J1 Usit

Zil2011

Anyone with any advice on this? Was planning on going to States next summer with this, and there is currently an offer on, but you have to use USIT for travel insurance and flights. Just wondering what everyone elses experience was, is there ant catch? Any tips?

FouxDaFaFa

Where are you based, OP? I went with USIT for my j1 because they were the only bricks and mortar agent of the three (usit, sayit and go4less) agencies that provide j1 visas in Galway and I liked that I could go in and talk to someone in person if there was a problem. However, they are overpriced when compared to the other two. Research all the options and choose the one that provides the best deal for wherever in the States you are going. Read all the fine print on the promotions.

Zil2011

Thank you very much for your advice FouxDaFaFa. I am based in Louth, but studying in Waterford. I am hoping to go to New York, didn't even know about sayit and goforless, so I'll check them out. Would you recommend going? Like how did it fare out for you, do you mind me asking roughly how much it cost you in total to go?

creepellai

I'm in the same situation. Study in UL but I'm on Co-op in Galway at the moment. From what I've seen Go4Less seem to be cheaper than USIT but I want to try find someone who has used them as I heard that it ends up costing more than originally stated... anyone know anything about that?

FouxDaFaFa

Zil2011 wrote: »

Would you recommend going? Like how did it fare out for you, do you mind me asking roughly how much it cost you in total to go?

Yes, it was a great experience. Not easy at times, it will always be harder to temporarily put down roots somewhere rather than just travel for an extended amount of time.

I would guess I spent about 4000e over 3.5 months including quite expensive flights to Los Angeles, rent, internal flights and accomodation when I was travelling (I visited a few States towards the end of the trip), food and spending money. Getting a job obviously helped with that.

It worked out pretty cheap because I did things like get a monthly transport pass, use rewards cards in supermarkets where you get discounts there and then, join a library for books and dvds, etc.

Re: the post above, it will always work out more expensive than you initially think. There are embassy fees and other niggling expenses that you might not account for at the start.

Zil2011

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

Yes, it was a great experience. Not easy at times, it will always be harder to temporarily put down roots somewhere rather than just travel for an extended amount of time.

I would guess I spent about 4000e over 3.5 months including quite expensive flights to Los Angeles, rent, internal flights and accomodation when I was travelling (I visited a few States towards the end of the trip), food and spending money. Getting a job obviously helped with that.

It worked out pretty cheap because I did things like get a monthly transport pass, use rewards cards in supermarkets where you get discounts there and then, join a library for books and dvds, etc.

Re: the post above, it will always work out more expensive than you initially think. There are embassy fees and other niggling expenses that you might not account for at the start.

Thank you very much for all the advice! As you say a job will help with a lot of the expense... now off to the credit union to see what I can get before that, lol! Thanks again fouxadafafa