Your agency should have clear rules about this. The contract is usually for just the year. The “travel month” is a one-month grace period that is on the visa that gives the AP a month to leave the country after her work with your family ends. Most APs use this time to travel. Again, you would need to confirm with your agency, but in most cases you are not required to provide housing - I’m not sure but you may not even be allowed to have her keep working after the one- year period. Definitely talk to your agency - if the LCC is not helpful, your can go up a level to get clarity.

NDA

Uh, they book these flights in advanced. Did she not arrange travel with her agency yet?

Very strange. Her LCC needs to find out what is going on and let you know. We always have a transition plan because we host aupairs back to back. I've never had one who didn't have a flight scheduled at least a week in advance - even in Covid.

BTW - if you let her stay after her term ends, you do NOT need to pay her stipend for those days.

When is she scheduled to leave? I generally hear from cultural care about two months before the APs term ends. If you are using one of the major agencies, I'd expect similar.

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thank you all for your thoughts! I agree it is weird… I have heard zero from the agency. I just asked my LCC for guidance and she’s “checking.” I really don’t like relying solely on my au pair for guidance, telling me “this is how it goes”, because I sense she just tells me what she wants.

basically she’s telling me, “the only flights they offer are a week after my last day so I need to hang out in your home for that week.” And that doesn’t sound right! I’ll push the LCC a little more. This is our first (likely only) au pair and I’m disappointed that the agency hasn’t sent me any written correspondence on how we wrap up the year.

This is odd. You should be in touch with the agency. CC has an "exit" form that HF and AP need to sign. If you LCC foes not get back to you today, call the main office.

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thank you all for your thoughts! I agree it is weird… I have heard zero from the agency. I just asked my LCC for guidance and she’s “checking.” I really don’t like relying solely on my au pair for guidance, telling me “this is how it goes”, because I sense she just tells me what she wants.

basically she’s telling me, “the only flights they offer are a week after my last day so I need to hang out in your home for that week.” And that doesn’t sound right! I’ll push the LCC a little more. This is our first (likely only) au pair and I’m disappointed that the agency hasn’t sent me any written correspondence on how we wrap up the year.

What agency is this??

She’s lying. They will put her on a plane literally anytime in her last week, unless you request a later date. Usually they leave on their last working day but I’ve had the agency try to schedule the flight for a day or two earlier as well (to which I told them that didn’t work for me and they needed to move it…)

Anonymous wrote:You don’t have to let her hang out for a week but as she’s lived there a year I can’t see the harm. You do not need a sponsor to be an international student. You need to prove you are going to school here and be paying International rates. There are hoops to jump through but she doesn’t need a sponsor for that.

Thank you! Previous posts on this board were really helpful to me in understanding what is required for sponsorship. And we ultimately told her no, because it could jeopardize our jobs if we committed immigration fraud like she wanted. I agree no harm to let her stay an extra week… if I’m so pressed that I can’t have her live in my house for an extra 7 days after 1 year, that’s a problem! But I wanted to understand the obligations on host families bc I sense she doesn’t want to go home and am worried she will tell us that we are obligated to host her for [days, weeks, months] past her visa. And I want to be able to say, “no, I looked into that and it’s just not true.”

You don’t have to let her hang out for a week but as she’s lived there a year I can’t see the harm. You do not need a sponsor to be an international student. You need to prove you are going to school here and be paying International rates. There are hoops to jump through but she doesn’t need a sponsor for that.

Op here. Thank you all for your thoughts! I agree it is weird… I have heard zero from the agency. I just asked my LCC for guidance and she’s “checking.” I really don’t like relying solely on my au pair for guidance, telling me “this is how it goes”, because I sense she just tells me what she wants.

basically she’s telling me, “the only flights they offer are a week after my last day so I need to hang out in your home for that week.” And that doesn’t sound right! I’ll push the LCC a little more. This is our first (likely only) au pair and I’m disappointed that the agency hasn’t sent me any written correspondence on how we wrap up the year.

My understanding is that the visa expiration date doesn't really matter. That is simply the last date she is allowed to ENTER the US. More relevant is the date she entered the US on her way to her AP year and calculating her departure date deadline from that. I think that is true, but not 100% so check with LCC.

Its kind to let them stick around a little while if they aren't travelling so they can do "goodbyes" and maybe some day trips or whatever, but its not obligatory.

It seems odd to me that you havent already had this ironed out with your au pair. COVID is putting a wrench in travel month planning for many au pairs, and some au pairs just want to save their money so its not odd to me that she isnt planning a travel month.

You received an email at some point a couple months ago from your AP company (CC, APIA etc) letting you know your AP was picking her departure date and to discuss it with her, right?

She was asked to provide a window of dates and then the company picks the absolute cheapest flight they can to get her home.

Something is definitely fishy here, but I am not sure if it is you or your AP!

Our first au pair is nearing the end of her time here. Her visa expires on a Tuesday. She says that she thinks the agency won’t offer her any flight options until the weekend so she’ll be hanging around the house for w/th/f/sat. It’s only four days… that’s not the issue… I have trouble trusting her because she’s told us stuff in the past that wasn’t exactly true. (Such as that she is entitled to stay at our house for a month after her visa ends (later I learned it was a TRAVEL month, and I wasn’t required to house her) and that all au pair families offer to sponsor their au pairs on a student visa). I asked my LCC and she says she’s checking. But is this true? I don’t expect to push her out the door on Tuesday or anything but want to know if this is how it works and families are always expected to host past the end date for the program, for a few days or a week?