How to find the best airfare to Europe?
 

Not sure if this thread is for questions, or just for suggestions to make flying easier .Having said that, I'll go ahead and ask a question.

How do I go about getting the best price on flights to Europe? I've dreamed about cruising in the Med, but the airfare prices always hold me back. Any suggestions?

I am sure people will recomend some different ways.

I would venture a guess is that one way is to find a single flight from your nearest gateway to Europe, and from there look for regional European airlines which are often amazingly cheap.

Do you live on the eat coast or west?

Another trick is to plan to cruise in October - in the Med it is still great weather (usually).

I use Kayak.Com to look at lots of different options. You can select neighbouring airports too.

Ditto Kayak. And if you register you can set up fare alerts.

Paul,
I live on the East Coast and would leave from BWI. I could also use Reagan or Dulles.

Tacky pup and Green....thanks for your Kayak.com suggestion. I'll give it a try.

Is it better to book a cruise first and then look for airfare?

I'll ignore you calling me tacky ;) before booking a cruise, I'd at least get a ballpark of the airfare I'd be expecting to pay and possible routes. Also depending on which line you cruise you might find decent air through them.

Flights
 

Checking airline rates prior to a cruise is a great idea. No tackiness, just a wise travelling strategy. I would check both airfare and cruise rates and find the "happy middle" that suits your timeframe/budget.

Ryan air is great, for travel WITHIN Europe. Although their baggage rules etc are very stringent. I have found drive to be cheaper for travel with 4-6hrs of driving distance, but I own a car here so rental rates may make or break that idea.

My mom recent flew to germany to visit from Fl. She flew United for about $1,200. Thats an excellent price from what I've seen from searching for similar flights. Most travel sites have comparable fares, sometimes the airline sites have better prices though.

Any flight around $1k is a decent rate. Flying into Cruise ports seem to have higher rates, conveniently enough. You may want to consider flying into a "cheaper" city then taking the rail system (which can be considerably faster or much slower than car travel depending on the train type, regional versus ICE) or getting a bus transfer.

Also note: the euro to dollar rate right now is HORRIBLE (1 EUR = 1.41564 USD). :mad: Keep this in mind if you look on europe based airline/travel sites.

I hope this helps. Good luck.


BTW- I am taking a cruise 10 Sept leaving from Italy. I found driving 8hrs each way and paying for the port parking was cheaper than flying on any airline, to include ryanair, and allowed me more travel flexibility.

Sorry about the mispelling of your name Trackpup! Sometime my fingers work faster than my brain.

oops......Trackypup....

Hollyjob!!!

How wonderful; to have a regular poster from Germany.

My wife and I are departing the Viking River's new Viking Prestige in a couple of weeks in Nuremburg.

We are going to take the train through Munich to Salzburg. Do you think it might have been cheaper to rent a car and drive? We would have had to pick it up in Nurmburg and drop it off in Salzburg. I thought about it, but the train just seemed more logical - I hope I am right.

What part of Germany are you in?

Not to take the subject off of European airfares - I also thank you for mentioning RyanAir. I do recall hearing recently that they did something outrageous with their baggage fees - like charging far more for bags than the actual ticket. was that true?

You could also check flyertalk as well. Though its more of a Freq Flyer site (with a LOT of complaining about everything) they do have a "milage run" section where users post cheap flights. Might be able to find a flight close to where you want to go for a good price.

Even I want to know what is the best airfare to reach Europe as I am shortly planning to go to Europe.