Once upon a time, only the wealthiest among us could afford to travel to Europe. Now, you can find travel deals on tickets to Europe that are barely more expensive than traveling to the opposite coast of the United States.
With research and planning, you can find excellent deals on flights to Europe. If you are on the East coast, it’s not impossible to get a round-trip ticket for about $750 or even less. The West coast will be more expensive since the distance traveled is farther, but remember that you can also look for discount airline tickets to get you to the East coast and then book a separate international flight if that ends up being cheaper.
The following sections will offer some basic tips on getting good prices when you book your flight.
START EARLY
You can often get incredible discounts by booking months ahead. At a minimum, you want to purchase your ticket 30 days ahead of time in order to get the best deals. Of course, you can also get some last-minute deals if you have that kind of flexibility. But most of us will be planning our trip months ahead of time.
When you are purchasing your flight, be sure you understand what the airline considers off-season and high-season. Starting early will let you plan around these dates if a few days one way or the other will make a big price difference on your ticket.
BE FLEXIBLE
When it comes to finding the cheapest rate, a bit of flexibility can go a long way. A general rule is that flights on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be cheaper (and less crowded) than those on Friday – Monday.
When entering your flight dates, several online search engines also allow you to choose to search a few days before or after your selected dates in order to find the best deals. The search will return a matrix that shows flight costs by leave and return dates, letting you make the best match for price, time, and convenience.
You may also see an option that lets you choose the number of days you’d like to visit and the timeframe (say, a month or so) within which you want to make the trip. The system will then give you the best possible flights in that time frame.
If you are located near more than one major airport, try checking the flights from both of the airports. If driving 200 miles to the next state will save you $200 on your flight, you might find it worthwhile (as long as parking fees don’t override the savings benefit!)
The same advice can be said for where you arrive in Europe. Try a number of airports if you are planning to visit multiple countries, as long as the location wouldn’t require doubling-back or additional train costs that might override your flight savings (see strategic flying below).
STRATEGIC FLYING
Your first thought about booking a flight to Europe will probably be that you should purchase a round-trip ticket. Certainly, you want to come home again, but a round-trip ticket that flies you in and out of the same airport in Europe is not always the best choice if you apply some strategy.
This all depends on which countries you are seeing. If you plan only to tour France, then flying in and out of Paris Charles de Gaulle makes sense. You can plan to visit the cities you want to see in a kind of circular pattern, starting and ending in Paris.
But if you are planning to visit multiple countries, then flying in and out of the same city may no longer be your best choice. You can get creative here, getting the most bang for your flight buck.
Consider working with a travel agent to book one or more stop-overs on you flight. For example, you might take a British Air flight from New York to Rome but that stops in London. If you book it well, you may be able to spend a few days in London before continuing on to Rome. Then on your return flight, you could either fly non-stop or schedule a layover of only a few hours.
Another option if you are visiting multiple countries is to find the cheapest round-trip flight into any of the European countries that you plan to visit, then continue your travel either with cheap flights by European carriers (Ryan Air, for example) or by train or car. If you are planning to purchase a Eurail pass anyway, then you could find this a very cost-efficient option.
Still another strategy is known as open-jaw travel. If you are planning to visit multiple stops from the UK down to Greece, it wouldn’t be time or cost-efficient to try to get back to the UK to take the flight home. Instead, look at booking an open-jaw ticket. In this case, you purchase a round-trip ticket that has you arriving in one city and departing another. This kind of ticket may be slightly higher than a round-trip ticket to and from the same destination, because you will in effect be paying half the cost of a round-trip ticket to the arrival destination and half the cost of a round-trip ticket to the departure destination.
Finally, you can look for package deals that involve a flight. These are usually best when you plan to stay in the same city for all or most of your trip, but sometimes travel agents or tour companies may offer multi-city deals that include flight and hotel or even flight, hotel, and car rental.
WEBSITES FOR FLIGHT DEALS
There is seemingly no end to the array of websites that claim to have the best offers on tickets. But here are some that have a good reputation for either following the best deals out there or offering excellent ticket prices.
• Orbitz – www.orbitz.com – ticket search engine
• Hotwire – www.hotwire.com – ticket search engine
• Cheap Tickets – www.cheaptickets.com – ticket search engine, offers multiple search options
• Mobissimo – www.mobissimo.com – specializes in international tickets
• Clark Howard’s travel advice – www.clarkhoward.com/travel – although this travel news site has a focus for Atlanta travelers, it also gives excellent information for all US travelers including current airline deals and information on consolidator flights
• Travel Zoo – www.travelzoo.com – weekly information on the best flights around the world, including a section on travel to and from Europe
Of course, you can also work with your favorite travel agent. Either way, you may be paying booking fees. Also be sure that the pricing you are given includes all the surcharges and taxes that are applied to international flights.
If you can, try to book the seat you want when you book the flight. That way if you prefer a window seat, you will know that you have it. Or if you have a tight connection, you’ll feel less stressed if your seat is at the front of the plane.
About Brian Thomas
