If you've been accepted to PennApps XII (Fall 2015) from another school, please refer to the guidelines below when making travel arrangements:
We will provide buses to and from many schools via Sharethebus, a bus sharing service. If we are sending a bus to your area, your "travel method" will be listed as "chartered bus". A local campus rep will reach out to you regarding the bus departure time and sign up location.
A travel cap is listed along with this method. This is the exact amount you must pay before you can reserve your spot on the bus. Seats are reserved by following the link from your campus rep email and following the onscreen instructions. If you delay too long, your campus rep may assign your seat to someone on the waitlist. Reserving this seat will provide you with a receipt which you can use to apply for reimbursement as normal.
If you are traveling via flight, Amtrak, or public bus, you will have 5 days to RSVP and upload your receipts and forms from the day you receive your acceptance email. After this period, we cannot guarantee admission and will not increase your travel cap.
For every travel region, we've done research to find average prices for reimbursable travel that will have you here for the entire event. We will only reimburse you up to this amount.
If you research transportation from your location and find the travel cap to be unreasonable, feel free to contest it with us by emailing [email protected].
You should anticipate arriving by 4 PM Friday, September 4th and leaving after 5 PM on Sunday, September 6th.
If you cannot book travel for Sunday night and want to leave on Monday morning, please try and arrange to stay with a Penn friend on campus. We can try and help you arrange somewhere to stay, but cannot guarantee availability.
As mentioned earlier, we will not cover any costs exceeding the travel cap we've provided for you. You will need to pay any additional costs associated with alternate travel reservations, such as leaving late on Friday to avoid missing a class.
The event will be at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia (3601 S Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19148)
The cheapest way to get to Wells Fargo Center from the airport is by either taking an Uber, Lyft, or a Taxi. A Taxi costs $35 and Uber is $32. A Lyft may be cheaper. We will also have busses running to the airport on Sunday afternoon.
Trains and Buses will stop at the 30th Street Train Station, which is a few blocks from Penn Engineering and is easily walkable. Chartered buses from Penn Engineering will then take you to Wells Fargo Center at regular intervals.
It's generally a cheaper and more convenient option, particularly if a few hackers carpool together. We will pay for gas and help you find a place to park. The total cap of everyone carpooling will be the sum of the individual caps of all accepted hackers.
When submitting your driving receipts, You must add a screenshot clearly showing the distance and endpoints of the drive from Google maps.
- Reimbursements must be submitted on Saturday at the travel desk in Wells Fargo Center. Failure to do so will result in delays of your reimbursement.
- All relevant reimbursement forms will be available at the travel desk.
- An expedited queue will also be available for those who have already completed their reimbursement packets, which are available for download after rsvp on https://my.pennapps.com. People who submit to this queue will get processed quickest, so it is highly recommended to fill your forms out before coming.
- Printers and copiers will be provided to print out receipts and other relevant documents.
- For reimbursements, US citizens must submit their W9, Guest Reimbursement forms and receipts in addition to any other required screenshots.
- For reimbursements, Non-US citizens must submit their W8, Guest Reimbursement, FNIF forms along with a copy of the front page of their passport, a copy of the stamp of entry in their passport and a copy of their visa/ESTA and receipts in addition to any other required screenshots.
- Please make sure your receipts clearly show the dollar amount spent. Cropped or edited reciepts will be rejected.
- If your tickets can only be purchased on the day of the event (SEPTA, NJTransit, Cab, Uber etc) then you will be permitted to submit your forms after the event.
- If you know other people who have been accepted to PennApps coming from the same location, it would be advantageous to have one person book the tickets for everyone. This will make the travel reimbursement process easier. If possible, have this person be an US citizen.
- Please ensure all your forms are fully completed and signed. This saves us unbelievable amounts of time.
- US citizens applying for reimbursement are required to submit a W9 form, with their Social Security Number, for the University's tax records. Forms without SSNs will be rejected.
- Once you have made your booking, we will not cover any change fees.
- We will not cover any unnecessary travel fees, such as an upgrade to business class, food bought on the plane, et cetera.
- We will not be reimbursing any travel within the city of Philadelphia. Buses will operate between Penn Engineering and the Wells Fargo Center all weekend on a regular schedule that will be available closer to the event.