Booking flight for two interviews on one trip

[samyraeus]

I have been invited to two interviews a week apart at Yale and Princeton. Both universities have offered to pay for my trip, Yale has offered to book a flight, while Princeton has offered to reimburse me. However, as I am coming all the way from Australia, it is unreasonable to fly home in between. I assume this happens to international students frequently, but I was wondering if there is an etiquette in whether I should refuse one offer to pay for the flight, or see if I can get them to each pay for one leg? I realise this is probably a good problem to have, but I am a little bit worried that the situation will cause some confusion and I may end up looking rude.

[iphi]

I'm shocked that they offered to pay for you to come from Australia! It's amazing though, congratulations!

 

Explain to the second one that you will be in the U.S. for another interview and that you will only need transportation from Princeton, NJ to Cambridge, MA (or vice versa). The other thing you could do is have one pay for your flight to the U.S. and another your flight from. But that's a little more complicated.

[fuzzylogician]

It would make perfect sense to combine the two visits and I'm sure the two schools will be able to see the logic. I did something similar, though my schools were offering less reimbursement (a few hundred dollars each) so combining the money was what allowed me to travel in the first place. I combined visits to five schools and they were all very accommodating with receipts and joint reimbursement, they seemed to have experience with international students doing this kind of thing. 

 

Princeton and Yale are sufficiently close to one another that you could easily fly to/from NY or Boston. Getting from New Haven to Princeton will require a day of travel on various buses (or perhaps bus+train, if they are paying), but it's not too bad. iphi's suggestion makes sense: contact Yale to see whether they are able to pay for a flight that fits your schedule including the other visit, then ask Princeton whether they will be able to cover your travel within the US. I'd also find out about reimbursement for accommodations or alternatively options for crash space with students, otherwise that too could become expensive. I'm not so sure one-way tickets would be a good solution because normally they cost nearly as much as a return flight, but I suppose it depends on the prices so it might be worth looking into. However, my guess is that it won't really save anyone money, so I would only do that if for whatever reason Yale won't allow you to have an itinerary like you need. 

[samyraeus]

Thanks for the advice. I think I might try to get one uni to pay for the flight and the other internal transport (I hadn't even factored those costs in) and maybe even accomodation.

 

I'll check back in when it's all sorted so anyone else with a similar situation in the future can compare my experience.

[legan]

New Haven and Princeton are about 3 hours apart by train. If you flew into JFK, you could easily take the commuter rail to New Haven in less than 2 hours, then return to NYC and switch to a New Jersey commuter train to Princeton, which is perhaps just about an hour. They're just a day trip from each other, really.

 

I don't have any suggests as to how to ask which University to pay for which part of the trip, but they're really so conveniently located to one another, that I'm certain they would be able to accommodate your travel needs.

 

Congrats, and good luck!

[samyraeus]

Hey all, so it looks like the universities communicated without me doing much and came to an agreement together. I didn't end up having to negotiate it myself, so I hope it works out this way for any internationals in this situation in the future.