "Edward Smith".

Oh, and one other warning; you don't say how old your students are.
Younger groups may require a specific number of adults to travel each way on
the plane. In the UK you must have one adult for every 10 students and we
had an instance recently where the aircraft Captain refused to fly a group
that didn't comply. The group was travelling on two different aircraft;
the first 25 went with 5 adults and the second 25 tried to travel with only
2 and the second party were refused travel. 7 adults with 50 on one
aircraft would have been fine, so would 25 with 3 and 25 with 6 but the way
they split the party caused the problem.

Margaret wrote:
I will be taking my class of twenty five students for an educational
tour to Washington, DC. I need to search the net for economically
viable options in low cost travels, as I will have to book quite a few
tickets. I am based in Florida and have a limited budget for the
excursion. So I will have to settle for really cost effective air
tickets as I will have to spend on other heads too. Any ideas?

The net is not the place to look. Call the airlines directly or use a
travel agent that does group bookings.

One of the worst things you can do is to have a company that specializes
in student tours handle things for you. My daughter's middle school
charges $2000 for a one week NYC/DC tour. I took four of us for about
the same price. The tour company is charging about $1000 per person to
make the arrangements.

The bigger expense in D.C. is hotels. Again you need to work directly
with the hotel's management and not book online.

What really gets expensive on these tours is all the charter buses. If
you can fly into National Airport (served by the Metro), and stay at
hotels close to the Metro or bus lines you can save a lot of money if
your students are fairly responsible. But most student groups are
chauffeured around in buses. We stepped out of our $99/night hotel in
Georgetown, and got on a city bus that took us to the National Mall for
$1.35 each way.

I think you can go to http://optifly.com for air tickets. It is the best travel site with updated search technology. You can choose from an array of airlines, both low cost and commercial ones. You can book tickets after searching the shortest distance between the two places.

joseker wrote:
I think you can go to http://optifly.com for air tickets. It is the best
travel site with updated search technology. You can choose from an array
of airlines, both low cost and commercial ones. You can book tickets
after searching the shortest distance between the two places.

Avoid Optifly at all costs.

On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:35:07 -0700, SMS wrote:

Avoid Optifly at all costs.

Because?...

DaveM