My girlfriends sister lives with us and is about to start school (Job Corps). We are offering to send her to CT to see her family for a week or two before she starts classes. I have family in CT and it is where my girlfriend is from so usually we plan these trips around our schedule so we can kill two birds with one stone.
However neither my girlfriend or I feel like making the 400 miles trip (each way) this time around so we're sending her sister via bus.
In college I used to travel via Greyhound so I'm familiar with the service.
However I went to their website and tried purchasing tickets for her only to find out that they charge an $18 Gift Fee (WTF, seriously?!) if the credit card holder purchasing the tickets is different from the name of the person on the ticket riding the bus.
She has a checking account we created for her but almost never keeps any money in it so there isn't enough for her to pay for the ticket. I could put money on her account and pay using her Debit card except for the fact today (Monday) is a holiday (banks closed) and we want for her to travel tomorrow (Tuesday) and the bus will be leaving before the banks reopen.
We were able to potentially save 10% on the $83 fare by signing her up for a rewards account (free) but the $18 "gift" surcharge is about 20% of the total ticket and I imagine we'd get stuck paying it again when a return ticket is purchased.
Anyone know any way around this?
They state that they check ID's at the time of boarding otherwise I was thinking about buying the ticket using my girlfriends debit card and her name on the bus ticket but I don't want to pay the money and then have her get denied entry (In all the times I traveled the driver on checked that I had a physical ticket not that I was the one boarding---but these was 5-10 years ago).
I can't think of anything else off the top of my head other then maybe trying to buy a prepaid visa or some other method but that seems like a lot of work for a work around.
Guess I'm just venting on these shitty surchage fees ($18 Gift, $2.50 processing fee, plus ticket is void/non refundable if you can't get it to print)
However neither my girlfriend or I feel like making the 400 miles trip (each way) this time around so we're sending her sister via bus.
In college I used to travel via Greyhound so I'm familiar with the service.
However I went to their website and tried purchasing tickets for her only to find out that they charge an $18 Gift Fee (WTF, seriously?!) if the credit card holder purchasing the tickets is different from the name of the person on the ticket riding the bus.
She has a checking account we created for her but almost never keeps any money in it so there isn't enough for her to pay for the ticket. I could put money on her account and pay using her Debit card except for the fact today (Monday) is a holiday (banks closed) and we want for her to travel tomorrow (Tuesday) and the bus will be leaving before the banks reopen.
We were able to potentially save 10% on the $83 fare by signing her up for a rewards account (free) but the $18 "gift" surcharge is about 20% of the total ticket and I imagine we'd get stuck paying it again when a return ticket is purchased.
Anyone know any way around this?
They state that they check ID's at the time of boarding otherwise I was thinking about buying the ticket using my girlfriends debit card and her name on the bus ticket but I don't want to pay the money and then have her get denied entry (In all the times I traveled the driver on checked that I had a physical ticket not that I was the one boarding---but these was 5-10 years ago).
I can't think of anything else off the top of my head other then maybe trying to buy a prepaid visa or some other method but that seems like a lot of work for a work around.
Guess I'm just venting on these shitty surchage fees ($18 Gift, $2.50 processing fee, plus ticket is void/non refundable if you can't get it to print)
