Budget Travel - Trying to fly to Tel Aviv

Dear FT,

Was hoping someone would be kind enough to tell me how to get started with this. I am a broke medical student, and I want to travel from Columbus, OH to Tel-Aviv Israel for 2-3 weeks in September. I thought it would be cheap, since it's september, and since I was so flexible.

When I fly domestically, I can always input a range of dates, and then pick the cheapest offer. I can't seem to be able to do that with this trip since it's international. I even tried searching for deals on the BA, Lufthansa, KLM and other websites to see what offers they had from major cities in the U.S. to major cities in Europe, hoping I can find a good deal and then "fill" in the gaps using other deals (e.g. finding a ORD-FRA deal and another separate FRA-TLV, etc), but it turns out to be even more expensive.

Is is impossible to find something around $800 ? Am I doing this the right way? Are there any websites in particular that I can use that would tell me which dates would be the cheapest? I would very much appreciate any help/advice you can give me. Thank you in advance:)

Dear FT,

Was hoping someone would be kind enough to tell me how to get started with this. I am a broke medical student, and I want to travel from Columbus, OH to Tel-Aviv Israel for 2-3 weeks in September. I thought it would be cheap, since it's september, and since I was so flexible.

When I fly domestically, I can always input a range of dates, and then pick the cheapest offer. I can't seem to be able to do that with this trip since it's international. I even tried searching for deals on the BA, Lufthansa, KLM and other websites to see what offers they had from major cities in the U.S. to major cities in Europe, hoping I can find a good deal and then "fill" in the gaps using other deals (e.g. finding a ORD-FRA deal and another separate FRA-TLV, etc), but it turns out to be even more expensive.

Is is impossible to find something around $800 ? Am I doing this the right way? Are there any websites in particular that I can use that would tell me which dates would be the cheapest? I would very much appreciate any help/advice you can give me. Thank you in advance:)

$800 no problem, However that was 2 yrs ago and not really in Sept

A friend just Grabbed a $1300 tkt via Europe and was surprised to have gotten it that cheap, and that starts in NY:eek:

My suggestion go onto www.orbitz.com , there are Carriers that fly only into NY so check JFK-TLV as well as ORD-TLV

Sorry but Id be very surprised if you can get anything for under $1500

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

Have you tried naming your own price on Priceline?

Please continue to follow this thread in the FT Budget Travel Forum.
Thanks..
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

$800 no problem, However that was 2 yrs ago and not really in Sept

A friend just Grabbed a $1300 tkt via Europe and was surprised to have gotten it that cheap, and that starts in NY:eek:

My suggestion go onto www.orbitz.com , there are Carriers that fly only into NY so check JFK-TLV as well as ORD-TLV

Sorry but Id be very surprised if you can get anything for under $1500

thanks for the tip...i found a few jfk-tlv trips for about 1400 - you're right, it doesn't look like i'll be getting it anywhere even close to 800. I'll definitely keep trying though for now, thanks!

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

Have you tried naming your own price on Priceline?

yep, i went up to $1200 a little bit ago, and they still wouldn't budge...:D

yep, i went up to $1200 a little bit ago, and they still wouldn't budge...:D

I doubt they would, take TK (Turkish Air) their base fare is $870 in Oct the total with taxes and fuel and orbitz fees is $1400. Orbitz is maybe $10

I dont see them giving it to PL for much less, that is Unless Oil goes below $100 a barrel and stays there, but even BA wont reduce their FS unless there is a 30 day avg of it being at a set price.

This is for flights out of JFK, Id imagine it would be more to get you into JFK to connect

September is actually a bad time to fly to TLV price-wise. The Jewish holidays ("high holidays") start anywhere between early and late September so the flights to Israel are in high demand and prices are high accordingly.
Better, if you can, postpone for late October.

This is for flights out of JFK, Id imagine it would be more to get you into JFK to connect

Well, there's always the hub penalty :p Err, sorry, non-stop premium :rolleyes:

Unless of course it's a popular route, and then all bet are off :(

EmailKid

I doubt they would, take TK (Turkish Air) their base fare is $870 in Oct the total with taxes and fuel and orbitz fees is $1400. Orbitz is maybe $10

I dont see them giving it to PL for much less, that is Unless Oil goes below $100 a barrel and stays there, but even BA wont reduce their FS unless there is a 30 day avg of it being at a set price.

This is for flights out of JFK, Id imagine it would be more to get you into JFK to connect

I checked TK's website - i see what you mean. I'm thinking of maybe just postponing this whole trip. Honestly, I will fly any airline except TK. Bad experience in Ankara a few years ago.

This really sucks. Since more airlines started flying into TLV, i thought that would make it cheaper.

It's just a weird system: $1500+ for a CMH-TLV route, but only $500 for JFK-LHR (which is essentially the majority of the trip)

I wish I could find something cheap from LHR-TLV; it's only a few hours away... but the cheapest is about $700.00. And like you said, I'd still need to get to JFK.

I remember 5 years ago when I got a CMH-TLV ticket for $680:D

I wish I could find something cheap from LHR-TLV; it's only a few hours away... but the cheapest is about $700.00. And like you said, I'd still need to get to JFK.

If you can be a bit flexible with dates, http://www.thomsonfly.com can get you from London Luton to TLV for $500 roundtrip, though LHR to LTN is not exactly a convenient transfer, and this still doesn't get you anywhere near your $800 target.

If you can be a bit flexible with dates, http://www.thomsonfly.com can get you from London Luton to TLV for $500 roundtrip, though LHR to LTN is not exactly a convenient transfer, and this still doesn't get you anywhere near your $800 target.

i found a ticket for less than $400 on that website from manchester to TLV!!!

i wonder how far LHR is from manchester... lol

thank you so much!

i found a ticket for less than $400 on that website from manchester to TLV!!!

i wonder how far LHR is from manchester... lol

thank you so much!

keep 1 other thing in mind that you will be very restricted to what you can take with you checked bag wise and carry-on wise and what they charge. So if you plan to travel with alot of bags add the cost of paying for them MAN-TLV-MAN into your cost for the tkt

You are allowed 2 bags over the Pond (Atlantic) but every Carrier will Kill you unless the Europe to TLV is apart of the same US-Europe tkt

keep 1 other thing in mind that you will be very restricted to what you can take with you checked bag wise and carry-on wise and what they charge. So if you plan to travel with alot of bags add the cost of paying for them MAN-TLV-MAN into your cost for the tkt

You are allowed 2 bags over the Pond (Atlantic) but every Carrier will Kill you unless the Europe to TLV is apart of the same US-Europe tkt

thanks for the heads up! fortunately i'm planning on just taking one carry on luggage. I just hope I'm able to book this ticket. It's harder than I thought.

wonder how far LHR is from manchester...

maps.google.com/ (http://maps.google.com/)

Look at the MR forum at the l*n.com YQ surcharge thread. It should come out to about ~$850 for JFK-TLV.

I've been looking at SAN-TLV tix for end of DEC. I found the cheapest flights through Vayama, though the prices and availability fluctuates daily. I'm kicking myself for not booking a $1k IAD-TLV itinerary on *A (with separate SAN-IAD nested I'd purchase through UA.com).

I also searched through Kayak, Mobissimo, Orbitz, and Travelocity. Another website I searched was weflyhome.com run by Lufthansa. There were occasionally very cheap OneWorld tix through Iberia, but I'm a *A Gold and prefer UA to use SWU's.

You may want to check out STA travel. They have great deals on student fares.

http://www.statravel.com/