Hello Aupair World,
 

I am a host mother in Italy. I have found a kind au pair from the UK for my three kids, who will be coming to us in a few weeks. We have already met and signed an au pair contract. We have arranged that the travel costs be paid by the au pair herself, however I am still not sure. Is that common practise or do we, as a host family, have to pay the travel costs of our au pair?

Host mother Monika from Italy, Milan

 

Reply of the Aupair World Support Team

Dear Monika,

We have already replied to a similar question about the au pair's travel costs. To come back to your question, you have made the right decision. The au pair normally bears the travel costs himself/herself. You can thus be certain that the au pair will definitely come. Should the au pair change her mind in the last minute - which does happen sometimes, although quite rarely - you will not be disappointed that you had made an advance payment. In principle, we always recommend not to make any advance payments due to fraud attempts (scam).  

On the other hand, we do encourage host families to partially or totally reimburse the travel costs to the au pair if they were satisfied with each other and both enjoyed the au pair placement. You can thus express your gratitude for the nice time spent together. This would also be a nice farewell present to your au pair, wouldn't it?

Kind regards,

Your Aupair World Support Team