Who pays for the flight?

[econ2018]

Hey! So I'm linking together several visits and going on a tour of sorts. All schools have offered to reimburse up to $500 in travel expenses. The issue is I'm not sure who to bill for flights between schools. Do you think I should send it to the school I'm visiting next or the one I'm leaving?

[Elephas]

Where you are to School A: School A

School A to School B: School B

School B to School C: School C

School C to School D: School D

School D to Home: School D. 

At least that's what makes sense to me. So the school visiting next with the exception of the last school. 

[econ2018]

Sweet yeah thats what I was thinking as well.

[TakeruK]

What @Elephas said could work but School D might not like paying for 2 flights. However, if both legs from School D is still under $500 then it's no extra cost to you or them and they probably won't care. 

If School D does care but another school on the list doesn't care, then make that other school the double-leg-paying school. This might work out well if your beginning/end schools are far from home but the middle schools are close together. I would probably pick the double-leg-paying-school in a way that makes each school's cost as even as possible.

Another option is to add up the entire itinerary and show the whole cost to all of the schools. Then divide the total cost evenly by 4 and each school pays their share. This could be much easier for everyone if no single school has extra strict documentation rules for reimbursements.

[AccountHist]

How likely would grad school subsidize my flight ticket in the Fall since I didn't fly out to attend the admitted-students day and hence didn't cost them anything? Has anyone done that before?

[TakeruK]

27 minutes ago, AccountHist said:

How likely would grad school subsidize my flight ticket in the Fall since I didn't fly out to attend the admitted-students day and hence didn't cost them anything? Has anyone done that before?

You can ask. I know one Canadian program in my field (U Toronto) allocates $1000 to every new student to be used in any combination of flight for open house + moving expenses. It's not meant to cover the whole amount, but it's meant to help you out and recognizes that if you didn't have them pay for a visit, you spared them that expense.

Schools might not be willing to do this though because paying for moving expenses is typically an employment benefit and many US schools either purposely try to avoid considering their students as employees or they don't think grad students are "deserving" of these benefits. Or, the money used to fly people out for the visits came from a pool specifically earmarked for "recruiting" and they aren't allowed to use it for any other purpose (pretty common type of bureaucracy).