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Students can now travel on a national airport shuttle service at discounted rates, Student Association leaders announced last month.
SuperShuttle, a door-to-door van that travels to and from 29 airports nationwide, is now offering one-way trips at $2 less and round-trips for $5 less to GW students. The discount, which can only been redeemed online, is the first of its kind for the University.
“We are very excited to have a discount like this available to anyone who is part of the GW family,” said Aswani, a senior. “The SuperShuttle online discount success shows us that with hard work and determination we can improve the lives of students in everyday ways.”
He added that the discount is also available for any individual with a connection to the University – parents, siblings, family friends, staff and faculty.
Many colleges around the country have online discounts with SuperShuttle, said Mike O’Connor, vice president of sales for SuperShuttle International.
“We offer special online pricing for just about every college, university, trade school and private school in all of our service areas,” he wrote in an e-mail.
Aswani, who worked with Holman to securing the discount, first announced the possibility at the spring Board of Trustees meeting in May.
“We realized that the SA was working so hard to try to get a Metro discount, but we wanted something that would affect students for the immediate,” Aswani said.
He said the discount was SuperShuttle’s national maximum for a first-time discount. However, they negotiated that it can apply to all airports nationwide.
The SA was hoping for a larger discount, however. Aswani said SuperShuttle will re-evaluate the discount, but any increase will be minimal.
“Due to SuperShuttle being a low-cost provider of transportation, we are not inclined to offer huge discounts for minimal ridership,” O’Connor said. “Our large partners of Expedia, Travelocity, AAA Travel receive a $3.00 to $6.00 discount per person and we experience several thousand reservations per month from those organizations.”
SA members said the SuperShuttle discount might encourage organizations like Metro to authorize a University-wide discount. Aswani said he is also looking into possible discounts for other airport transportation services.
