Working America Outside of USIT,SAYIT etc

BCawley

After getting quoted 922 from usit to fly to NY, (I know they try to fleece students, but they plucked €250 out of their arse and decided to charge me for it ) I was wondering has anyone sorted all this out by themselves and could help? I know this is what i need;

A us embassy interview (Has anyone organised this themselves?)
Insurance Health insurance id assume(What companies offer the best value?)

There are others im not positive how they work, such as SEVIS and how to set it up, What forms are needed etc

I dont expect Someone to do the work for me, but if we could piece together a guide it could make an excellent sticky, and save a lot of students some money

lil_lisa

You need an American sponsor. Whether you can get that yourself or you go through usit or sayit or any of them, thats the difficult part. If you can't get one yourself you have no other choice but to go to one of the Irish organisations. You can try iicenter.org also. If you try go directly to the American sponsors which usit sayit and go4less go to, they will direct to these companies. Each sponsor has ties in different countries, so only a few countries can apply directly to them! Good luck!

BCawley

lil_lisa wrote: »

You need an American sponsor. Whether you can get that yourself or you go through usit or sayit or any of them, thats the difficult part. If you can't get one yourself you have no other choice but to go to one of the Irish organisations. You can try iicenter.org also. If you try go directly to the American sponsors which usit sayit and go4less go to, they will direct to these companies. Each sponsor has ties in different countries, so only a few countries can apply directly to them! Good luck!

Hmm... Thanks for the reply.
They dont make it easy do they :rolleyes:
Ill probably end up going with go4less, but might aswell be thourough...
What exactely is a sponsor? Is it an organisation, could it be a friends relative or something? Could you give and example of the prominent sponsors in America?

Pretty annoyed with USIT, they advertised €200 euro off, but just told me the flights were €200 dearer. Made off with my €50 deposit aswell.

Thanks :P

spudmonkey17

BCawley wrote: »

Pretty annoyed with USIT, they advertised €200 euro off, but just told me the flights were €200 dearer. Made off with my €50 deposit aswell.

Dearer as opposed to what exactly?

BCawley

spudmonkey17 wrote: »

Dearer as opposed to what exactly?

Flights Were €450 from aerlingus looking myself, they said 679 with delta airlines were the cheapest they could manage.
Charged €20 for posting of documents.

Seen a few places online that say USIT rip people off, and a few people told me that aswell.
Pricing it with goforless or sayit appear to be about €100 cheaper, but all the companies have some sorta fee that you wont find out untill you pay your non refundable deposit (schnakes!)

In short, My first post about USIT was too harsh, they probably are a bit dearer but you cant find out who is the cheapest unless you're willing to pay all 3 of the companies their non-refundables deposits.Was just annoyed in general with USIT, they agreed to send me a receipt so i could get a 12 month interest free loan with BOI, but they didnt. Not hugely important, but still bad business practice IMO

spudmonkey17

BCawley wrote: »

Flights Were €450 from aerlingus looking myself, they said 679 with delta airlines were the cheapest they could manage.

I agree that USIT are expensive but this is due to the fact that they only fly with BA, American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta etc. but not AerLingus. I suppose it depends on where you're going too. Flights to Miami on Aer Lingus were astronomical when I looked them up but when I got a quote from USIT they were a couple of hundred less on United Airlines. My best advice for booking with USIT is to book as early as possible if you want to get their cheapest flights as they tend to go up quite quickly. My friend payed about €100 more than me to Chicago and he booked the day after me!
However, in my experience they are pretty reliable and helpful and known around the world and personally I don't mind paying the extra few quid for the reliability.

Anyway, in response to your first comment I don't think it's possible to organize the whole thing yourself. As far as I know, the American Embassy sends the J1 visa application forms exclusively to companies like USIT, SAYIT, and Go4Less and if you were to go to the embassy they would probably tell you to go through one of them.

lil_lisa

A sponsor is a registered organisation who pay money and have agreed to take responsibility of you by giving you a job which they can prove cannot be filled by an american, the j-1 requires sponsors which take responsibility without the job. These include interexchange and CIEE, look them up for more info! There are four for Irish people, usit, sayit, go4less and iicenter, if you want to become a sponsor you have to register before April, it's a lenghty process! Hope this helps!

eamo17o

Im in the same situation with SAYIT, rang them a few days ago and told me the flights to new york were 480, went to book them this mornin and there 613 and thats not even direct. Same flights with aer lingus are 440/450 on de exact same date! Robbery