Now that I've been placed I've been starting to think about things like flights home, travelling plans etc...

I understand that with the DIY flights home you pay extra so that you can book your flight home while you are over in america. Can you book your flight home from where ever you are in the US ? For example I'm looking at doing the trek san francisco to la so would I be able to book my DIY flight home from la or would I need to book it from New York ?

you can buy a DIY flight home from anywhere, the 'unlimited' option

This will get you out of USA from most airports, just need to give 7 days notice before you want to fly out.

Its around £200 for the unlimited option

Aw thats great thanks ! Seems a bit pointless to pay to fly to New York to fly home when I could just get flight straight back to the UK !

diy is very worth it if your on the other side of the country think it works out alot cheaper aswell

DIY imho isn't worth it. You can get a fixed flight from NYC and fly there from LAX or another regional airport.
Domestic flights can be cheap. Check them out because sometimes they work out to be alot cheaper than paying for the DIY.

My camp was nr San Fran last year and i did a road trip afterwards. Followed by that I flew from LAX to Miami (stayed there a while) then flew on up t0 NYC and stayed there a few days before getting my fixed flight home.

The multi city flight cost me no more than £120 if I remember correctly.

what's this multi city flight ticket that your talking about ?

I've just been looking at my various options just now and from what I can make out a flight from LAX to New York was going to work out at about £200 anyway so by paying the £200 to get the unlimited DIY option it would save me having to get two flights, possible complications like delays for connecting flights etc...

But obviously if there is a better option or should I say a cheaper option haha! I would definitely prefer to do that !

Multi city flight gives you more options.

For example instead of getting a basic return I did
LAX to Miami
then
Miami to JFK (New York)

a lot of flight websites do them.
Helps instead of buying single flights. as they can work out to be pricey.

It also depends on when you are travelling because flights over the first monday in september will be expensive including the weekend before as that is a national American holiday.

But if it works out to be more expensive then the DIY option is the best... but do look into cheap domestic flights over there.

I like the flexibility of a DIY flight - but like Rachel says you need to consider domestic flights. If you don't know when you want to fly home, you could get a DIY New York and just get an internal flight from wherever you are to NY.

One year I got a DIY Ultimate so I could fly home from San Francisco cause I needed to leave the same day camp finished - so it's useful in cases like that. But otherwise I've flown home from the East Coast even though camp's in Cali.

Who with and when did you book your multi city flights with Rachel?

I booked them with ebookers.

It was a case of trawling through loads of sites to find the best deal.
My friend did a different route and it was cheaper buying singles then a multi city.

Have a look at jet blue. umm can't remember other cheap domestic plane airlines.

They have ones similar to our Ryanair, jet2, easyjet etc.

You've got Jet Blue,
United,
American,
South west
Continental,
US Airways,

Its a case of looking on the internet.
i'm also sure there is a thread in the summer 2011 board also regarding domestic flights.


As for when I think I booked my flights in April or May for August/September.

im a bit confused :/ i thought camp america organised our flights home, is this not the case? do we have to organise it ourselfes an pay for it ourselfes?

If you know the date you want to fly home on - then you tell CA which date that is and they'll organise a flight home from New York for you. This is no extra cost, but is ONLY from New York.

If you want to fly from elsewhere, or don't know exactly what dates you can purchase the DIY option (it's not the cost of a full flight though, and price varies by location) where you can fly from a number of big regional airports across the US. With this option, I think you only have to 'book' a week or so before you actually want to fly home. To book it you basically log on to a database and select a flight. It's actually pretty easy to do.

This isn't something you need to worry about just yet though - CA will give you more info nearer the time.

Okey doke, thankyou

Can the DIY flights be used to fly to a different country other than the UK? I am continuing to travel after my time in America and am heading to Thailand/ Australia to meet a friend. Would CA be able to arrange my flight to somewhere like that instead? If I just paid the cost of the difference for instance?? xx