If you are offered funding support in the form of travel reimbursement, please note that your trip must be on U.S. airline flights or we cannot reimburse you for the ticket!

Our funding from the United States National Science Foundation has restrictions for travel that we must follow:

"Any air transportation to, from, between, or within a country other than the U.S. of persons or property, the expense of which will be assisted by NSF funding, must be performed by or under a code-sharing arrangement with a U.S.-flag air carrier if service provided by such a carrier is available. Tickets (or documentation for electronic tickets) must identify the U.S. flag air carrier's designator code and flight number."

In sum, the flight numbers must have the code from the U.S. airline (e.g., "UA" for United Airlines, "DL" for Delta, etc.) in front of each flight. Then it doesn't matter to whom the actual airplane belongs. If, for example, you fly with Lufthansa you will want to ensure that the flight numbers are preceded by the code "UA" and not the code "LH".

There are a few exceptions, for example when there is no U.S. airline code-shared flight out of your home city. In which case, the NSF says: "...a foreign-flag air carrier shall be used only to the nearest interchange point on a usually traveled route to connect with a U.S. flag air carrier." If you believe that an exception may apply to your situation then you should contact MSRI before purchasing a ticket in order to ensure that you will have no problems with reimbursement.