Overpriced school trip.

[stubuzz]

My daughter came home with a letter about a 4 day school trip to Malaysia. The itemized breakdown showed that the return flight to Penang with Air Asia was 9600bt. It looked expensive, so i checked. The Air Asia website shows a return price of about 4200bt. The school is claiming that group bookings cost more. I say BS!

[BritManToo]

Just say no.

[IvorBiggun2]

Someone has to pay for the teachers 'Go fund me.'

Edited July 17, 2019 by IvorBiggun2

[CLS]

True, AA group bookings cost more. If you are a group of 20 and there are only 19 seats for 4200฿ you end up everyone paying the more expensive price.


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[watcharacters]

15 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Just say no.

 

It's not that simple.

[Isaanbiker]

You're paying for the teacher's flights as well. And of course what they'll eat, buy as souvenirs and and and.

 

I'm certain that a school would get a decent price, especially from an airline in Thailand.

 

  And I assume that it's Air Asia Thailand they're using, right? Don't want to comment on Air Asia Malaysia now. 

 

Perhaps you could talk to other parents what they think and come to a solution where the school can't say that it's not your business. Because it is.  

Edited July 17, 2019 by Isaanbiker

[stubuzz]

1 minute ago, Isaanbiker said:

And I assume that it's Air Asia Thailand they're using, right?

Yes.

[Cadbury]

School directors are more corrupt than the RTP, if that is possible. There has always got to be something in it for them. School holidays are no exception.

A disgustingly immoral country dominated by greed.

[poohy]

No doubt all teachers, hangers on , go FOC free of charge (travel accommodation food)

 

i.e all paid by kids...YOU!

[Isaanbiker]

29 minutes ago, stubuzz said:

Yes.

If I were you, I'd try to talk to some other parents. It's impossible that you've got to pay that much for a plane ticket. 

 

 Of course will you be the Kee Niao Farang who's so cheap. So please decide what's better for you and also think about your child.

 

I know that they can get pretty nasty when it comes to such things.

 

I've once bought the books for two classes from my money and sold it to them very cheap, because I had the teacher discount.

 

Of course was our "bookselling teacher" upset, but some students and parents were happy.

 

I'd have thought that even the director, or vice is/are involved.

 

Nothing goes without them. 

 

I just had to give my son 1,000 baht for a day in Ubon where they visit the candle light festival, where he's got to make an English project. 

 

Instead of paying him the hotel and expenses, we have to pay for it?

 

I could stay there two nights and eat for the money, 

 

OP, there's nothing that could surprise me anymore. 

 

Edited July 17, 2019 by Isaanbiker

[Isaanbiker]

25 minutes ago, Cadbury said:

School directors are more corrupt than the RTP, if that is possible. There has always got to be something in it for them. School holidays are no exception.

A disgustingly immoral country dominated by greed.

And students who have to sit on the floor and act like animals when they visit their teacher in the office.

 

  To me it's like a better joke, especially when they wear their uniform with all the Christmas tree light like emblems on them. 

[sammieuk1]

Over priced school stop there no need to add trip???? 

[naboo]

2 hours ago, poohy said:

No doubt all teachers, hangers on , go FOC free of charge (travel accommodation food)

 

i.e all paid by kids...YOU!

 

I've taken students on many multi-day trips. The fee the parents pay always includes the cost of the teachers, split evenly across the paying students.

 

When I take students on multi-day trips, I'm working 24hrs a day. I sleep when I can, but return absolutely shattered. Students crying at 3am because they miss their parents, students sick and needing to be taken to a doctor, students falling out with each other. This on top of ensuring the students are occupied 16hrs a day. You want me to pay my own way?

 

My sister, a teacher in the UK, has just completed a 2 week trip to Shanghai with a group of 13 year olds excelling in languages including Mandarin. One student had a nut allergy. One student needed to be taken to apply for her visa separately to Manchester rather than London because one parent refused to sign the application. Tell her to pay her own way.

 

Before you tell me its what parents do day in day out, I'm a parent, its nothing like the same.

 

You're just one of those ******* parents. Or an opinionated ****.

[Orton Rd]

Tell them your kid has a fear of flying and cannot go. You might expect it to be a bit more the the normal fare, but not twice even including the lazy teachers, of which there are a few in our family.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Orton Rd

[Scott]

The schools that I am associated with have a number of overseas trips.   These have been to NZ, UK, Singapore and a few other destinations.   How it works is they first set the number of students who they will need to have a full trip.   I don't know the number for overseas trips, but in-country the number is 100 and they are broken into groups of 10 and each group has a Thai teacher and a foreign teacher.   The cost of food and transportation is paid for the staff.   Accommodation, local transport, cost of activities is then added in.   This is the basis for what they charge for the trip.  

 

Overseas trips do not include foreign staff, but most of ours are in association with a provider in the destination country.   The students stay with approved host families at night and during the day, activities are planned.  

 

We have a small group of staff who are experienced and very good at planning the trips.   It takes a really long time to get them all arranged.   If visas are needed for any students, then it becomes even more cumbersome.   Just to be clear not all students are Thai citizens.  

 

From my experience, some of the camps make quite a tidy sum for the school -- it's not a huge amount of money, but they certainly don't lose anything.  

 

 

 

[Puchaiyank]

When one realizes that corruption is a way of life here, such blatant acts will no longer be shocking...

 

Just don't participate...

 

If asked why, tell them!  ????

[JimmyJ]

3 hours ago, naboo said:

 

I've taken students on many multi-day trips. The fee the parents pay always includes the cost of the teachers, split evenly across the paying students.

 

When I take students on multi-day trips, I'm working 24hrs a day. I sleep when I can, but return absolutely shattered. Students crying at 3am because they miss their parents, students sick and needing to be taken to a doctor, students falling out with each other. This on top of ensuring the students are occupied 16hrs a day. You want me to pay my own way?

 

My sister, a teacher in the UK, has just completed a 2 week trip to Shanghai with a group of 13 year olds excelling in languages including Mandarin. One student had a nut allergy. One student needed to be taken to apply for her visa separately to Manchester rather than London because one parent refused to sign the application. Tell her to pay her own way.

 

Before you tell me its what parents do day in day out, I'm a parent, its nothing like the same.

 

You're just one of those ******* parents. Or an opinionated ****.

Sharing one teacher's expenses amongst the students:

 

One teacher's expenses divided by the number of students on the trip is not going to come close to more than doubling the cost of a return flight for every student.

 

If the cost of the return flight is more than double the norm, then it only takes 1 student paying double to have already covered the cost of the teacher's return flight.

Why is every student paying more than double?

 

I would also think a group booking would if anything get a discount, but even if not, certainly not pay more.

 

CLS (post #4) attempted an explanation of why the group booking would pay more but I found the post incomprehensible.

 

 

Edited July 17, 2019 by JimmyJ

[Scott]

We certainly had parents who complained about the price, especially the overseas trips.   Those get expensive.   They also usually include quite a number of teachers.   We also had to include the director and the principal -- who always had to have private rooms, etc.   Teachers shared accommodation.  

 

[HiSoLowSoNoSo]

My sons Singapore school trip costed 26.000 THB, and they stayed at a shitty place, could have done it myself with better accommodation for half the price.

[Pumpuynarak]

1 hour ago, poohy said:

You want me to pay my own way?

The school should be paying not the kids parents.

[SteveK]

Why not just ask if you can book the seat yourself, on the same flight? Seems very logical but no doubt the answer will be "mai dai" because they won't be able to skim a few thousand from you. If so, just say no, there's a big difference between being a keeniow and being someone who doesn't like being ripped off, by a school of all places! 

Edited July 18, 2019 by SteveK

[Scott]

I've never been involved in a school trip where the students were required to go.   If it's too expensive, and many are, then don't send your child.   The students put a lot of pressure to go along with their friends.   Most school trips have more students wanting to go than there is room to take.  

 

We set a number and plan staff accordingly.   In country, I believe it's 100 and for out of country it's in the neighborhood of 50.   The first to sign up and pay get booked the rest get denied.  

 

We've had parents who also want to go, which is a big 'no', but they sometimes make their own travel arrangements.   I know once a couple of parents got bumped from the flight, which was quite humorous.   The travel arrangements are made so that ALL students are on the same flight, seated close together etc..   It wouldn't work out too well if a few got bumped from a flight.  

 

 

[otherstuff1957]

I've been involved in planning school trips and the overhead costs are a lot higher than you would expect.  For example, several people will be involved in planning the trip, including a survey trip to see the sites first had and to plan the activities.  There are usually 10s of man-hours in just planning the trip and the planning is usually done by relatively experienced and well-paid individuals.  Any accountant will tell you that their time should be included in the overall cost. 

 

It's possible that the airline bill was padded, but it's also possible that that is where the school decided to put some of the overhead costs.