Vacation travel schedule & Parents Weekend

[ALS0008]

My son will be attending USAFA in the fall. I want to purchase airline tickets for him to return for thanksgiving & Christmas. The academic calendar shows that Thanksgiving break begins Tuesday 'LMD'. Can someone please define what that means and what time they'd be able to depart the Academy that day for the airport? Also, for 'parents weekend', do the cadets stay on campus or are they allowed to leave during the weekend?

Thanks.

 

[haleym]

I wouldn't worry about Thanksgiving/Christmas airline tickets until at least mid August. LMD means Last Military Duty, which is the very last thing you are obligated to do on the given day break starts (could be noon meal formation, lunch, class). You won't have information on when your son can leave for a while, and even then USAFA changes its mind regularly.
Cadets are allowed to leave campus for Parent's Weekend, but generally stay within the 150 mile radius.

 

[Rocko]

I'll give you my take on it as a parent that has a son who is a C4C. If you can, I recommend using Southwest Airlines or any other Airlines that allow you to make changes without penalty.

We opened up two new Chase/Southwest credit cards (One in my name and one for my DW). The reason we did that is they had a deal giving 50,000 points to open a card. Check around as they usually have a deal going on. This way we had 100,000 points. They also give 1 point per dollar for purchases. That works out to around 3% back by the way I figure it. We use that card for most of our purchases to build up points. So far it covered all flights for my DS this year and I have enough to cover through next year already.

As for scheduling the flights we have him make them far in advance. The reason is there is no penalty to change. The cost goes up the closer to the date you get. If he hits it right then we get it at the cheapest rate. If he finds out later on that the date won't work he just changes it at that time. The only date he missed so far is the Christmas break because they were allowed to leave after their last final. My DS found out his last final was on Wednesday so changed his flight to come back Wednesday night as soon as he found out.

Again this won't work for airlines that charge for changes but it has worked out great for us using Southwest. Another bonus for Southwest is that they can have two Check-in bags for free.

And no I don't work for Southwest!

 

[Rocko]

Now for Parent's weekend there are some mandatory things on Friday but they can typically leave at some point and spend the night where you are staying. They must attend the Tailgate and football game Saturday but after the game on Saturday they are released until Monday night and you can leave. Last year we went to Denver but this year we are getting a cabin in the mountains Saturday and Sunday night. Ask them what they want to do. Some will want to run but others may just want to relax and sleep. The one sure thing is they WILL want to get away from the Academy!

I would recommend you book something near the Academy at least through Friday night as you will be going back and forth. If you want, you can setup something further away for Saturday and Sunday night since you won't have to return to the Academy.

Hope this helps!