This question is primarily aimed at teams who frequently qualify for the Championship event and make plans well in advance. Last year we didn’t make plans until near the end of competition season (had to spend a lot of $$$ to get crummy flight times) because we couldn’t be certain we would qualify to advance, so we had a clear picture of who would be traveling with the team based on their particpation during the season.
This year, we are pre-qualified (yeah!) so we would like to begin booking flights in advance but don’t have a finalized team roster, and quite honestly, even if we had a roster, can’t be sure that all of the students on that roster would follow through with their commitment to the team.
We intend to cover the cost of team members to attend Champs, but we are already looking at a pretty significant increase in team interest. I don’t want to purchase (non-refundable) airfare for students who may not make a contribution to the team and are only interested in a “free trip”. I also don’t want to be responsible for kids who don’t have any idea of what the program is about if they don’t engage during the build season/district level events, and could potentially be “bored” or wander off.
I am working with our school’s administration to develop a contact for parents/kids to sign, but would be interested in seeing what other teams may have for situations like this (if any). Do any teams have a contract that they have their team members/families sign with regards to their responsibility to the team in order to earn the privilege to travel with the team?
My recommendation is to estimate you attendance and buy airfare and reserve hotels using group rates that have good cancelation policies and allow for name changes. My best is that by the time build season rolls around, you should already have a good idea of who your dedicated students are – or at least the ones who know what FIRST is.
A contract, if crafted well, can be a valuable tool. However, if presented in the wrong way, a contract can set up negative dynamics from the begining. It shouldn’t be about a punishment or reward structure. Instead, here are the benefits to being on the team, here are the expectations for someone in the team. Knowing that, do you want to be on the team?
When we’ve done group tickets on airlines in the past, you have until 30 days before the flight to assign names. But the last time we did that was pre-covid so I don’t know if policies have changed.
Paging @SurfGear since it’s been a minute since I’ve done planning as a student. This is everything I can recall. Like people able have said, get a group rate if you can early on flights since that’ll be the biggest cost besides hotels. Otherwise, FIRST comes out with a hotel booking system that seems to give best rate. Finally, while the metro system was less than kind to my group today as we were leaving for the airport, it was invaluable in shuttling us from our hotel over to the convention center so be sure to keep that in mind if you don’t end up with a hotel in walking distance to GRB. FIRST also has offered discount day passes which allow students and mentors alike to ride the metro for a discounted rate.
I wish we could plan travel this early! My advice:
Flights: Use a group travel agent (we have one we have used for years). The earlier you plan, the better your rates should be.
Contract with students: IMHO, the only way to guarantee that people keep their commitments is to collect a deposit. I know you said the Team would cover the cost. But in order to book flights, you need a headcount and PROBABLY names on the tickets. That locks you in, unless your travel agent offers some flexibility.
Hotels: Figure out what hotels were available last year, start looking at them now (location, amenities, distance to public transportation, etc.). Ask other teams their experiences. When housing opens, you won’t waste time comparing this hotel to that.
And be prepared for prices to be considerably higher than last year (in my case it was ~20% higher – hopefully we’ll see a lower price in the meanwhile and be able to rebook).
Thanks to everyone who has replied so far. We actually planned to use the same hotel as last year and have already got that reservation made (took care of that this summer since hotel reservations are easily cancelable).
I will definitley look into the group travel agency option and check with the airlines to find out if we have to provide names right away or not. If not, that solves a lot of my concerns. I guess I am just used to having to provide that information (from last year) when we made the reservation since it was so close to the travel date.
I’ve often found that you have to provide names – and they have to be real (with matching DOBs), but the group policies allow name changes until some specified cutoff. Southwest now allows name changes even on individual tickets with the new “Wanna Get Away Plus” fare. But you’ll get an interface made for making changes in bulk – and likely better rates – if you do it as a group reservation.
That is correct. We stayed about 25 minutes from the venue and it worked out really well last year - the prices were much lower and we weren’t fighting crowds for the continental breakfast in the morning. We have a smaller team (25 total including mentors attended with us last year) and had 4 mini-va rental vehicles to get around in.
Others have mentioned using travel agents, especially to book flights. Probably not a bad idea. But this past year we qualified for Champs less than 3 weeks from the event and even at that point flights could be found from LAX to IAH for $200-$300. You’d probably get a better deal calling the airline and doing a big group reservation. From my experience, Southwest is one of the best airlines out there for domestic flights too. As for hotels, call one well in advance and just make a reservation. Doesn’t cost anything to reserve, and even if you don’t qualify for champs until right before, you can still cancel them. We’ve usually booked in February or earlier (although we didn’t this year and got stuck in a Days Inn, which was really quite bad). Get a hotel with breakfast included too, and heed the advice of people in other threads when it comes to charter buses and other transportation once you arrive.
I’m Lead Mentor of 5985 - an Australian team that pre-qualified by getting the EI at Houston in March. We’re also planning on locking in flights early - however, our travel experience is likely going to be very different to yours e.g. we’ve been quoted “discount” flight costs at nearly $3,500 AUD per person!
We do have team contracts (one for Regional and one for Champs) that I’d be happy to share if you were interested.
We’re also a community team, so have been able to make our own choices when it comes to accommodation - we’ve saved a lot of money by using Airbnb.
Flights are actually not cheaper when buying in bulk. While you may see a flight offered at $300, the airline only has so many seats that they are willing to sell at that price. We brought 67 students and a significant number of adults last year and our flight costs were more than double what we saw available on Google flights.
If you can break up your group and fly in on multiple flights, you’ll be able to get cheaper flights on average.
I love Southwest and will shill Southwest on end for cheap flights as that’s what lowered the cost of going to college out of state for the last 4 years. However, if their group booking line is anything like it was when I was a student, be prepared to be on hold for a long time. Can’t tell if it was because only a couple of people were dedicated to that customer service number but I recall our team president at the time calling two days in a row and being on hold probably from mid-day to the end of our meetings trying to get ahold of someone for something we needed to update that we couldn’t do on our end. I’d like to hope that’s the benefit of going through an agent is they’d act as the middle person handling issues like that instead of us high school students
It’s not a contract per say but we lay out requirements to qualify for the travel team at the beginning of the year. When it comes time to actually travel, we only make sure those who have met the qualifications go.
