Spiffytifi

I am new to international flights, and looking to go to Europe in May 2015 (destination---wherever I can fly cheaply to). Looking for advice and wisdom on how to cheaply go about this. Any cities cheaper than others? Are one-way tickets cheaper than round trip, good sites/airlines to check, etc... Any and all suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks!

Romelle

For starters, at least scan the titles of the other threads in Budget Travel. You will see related requests with some useful responses.

Then, post your starting point(s). Different areas of the country (I'm assuming you are USA, but maybe also post that??) can need different approaches for finding good deals. Just one example, I'm based in Minneapolis-St Paul (MSP airport). It is not unusual to find deals much better originating in Chicago, and still better after a positioning flight to Chicago is added in.

Is all of May really available? How far east is desirable (sometimes Istanbul can be cheaper than many intermediate points). How far west (Dublin can be a good deal from some US points). Earlier May can be less expensive than later, since the second half is getting into better weather.

Always a good idea to post the best airfare you've found so far?

Two one-way tickets occasionally are cheaper than a round-trip. One has to check.

And then there are lots of ways of economizing when you've arrived. Sometimes one has to bite the bullet on a high airfare to get to a desired place, and then economize there. Or cheap airfare can let one afford expensive places.

Maybe post what your current rough idea as to your budget?? Some people think Business Class is roughing it from 1st. Others regard 1* hotels as a step up from hostels.

And some idea as to why you want to go to Europe, and what you hope to do there???

The more you put into this, the better and more useful the responses you will get.

Romelle

PS - Do you have a passport yet?

guv1976

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Welcome to FT!

If you can fly into and out of the same European city, check the "opaque" airfares on Hotwire, and/or consider putting in a bid via Priceline's name-your-own-price bidding option.

AussieExPat

I would encourage you to look at Norwegian's website -- it has a listing with all of their connecting destinations and a "lowest price" for the month right on the search page. If you don't know where you want to go, it might be a good place to start.

Be aware that their "low fare" ticket class is no frills -- it doesn't include a meal, seat selection before the flight, or a checked bag. But with the limitations in mind, I've found flying them to be quite pleasant.

I also like to use the explore tool on Kayak, where you can set boundaries like month to depart, departure airport, budget, destination type (beach, etc), and continent...

fivewu

Just purchased tickets from jfk to cdg for $670 rt on xl airways France. 1st time for us and have our fingers crossed but at this price we are flying nearly half of the other quoted direct flights.

telabadmanwot

You can find fares to Dublin from new York, Washington or Florida for less than $400 return. Sometimes from LAX, SFO and Las Vegas. Although these are harder to find and rarely go for less than $500

Spiffytifi

Thanks for the response Romelle. I did scan the other threads on the forums, and found helpful tips--but was checking to see if anyone had any Europe specific advice since there is such a high concentration of airports and airlines. My apologies, I mean to put that I would be flying out of Denver and am aiming for a departure after May 11. Ideally my budget is ~$600/rt for economy/coach. Passports are set, and I plan on doing a mix of hotel/hostels. Prefer to stay more west, but don't mind venturing into Scandinavia, or as far east as Poland, and as south as Greece.

I have checked Norwegian's site and have found some good deals there...just need to also get a cheap fare to the US airports they serve. I will check out the explore tool on Kayak.


Any thoughts on timing? I know in the domestic market around 6 weeks out is usually the best time buy (or so I've read). Should I jump on the first deal I see, or do prices tend to drop closer to the travel date?

Thanks everyone!

guv1976

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"I have checked Norwegian's site and have found some good deals there...just need to also get a cheap fare to the US airports they serve."

If you can get a good fare via Hotwire or a Priceline bid, you might do better: you won't have to pay for positioning flights to/from a city served by Norwegian, and I think Hotwire and Priceline only use full-service carriers, so you should get one free checked bag (if you need it) on a TATL itinerary.

Romelle

You've got just over two months now. Definitely jump on the first good deal you see. But don't wait more than 2 or 3 weeks. International fares are much more likely to go up after that. Drops are extremely unlikely.

I didn't search a lot of cities, but $849 DEN-DUB RT was the best I saw. Unless you get really lucky with bidding, $600 probably isn't realistic.

Romelle

guv1976

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Any specials on Icelandair's website? (FI now serves DEN.)

AussieExPat

One other thing to note on Norwegian -- their domestic/regional route is currently decimated by a pilot's strike. I don't think it's affected their international long haul network, and hopefully it's resolved well before May, but I wanted to point it out nonetheless.

As for timing I concur with the poster above that Europe fares for May are unlikely to decrease substantially in the next two months. The sooner the better would be my guess.

Spiffytifi

Well thanks everyone for your help. I spent the weekend scouring the internet for a deal. Best thing I found was creating my own multi-airline flight by flying Den-JKF on a domestic airline, then JFK-Copenhagen on Norwegian, that was about $790/rt. Even priceline and hotwire wouldn't match that on their bid. Downside to Norwegian's budget price is that you get 1 carry on less than 10kg, nothing more (probably why Priceline couldn't match). Everything else was at least $870+. The Nordic countries seemed to be the cheapest to fly into overall though.

Finally stumbled upon STA Travel and Student Universe, and since I am under 25 and my boyfriend is a student, we were able to use their youth/student deals. So, we are going to fly Den-Helsinki May 11, then return Copenhagen-Den May 26 (with an 8hr layover in Iceland--just enough time to go maybe to the Blue Lagoon or into Reyjkavik). We booked with Student Universe for $738/rt serviced by Icelandair. STA Travel was slightly cheaper but their website appeared to go down every few minutes, I was having a hard time making it to the purchase page without an error occurring. We could have flown slightly cheaper by flying rt into Helsinki or Oslo, but by paying a couple extra dollars each we were able to avoid having to circle back to our arrival airport.

Now the fun stuff can start!

UltraRant

Don't worry about being the cheapest to fly into. We'll be happy to compensate with the prices we charge for everything compared to the rest of Europe.

UltraRant

I'm just wondering.... are we spoiled in Europe or is the US relatively very expensive?

I regularly find return tickets from for example OSL to the USA for less than $500 all inclusive. I just encountered OSL-NYC on SN for about $400, all inclusive, return, departures in March and April. However, as proven in this thread, finding fares the other way seems to be a much more expensive experience.

Anyone has any thoughts on this?

DavidDTW

My first guess would be that the cost difference would be due to fuel charges. The US based airlines add hefty YQ charges for international flights. A lot of non-US carriers seem to have either lower charges or none at all.