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ISIC/ITIC--any feedback?

Posted by (Bessemer, AL, USA) on

My 13yo daughter and I are travelling to Europe for the first time this summer. Obviously, she is a student or a youth; I am a teacher. Is there any advantage to purchasing the International Student Identity Card/teacher one? They have travel insurance and the fees looked to be quite good if the insurance is any good. I wasn't sure if they offered discounts that might be truly worthwhile or not. We are spending 4 days in Budapest, 2 weeks in Novi Sad (Serbia) and 3 days in London (seems strange I'm sure--going for a ballet intensive in Serbia). Does anyone have any experience with this?

Also, if you buy the additional trip interruption/cancellation service, how do you value things? Our tickets to/from Europe are on FF miles from dad. I have pre-paid for a hotel in Budapest won in a bid on priceline; there is the cost of the workshop and lodging; also the flights to London and then to Amsterdam to catch our last leg out of Europe and those have already been paid. I just wasn't sure how to put a value on the FF portions--if we had to reschedule, there would certainly be a fee (especially if it's an interruption). Anyone else had to do this?

Thanks for any feedback.

Posted by
27 posts

I used the ISIC/ITIC card back when I was a student. It offered great discounts for certain hostels, train tickets and museum entrance fees. The ISIC.org website details all of the discounts available in each individual country so you can check whether it would be worth it for you.

Posted by
505 posts

The ISIC Card is definately worth the money. Student/concession discounts are quite common in Europe (and Australia). You can save money on everything from theatre tickets to restaurants (mostly in studenty areas), museum entrance fees, purchases in some stores and train or ferry tickets. Sometimes students can even get into museums free or get great discounts on travel. Since your daughter is unlikely to have a school ID card - even if so, it's unlikely to be familiar to places in Europe - having an ISIC card would be her only proof of being a student.

I'm not so sure how many places accept the teacher discount card, but I think the ISIC website has a search function to find out what discounts are available in various places.

Don't know about the insurance - I think with FF miles you are much more limited if something happens.

Have fun!
Kate

Posted by
683 posts

Read or heard somewhere that the teacher card is almost never accepted for discounts but that the student card is, provided other proof of student status is shown

Posted by
505 posts

For a student, you do not need any other form of identity - the ISIC Card itself is accepted as proof because you have to show proof to get the ISIC card. I've used mine in Switzerland, Denmark, Australia etc. without ever being asked for any other proof.

*
Kate

Posted by
18 posts

I'm not sure if your airline has a different policy than mine, but when I had to cancel a flight bought with FF for an emergency, they were not able to refund the tickets in any way but did put the ticket on hold for on year's time.

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