My Complete and Brutally Honest StudentUniverse Review (2024) (2024)

If I book my flight on a third-party website, I’m the type of person who will immediately use the booking reference code in the receipt to check if my reservation exists on the airline’s website.

Every time I have done this with StudentUniverse, my reservation has shown up on the official airline’s portal in a timely manner.

Whenever my flight itinerary changed or was completely canceled, at no fault to StudentUniverse, StudentUniverse notified me immediately via email.

For me, this was reassuring because staying updated on even the smallest changes is important for building my travel itinerary.

In terms of my review of how things went on the day of my flight’s departure, I have not experienced any problems.

I have always checked in easily and my ticket has never suddenly not existed on the day of departure. Therefore, I have had a fairly positive experience booking flights through StudentUniverse.

In general, I would say that StudentUniverse’s customer service is both responsive and helpful.

They have various customer service lines available for people located everywhere, so if there’s an emergency, you can call them.

Each time, customer service was pleasant and supportive. When my flight was canceled, they helped me understand the process for booking flights with my flight credit.

Then, when the flight I wanted was not an option, they helped me find an alternative.

Plus, you can avoid long wait times by opting to have them call you back when it’s your turn in the queue. This is what I did. Unlike other companies, they actually call back, twice if you do not answer the first time.

Thus, I would say that StudentUniverse’s customer service is a solid 4.5 stars out of 5.

It is no secret that no company is perfect, especially not in the travel industry.

One of my big issues with StudentUniverse is that utilizing their flight credit is a tricky process. It can only be utilized under very specific circ*mstances.

When my flight was canceled, my flight credit was split up based on the ticket price for each respective airline: $150 for Alaska Airlines and $113 for American Airlines.

To use your flight credit, you call have to call StudentUniverse when you have identified the flight you want. After calling customer service, I discovered that the flight credit is only good for one ticket with the same airline.

This means that if I have $150 in-flight credit and the flight I want to book is $120, I lose $30 if I book with my flight credit.

Furthermore, you are only allowed to book a ticket for the same class as the one you originally booked.

For context, I originally booked a student ticket in economy class with American Airlines and Alaska Airlines. This made finding a flight worthy of using my flight credit challenging.

My new flight had to be a student ticket in economy class, with American Airlines or Alaska Airlines, and close to or over the amount of my flight credit to minimize the amount of wasted credit.

Does StudentUniverse always offer the best-discounted flight prices? Of course not.

Sometimes StudentUniverse has the best deal and other times another search engine does. You should always compare prices and flight plans from various flight search engines to find the one that works best for you.

Another perk I have found is that StudentUniverse frequently does flash sales.

These are short windows of time where the company promotes a promo code to save you an extra $10 – $40 USD on your already discounted flight.

A benefit of StudentUniverse is that the price you see for the flight route is the price you can expect to pay.

The price already factors in both the flight base fare and the added taxes and fees we all hate. Thus, the number we see is what represents the total cost, assuming you don’t knowingly add upgrades.

I find this to be a bonus because I hate reaching checkout and seeing other fees and taxes have been added. Suddenly, I have to pay an extra $100 or more from the price that was originally listed.

It’s honestly refreshing to just be straight up told the cost…unlike Airbnb which bamboozles you every time with the cleaning and service fees.

A feature I genuinely appreciate on StudentUniverse’s platform is its flexible scheduling.

They make it super easy to see the differences in the total price for different departure and return dates. Furthermore, the cheapest options are marked with a diamond for quick reference.

This makes planning your itinerary simple, and sometimes you can save more than $100 by leaving a day later.

And yes I know this feature is fairly common place now, but in 2019… this feature was not. So, I like to give credit where credit is due.

As someone who was formerly a broke college student and is now simply a broke adult, I am always looking for ways to save money on traveling.

For me, booking through StudentUniverse has been a relatively good experience, minus when I had to use flight credit. I think the platform has several benefits and there isn’t a lot to complain about.

Therefore, if you are a student or young adult, I would recommend creating an account. It’s worth trying it out because you quite literally have nothing to lose.

You may find deals that are cheaper and you might not. There is no guarantee, but at least you will have given yourself the potential to save money.

P.S. In case you’re wondering, I do not have the Student discount anymore since I’m not a verifiable student. This means to the platform, I’m just a regular adult under 26. Therefore, I don’t receive the added-on student benefits that sweeten the pot.

Regardless of this, I still use StudentUniverse in some capacity for nearly every trip I take. Why? Because they genuinely have some of the best deals out there.

And people under the age of 26 can actually still receive some of the student discounts. You can tell which student deals aren’t available as the deal will show up as “locked” until you verify your student status.

To get the most out of StudentUniverse and access all of the discounted flight prices available, you will have to first make a student account.

They do require you to verify your status by uploading a picture of one of the various forms of identification: student ID card, paid tuition bill, current class schedule, etc.

If you decide you want to give StudentUniverse a try for booking your next trip, I have some recommendations for you that have helped me in the past.

✈️ Incognito Tab: If you are tracking the prices for flights, be sure to use an incognito tab. Like other flight search engines, this will help prevent them from tracking your interest and possibly increasing prices.

✈️ 24-hour hold: If you see a flight that you might be interested in, you can call StudentUniverse. They will hold any fare for 24 hours without any payment. This is convenient if you are figuring out some last-minute details but don’t want to miss a good deal.

✈️ Check with the official airline: If you want some extra peace of mind, view the official airline’s website to confirm what is included in your ticket, like baggage and seat choice. Also, do this if you want to make a particular meal request.