Student Flights & Travel Discounts | DirectAsia Insurance
All You Need to Know About Student Flights and Discounts
International travel can be daunting, whether it’s for a holiday, a family trip or to further your studies. The entire process of having to relocate to another country for your studies as a student can be expensive as well. Read on for tips and suggestions on how to cut down travel costs with student discounts and avoid unexpected expenses.
Once you decide on your course of study and the University, you’ll have to think about getting there with all of your things including some bulky essentials. But, what if you choose to study overseas and the best way to get there is by flight? International flight prices can be costly, especially if you have added baggage.
Benefits of Flying as a Student
Most airlines have a student club you can sign up with in order to enjoy a number of benefits. These benefits will vary from one airline to another but they are on the whole, rather similar.
For starters, here’s what the Qatar Airways Student Club offers:
- Discounts on flights
- Extra baggage allowance
- Date change flexibility or a refund
- Savings when using special codes
- Club upgrade when you graduate
- Complimentary Superspeed Wifi and etc.
Singapore Airlines’ student privileges offers added complimentary benefits for KrisFlyer members with verified student status, which include:
- Offers on flights for Business, Premium Economy and Economy class
- Up to 50 kg of checked baggage depending on the class of seats. Take note that the US and Canada have their own weight allowance of up to 3 pieces of baggage weighing max 32 kgs each.
- Flexibility of changing travel plans once without additional fees
Note: Always read the terms and conditions; and any other fine print carefully before purchasing your flight ticket as these clauses may differ between airlines and depending on your destination.
How to Get Student Flight Offers and Discounts?
If you do not want the stress of booking a flight on your own, you can purchase your tickets from a Student Travel Agency. These agencies work directly with the airlines to obtain up to 30% discounts off your travel, help with hotel bookings and internal flights. Some student travel agencies have special deals and discounts for crucial dates such as back to school, study abroad and spring break for US colleges that fall between March to April.
You can start by:
- Looking for offers well in advance, do not wait until the last minute. A good idea will be to check out prices at least 2 months prior to your intended date of travel. This way you will have the time and opportunity to compare prices and even enable the alert option online so that you are notified whenever prices change.
- Make use of the versatile search function. If you choose ‘Flexible’ dates instead of ‘Exact’ dates, your search result will show a chart with costs on optional dates which could be cheaper than the dates you were considering.
- Airlines with student discounts will have sales throughout the year, so start looking early. Sign up for their newsletters and follow them on social media as well. Sometimes, there are flash sales or bargains on social media which are not posted anywhere else.
- Instead of purchasing a ‘Round-trip’ ticket, try getting 2 ‘One-Way’ tickets. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that tickets may be cheaper this way while providing you the flexibility of flying in and out from different airports and/or cities.
Remember that most airlines will need proof that you are a student, so make sure you have the necessary documents. Alternatively, you can apply for an International Student Identity Card (ISIC).
If you are planning to travel from Singapore to Australia to study as well as do some sightseeing while you’re there, you may want to check out Flightcentre.com.au
Here’s a list of popular airlines that offer student discounts:
How About Travel insurance?
Last but not least, get travel insurance so that you are protected in case there is a flight delay or cancellation. The last thing you’ll want is to end up spending more, in case of unforeseen circumstances – especially once you’ve got a good deal on flight tickets.
DirectAsia has 4 travel insurance plan types that you can choose from – DA150, DA200, DA500 and DA1000 either as a Single Plan or Annual Plan to meet your various needs. You will be covered for any of the following circumstances while overseas with any one of these plans:
- Medical expenses
- Medical evacuation and repatriation
- Compassionate visit
- Death and Permanent Disability
- Personal possessions, money and travel documents
- Trip cancellation and curtailment; reluctance to travel following an act of terrorism and travel delay
- Rental car access
- Personal liability
