Summer in Europe: Air Travel Tips
As summer draws closer, some of you may be thinking of trips to Europe. If so, here are some tips on airfares to Europe and within Europe.
First, getting there. I personally like to do airfare searches using ITA Software. It compares fares for all of the major airlines. You can’t book through this site, but you can use it as a base for airline/airfare hunts. I entered in fixed dates of 19 – 27 June leaving out of New York heading to London and got a low price fare of $721 on United. And from San Francisco - $647 on Air Canada. Always remember to add in a Saturday night stay on your trips, it’ll save you money.
I compared prices on the airfare search engines (Expedia/Priceline/Kayak/Travelocity) and did come up with a fare of $722, but, could not pull up sales fares.
Other Tips:
Look to fly into an airline’s hub. For example, for the same dates above, you can fly from Boston to Dublin for $704 including taxes on Aer Lingus.
Keep your dates/airports flexible if possible. Lufthansa currently has a fantastic sale going. Book by the end of April and travel by the end of May, to get crazy good fares. I entered in Friday, 8 May to Sunday, 17 May from New York (all airports) to Frankfurt and got a low fare, including taxes of $516, and that was leaving from/returning to JFK OR Newark, NJ.
I’m a firm believer in going to the airline’s website directly. They’ll often have sales that won’t be listed in search engines, like the Lufthansa sale mentioned above. Also, many websites will have a chart listing departure/return dates within a few days to a week of the dates you entered with airfares for different days. If your dates are flexible, this is a good way to get the lowest fare.
One last tip, not to sound un-American, but, international carriers are better than US carriers. The flight attendants tend to be nicer and more helpful, and the wine/beer/liquor is free. On Lufthansa, which is part of Star Alliance, the flight attendants come around with the drink cart before dinner, drink cart at dinner, refilling wine by walking down the aisles holding white in one hand, red in the other during dinner, and then the digestif cart post dinner (normally has Baileys or Armagnac, but you can request other items). And yes, this is in this economy! Singapore Airlines is fabulous and flies out of JFK, albeit, a bit pricier…
Now, that you’re in Europe, how to get around? There are some great fares available if you don’t mind flying into airports that might be a bit out of the way. Even flying into central airports isn’t a problem for some of these airlines. One great search engine is the Low Cost Airline Guide. This engine covers all of Europe. It won’t give you price comparisons, but it will tell you which discount airlines are available for your routing. It also lists the link to the airline’s website. If you’re in London, I highly recommend looking at flights out of London-Stanstead. It’s about a 40 minute train ride from downtown London, but, a lot of the discount airlines fly out of there. Again, it’s important to look at a main city and the surrounding airports. Public transportation throughout Europe is usually pretty good, so you can easily access these outlying airports without even renting a car.
Another great way to find deals is to go to the airline’s country website. Often, the airline will list special deals that aren’t available on their international website. This is true for the big international airlines (Lufthansa, British Airways, etc). The low-cost airlines tend to have only one website available in different languages. Some of my constant go-to sites: German Wings, Ryan Air, and Tuifly. Keep in mind, the sooner you book, the better. Airfares do have a way of creeping up the closer to the departure date you get. German Wings actually has a great feature on their website called Blind Booking. You select the city you want to leave from, the type of holiday you want (metropolis/party/etc), and the dates and it will put you on a flight for 52 Euro r/t including taxes, a bit more if you want to go to a beach destination.
One last bit, if you don’t mind not knowing where you’re going, try just going to the airport, they often have great last minute airfare and hotel deals. You may end up going someplace you hadn’t even considered.
Bon voyage!
