When do I sign up for return flight?

Author Message   Cherry C. Senior Member Username: Cherry Post Number: 6427 Registered: 06-2003 Posted From: 12.238.180.195 Posted on Sunday, June 06, 2010 - 12:00 am:    Clarification -- you do not HAVE to sign up for your return trip before leaving the U.S., but you MAY. It all depends on when you plan to try to return -- as suggested, time it so you have about 50 days on the list by the time you want to try for the return flight.   John R Garrison Senior Member Username: Majorg Post Number: 2696 Registered: 02-2006 Posted From: 208.81.157.86 Posted on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 03:34 pm:    Dan: "Problem?" No, you did it right. Happy travels, John   Dan Foster New member Username: Cajun59 Post Number: 2 Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 24.33.143.29 Posted on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 03:25 pm:    Thanks everyone. Even when I saw it mentioned somewhere else that you have to sign up for the return flight before starting the hop, I couldn't find it anywhere in the FAQ section. Anyway, I went ahead yesterday and signed up for the return flight from Germany. So it's only 24 days... The info on this site is so overwhelming for a first-timer. I can only imagine how everything will work. We will get the 'feel' for it once we do it the first time and then it will be more and more familiar. As one of the Country choices I put ALL. I understand that with this I could also fly into Italy or England to make the trip over to the States? Also, I only put down that I want to fly into the States but didn't mention any particular base. Would that present a problem?   John D. Moderator Username: John_d Post Number: 4599 Registered: 06-2003 Posted From: 95.208.80.143 Posted on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 05:20 am:    Dan, Welcome to the confusing world of Space-A travel. Please check the Spacea.net FAQ for info on when you "can" signup and when you "should" sign-up. p.s. If you are traveling the end of June and you haven't signed up yet then you may find yourself at near the bottom of the barrel compared to your peers. You'll only have 25 days seniority on the list whereas your peers could have 40-60 days seniority.   Danny Hamilton Senior Member Username: Dannyhamilton Post Number: 610 Registered: 03-2004 Posted From: 68.105.203.149 Posted on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 03:23 am:    Dan, my advice to you is this: Send an email Space-A sign up request to all passenger terminals (pax terms) that you think you might POSSIBLY be able to catch a ride to Germany from. As you are pretty sure you will leave from Wright-Patt, and since any other pax terms are probably too far for you to consider traveling to to catch a hop from, for this trip, you can just sign up at Wright-Patt. I would have also told you to plan your sign up so that you would have about 50-55 days "seniority" on the Wright-Patt sign up roster when you wanted to fly. As you said you want to fly near the end of June, you are already well within the 60 day time frame after which your name would be removed from their sign up roster. Next time, plan on signing up sooner so as to have a better chance in scoring Space-A seats. Do NOT wait until you are in Ramstein to sign up for your return to the States flight! Sign up NOW via email. Plan your sign up at Ramstein so that your name will have been on Ramstein's sign up roster for about 50 days when you wish to fly back to the States. You didn't say whether or not you plan to travel outside of Germany. If so, you may want to consider trying to catch a hop back to the States from some other European location such as England, Spain or Italy. If that is the case, then send your sign up request for your RETURN to the States flight to all those pax terms as well as to Ramstein and Spangdahlem. Print out a copy of your email sign up request showing all the email addresses of the pax terms you sent your request to, and CARRY that print out with you! It can be used as proof that you sent your sign up on such and such a date to all the pax terms in the header. Sometimes, due to one reason or another, our names do NOT get placed in pax term;s sign up rosters. If that is the case, just show your print out to the pax reps and they will add you to their roster with your ORIGINAL SIGN UP DATE. To fly on the smaller "executive" jets, your luggage must be NOT MORE THAN 30 pounds. You will not be taking one of those small jets across the Atlantic, but may want to take one inside Europe. Be prepared. On the larger planes, like C-17s and C-5s, I believe your luggage can be up to 70 pounds. Remember, you may have to carry that luggage a long way, so pack light! On your sign up request, there is a place to put down how many seats you will need...in your case, 3 seats.   John R Garrison Senior Member Username: Majorg Post Number: 2692 Registered: 02-2006 Posted From: 208.81.157.86 Posted on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 01:00 am:    Dan: Welcome to the Board! If you have not yet done so, please familiarize yourself with JohnD's SpaceA Pages (link top left), the general layout of this site and the Search Function (magnifying glass at top center) of this site. Nearly all questions can be answered from those three sources. Having read thru the FAQs is a great start and I would suggest reading thru the other sections on JohnD's site as well. In relation to your proposed trip, traveling SpaceA to/from Wright-Patt (or anywhere in the CONUS) to Ramstein (or anywhere in Europe) in the summer as a Cat VI will be very challenging. We try to avoid the Summer (15 May to 15 Sep) as this is typically one of the busiest times (Christmas (15 Dec-10 Jan) being the other) with a lot of competition for spacea. Please ensure that you are prepared to spend more time in terminals than you can imagine. Also be prepared for additional food, lodging and expensive, last minute commercial tickets should you be time restrained upon your attempted return. As stated often on this site, experienced SPATS avoid Christmas and Summer travel whenever possible. In sum, can it be done??..Yes, Just be mentally prepared for things to not go as smoothly as you might be expecting...and be pleasantly surprised when they work out. Happy travels, John PS: The overseas portion of your trip will be via large aircraft. If you decide to travel within Europe the aircraft often will be an "exec-jet" type with the one-bag, thirty pound limit. Or via RyanAir with it's 22 lb limit. Just like you signed up in advance for your trip to Europe (hopefully some 45-50 days prior to departure), you should sign-up for the return 45-50 days before you intend to try to return.   Dan Foster New member Username: Cajun59 Post Number: 1 Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 24.33.143.29 Posted on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 12:04 am:    I'm a retired AF, Cat VI, and signed up to soon try Space-A from Wright Patterson in Dayton, OH, to Ramstein, Germany. Around the end of June I want to use Space-A with my wife and daughter to try to get back into the States. Do I sign up for all of us when I get to Ramstein or do I have to do this already on the takeahop.com site? Also, can we expect that we probably won't get on a 'small' aircraft (since it's a overseas flight) and will be alright with each of our suitcases weighing over 30 pounds? We are thinking about taking the return flight to anywhere on the east coast and then rent a car to get home to OH. Thanks for the help!