The price we pay in an LDR

[Phantomrose]

I understand what you mean as well. I'm going to be booking a flight to visit my husband in England in December, and so far, it's going to cost me around $825. I guess the plus side is I'll be staying at his house for the duration of the visit, but it's money that I could be saving for closing the distance (goal for closing it is by around 2013.) However, the visits are worth it, and it is kind of like a vacation.

[lademoiselle]

I realise I don't have to spend as much on travel as many others here, so I feel kind of guilty commenting on this thread However, since I haven't had a constant source of income for rather a while I do worry a fair amount about whether I'll manage to scrape together the next Eurostar fare or not. I cut back on everything I can these days (walking instead ot taking public transport, not buying anything I'm not in desperate need of etc.) so I can afford to travel, or pay for accommodation if it's my SO coming over. We're years away from closing the distance so we aren't thinking in terms of saving for that at the moment, just taking the journey one day at a time.

[alesitag]

When me and my SO got together, we immediately started looking at flights prices... the cheapest we found from Monterrey to Houston, TX, to Chicago, IL, to London was around 600 usd... I knew it wouldn't be cheap but at the moment I thought of it as something I couldn't really afford. I finally made up my mind and started saving like crazy to pay for my flight and two visas... all together made a total of 1000 usd and that's a lot... my SO originally offered to help pay half my ticket and the hotel room, but things got rocky for him financially so we decided I'd pay for my ticket and instead of a hotel, I'd be staying at his place

Luckily, one of my closest friends works for an international airline and about a month ago, she told me she's able to get me a round ticket (landing in Toronto) for 350 usd!!! that of course makes things a lot easier. I've been pretty good at saving too (who knew?? :P) so money is no longer an issue, and now that my SO's got a new job we can start planning a second visit, only now he'd come to me (hopefully)

So yeah, being LD puts some strain on our finances, but even if this end up not working for both of us after all, I'd still think it's all worth it

[Hololz]

I have used Expedia to search for flights in the past.. I wonder though how can it be so cheap in some cases? what is the catch? I don't know if I trust it lol. I've always booked directly with the airline. Also yeah, having more stop overs can help with the price but it is a 23hour flight already with the most direct way you can go. I'm not sure how much it is worth saving a few hundred to double my flight time.. so far I've always chosen to go more direct than flying for an extra day but I do question it.

I've booked my flights home in december through expedia, and it was fine No catch as far as I can tell, apart from the tickets being non-refundable, and if you want to change your flight its another ~£250/$250 (dont know if that was just the airline I booked through), but as long as you double check everything before you book you shouldnt need to change them. I'm lucky that my stop over is only an hour, but it does more or less double the flight time like you said...

STA is a travel company specialisng in students and young people. I have also booked flights through them in the past, and they gave me my own advisor I could email if I had a question, maybe worth checking out. I've never booked through the airline directly so I dont know if theres too much of a difference in price.

[snow_girl]

I"ve never taken a visit to my SO, we've only been together or not, no visits inbetween so it hasn't really been an issue. I am finding it tough now though to plan when I will go home to visit family. It isn't cheap so if I go I want to go for say a month, but with having a job it might not be easy to get the time off when I want to visit next. I did save a lot of money though going home mid january rather then at christmas. They even left the tree up so we could have a late Christmas together

[books]

LDRs can get expensive. I've spent over $1,000 this year on airline tickets (later this month I'll take my 2nd visit of 2012 to him). I also budget about $50 on the telephone calls (no internet connection on his part means no skype for us). So grateful that I have a good job that allows me to afford this. It's just money I factor into my budget like anything else. Our relationship is important to me, so I've prioritized the expensive associated with it over other things (such as going out). I also figure that any relationship that is CD will have expenses involved as well...ie, nights out. So, I try to tell myself that CD or LD, relationships do involve some sort of monetary investment.

[Haley53]

LDRs can get expensive. I've spent over $1,000 this year on airline tickets (later this month I'll take my 2nd visit of 2012 to him). I also budget about $50 on the telephone calls (no internet connection on his part means no skype for us). So grateful that I have a good job that allows me to afford this. It's just money I factor into my budget like anything else. Our relationship is important to me, so I've prioritized the expensive associated with it over other things (such as going out). I also figure that any relationship that is CD will have expenses involved as well...ie, nights out. So, I try to tell myself that CD or LD, relationships do involve some sort of monetary investment.

Yes, this. I have so far spent $2,641 in air fare alone since summer of 2011. Worth it, every cent worth it, and I can't say there's much to complain about when it comes to spending money on a holiday, of all things, but I'll admit I could do without the stress of booking. My work pays well and I work a decent amount of hours (over 20 a week) but I still manage to panic when it comes to scraping up the money for a visit. I think it's more about having the money in the right place at the right time rather than having the money. :P So far I've managed to do fairly well and not run out, however. I stayed at about $1,500 the summer I visited my SO and at around $500 the two weeks he was out, so we didn't do too badly for ourselves.

As far as booking through a third party, the only "issue" with it is really that in the off chance something happens, you're calling around trying to figure out who to call. For example, I booked through Expedia for my trip to London a while ago. It so happened that though we left with well over enough time to make the three-hours-in-advance check-in, there was a massive accident and everyone was being re-routed around the bloody mountains as opposed to through them - re-routed on a one way road. So I nervously rang Expedia and was then directed to somewhere else which then directed me to the airline blahblabblah. Long story short, I got there with half hour to spare, but had considered changing my flight, and that would have involved the help of the airline. I booked through STA Travel this time and I assume I'll be fine. Things happen, sure, but the risk is minimal and it's often more expensive to book directly through an airline (a lot of the cheaper fares are through multiple airlines, though I've gotten lucky a few times). As was already brought up, the only time booking through a third party is a pain in the ass is that they're there for the booking and to offer you guidance but that's about it. Most of the time, they tell you to directly ring the airline in the event changes need to be made.

[Tooki]

STA are great. Especially if you are looking for flights on short notice. Last year I found flights for about $2000 to Paris, with one months notice.

[Kiyama]

Oh yeah. Flights get so expensive in summer. In the last 9 months, I've spend 3200 € on flights. My job doesn't allow that because I'm still a trainee so we split the bill because I go there more often than he comes here. And luckily he can afford to help me out. I feel like a really lucky girl.

[Spriteling]

Buying flights is one of the worst parts of being in an LDR. I just spent £750 to visit my SO this July. It would have been much less expensive for me to go in June, but that wouldn't work with her schedule. So sometimes you just have to make due, I guess. :/ It'll be worth it to see her.

[kteire]

Ugh, I don't even want to know how much my SO and I have spent on flights over the past 2ish years... When we were Canada-Ireland, I lucked out with some cheap tickets in off-season, like $490 return direct Toronto-Dublin in March 2011, and then $250 one way when I moved over here in October. Whenever he's come to visit me in Canada, it's cost him at least €1000 return, with connections... Since then, I have absolutely zero idea of how much we've spent Edinburgh-Dublin! We see each other at least 2x a month, but the flights can range from costing £40-£110 depending on how far in advance we plan.

[Jazi]

It's great reading everyones replies, It really is amazing having you LFAD guys who understand. My friends/family don't seem to get it and just say "well just don't go then if it costs so much.".. We all know how helpful that is right?..

The topic has taken a slant towards the total spend on flights in a year (or even this year alone) I realise I didn't disclose the amount i'll be spending on this next flight to the UK.. but over the last year I've been to England twice (making this next trip the 3rd) and with those 2 trips its been about $4,800 in total JUST in flights for me, I'd hate to add his flights into that too.

On the plus side we are highly motivated to end the distance next year. We can't see the sense in being LDR for any longer than that. We want our money to go towards our life together, not just flights lol.

Keep those posts coming, it really is so good to hear you're not crazy to be spending your money to see your SO.

[Biddlybiddlybombop]

@biddly Oh my gosh, I love finding people who are in such crazy similar circumstances as we are, it's so nice to feel you're not the only ones! About the booking in advance thing.. Well, we *try* to do that.. we just aren't very good at it lol. A month out from our intended trip date seems to always be the "crunch time" when we buy the tickets. We also can't seem to wrap our brains around more than 4 months in the future (with hardly concrete plans at that!). I do love the UK for it's prices (for most things anyway.. Public transport not so much.) The fact that I'm not working when I'm over there kind of counter-acts the cheap prices though. But it is so worth it to lose a few weeks of income for a longer trip, usually 5 week trips when I visit him.

Yes me too! Most people think I'm crazy for having SUCH a long distance between me and my SO (I'm not trying to compete, I'm just saying, being at uni, and having lots of people in distance relationships that are like, an hour or two apart, and then being the one saying "ummm australia...so y'know, like as far away as we can get from each other and still be on the same planet...").
It's pretty stressful not being able to work and going to Oz. I get there, and my pockets are empty already. It's such a massive case of money management, especially since we tend to be lucky enough to be able to do pretty extended visits... the shortest so far has been eight weeks, haha... and I'm going for three months this summer.
(And yes, public transport here is horrendus. It's some of the worst, most expensive public transport I've ever been on!)

[Dylan313]

I feel guilty complaining about not seeing my SO as much as I'd like...

Katie is only 4 hours away by car, costs me about $100 and 8 hours total drive time. I have it so easy compared to some of you. I applaud all of you for making it work even though you're halfway across the world from one another.

[Softy]

You know what is worst than spending so much money to go see your SO?

Not having any at all to go see him ^_^

That is worst imo.