Right now flights from London to San Francisco cost £400-£500, compared to what they may be shorter notice (approx £1500+ in some cases). The difference is 2-4x , and you could buy flights + accommodation for a week now (around 2 months out) for less than just the flights may be around 2 weeks out (which is when the EA Global website says you would hear by). This is a significant difference when acting under the assumption of not being able to receive travel grant funding. I can see this in many cases being the difference between ‘I can afford to go’ and ‘I cannot + will need the travel funding’, particularly as hotels are also likely to get sold out and the remaining ones potentially being more expensive or further away.
For EAGs, there was the policy of if you were accepted into one in a year, you would be accepted into all of them. If this will continue being the same, it feels like perhaps there should be an application round early, so people could know that they would get into future conferences (if they wanted to) and book flights/accommodation in advance accordingly.
(For EAGxs the apply to one get into everything policy did not exist, but those are meant to be regional so the travel costs are significantly less anyway, at least within Europe)
Based on your comment I looked this up:
Right now flights from London to San Francisco cost £400-£500, compared to what they may be shorter notice (approx £1500+ in some cases). The difference is 2-4x , and you could buy flights + accommodation for a week now (around 2 months out) for less than just the flights may be around 2 weeks out (which is when the EA Global website says you would hear by). This is a significant difference when acting under the assumption of not being able to receive travel grant funding. I can see this in many cases being the difference between ‘I can afford to go’ and ‘I cannot + will need the travel funding’, particularly as hotels are also likely to get sold out and the remaining ones potentially being more expensive or further away.
For EAGs, there was the policy of if you were accepted into one in a year, you would be accepted into all of them. If this will continue being the same, it feels like perhaps there should be an application round early, so people could know that they would get into future conferences (if they wanted to) and book flights/accommodation in advance accordingly.
(For EAGxs the apply to one get into everything policy did not exist, but those are meant to be regional so the travel costs are significantly less anyway, at least within Europe)