Card Offers Discounts

Full-time students are eligible for thousands of discounts when traveling in foreign countries.

To get the discounts, students will need an International Student Identity Card (ISIC). The 1989 edition is now available. Warning: A regular student identity card will not be honored.

The ISIC system was organized by the 63-member International Student Travel Conference. Members operate nonprofit travel bureaus that specialize in student and youth services in their countries.

With the card, students get an 80-page booklet that lists addresses of participating youth travel agencies, and a listing of discounts available to ISIC card holders.

Discounts include air, land and sea transportation, museum entrance fees, accommodations and shopping. A student should always show the card because not every discount is advertised. For example, in France, cinemas in student areas offer a 30% discount but seldom display the reduced rate.

Ferry Travel

This year, discounts for ISIC card holders in England include up to a 50% reduction on ferry travel to the Continent. Irish Continental Line Ferries also offers card holders a 20% discount.

The student travel service of the Netherlands offers two-night Amsterdam packages and eight-day cycling holidays. Students can get up to a 10% discount on regular rates. Austria’s student travel service is offering budget-priced, two-day tours from Vienna to Prague or Budapest.

In Finland, students are offered special rates on budget bus tours to the Soviet Union and a 50% discount on ferry travel to Sweden.

In Italy, students are eligible for a 15% discount on travel with the Adriatica Ferryboat Co. to and from Italian ports, and to Egypt, Greece and Yugoslavia.

Spain, Turkey and Portugal all offer card holders free admission to state museums.

Israel’s student travel service offers a variety of budget tours in Israel and to Egypt. Students also get reduced rates on bus travel, international ferries and entrance fees to museums and archeological sites.

In New Zealand and Australia, students get discounts on domestic bus and air travel. Australia’s student travel offices offer a booklet listing 2,000 discounts.

A variety of hotels in the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia are giving discounts to card holders. In Malaysia, rates also have been reduced for domestic and international ferries.

Trips to China

In Bangkok, students get reduced rates on international air fares. In Hong Kong the student travel service can help arrange trips to China, and offer a list of 360 shops providing student discounts. The Korean student travel service has organized home-stay programs.

ISIC cards are good for more than 6,000 discounts in Canada.

The 1989 ISIC card costs $10 and is valid until Dec. 31, 1989. The card is sold on more than 400 campuses in the United States.

This year a 24-hour worldwide travel-assistance telephone number will help card holders with medical, legal and financial emergencies.

For more information, contact Council Travel Services, 1093 Broxton Ave., Room 220, Los Angeles 90024, phone (213) 208-3551.