airfare to europe this summer

[pclaire]

Anyone else having sticker shock??!! My daughter and I are going on the June 10th Central Italy trip and airfare from Denver is unbelievable. I was hoping to get a one-stop, especially on the way home, but we are looking at about $2,000 per person. I'm not sure if waiting is a good idea, but boy its hard to pull the trigger!

 

[Bobo912]

I booked our air fare back in Sept for Nashville to Budapest, Munich to Nashville, for about $1700 and it's now about $100 less than I paid. But it's not a huge difference and it's better than worrying about it for months. We are going on a Tauck Bridges trip and last month Tauck sent out an offer that included airfare for any of their European trips for $1290 pp. I would have been upset about that, but our trip was already sold out, so no regrets there either. But the cost of airfare is painful and with fuel prices increasing it's probably not going to get any better.

 

[carpenta]

We are doing a Tauck tour this summer also and our airfare is about $1500.00 each out of Burlington, Vt. thru N.Y. to Budapest and return from Prague. I believe the fare will only rise after oil goes through the roof.We have already booked the Disney Magic out of Barcelona in 2013 and I'm afraid to start looking for that fare. The best you can do is hunt around and jump on a fare as soon as it seems reasonable to you. Good Luck.

 

[jlou]

Anyone else having sticker shock??!! My daughter and I are going on the June 10th Central Italy trip and airfare from Denver is unbelievable. I was hoping to get a one-stop, especially on the way home, but we are looking at about $2,000 per person. I'm not sure if waiting is a good idea, but boy its hard to pull the trigger!

You only have the two of you to buy tickets for, so you may feel okay waiting for some sort of last minute deal. Other than that, I don't think prices are going to drop any time soon. And I don't know how much of an appetite you have for waiting til last minute. My advice would be to watch your prices every day. If you see a drop, grab them, they won't last.

 

[RSM]

Anyone else having sticker shock??!! My daughter and I are going on the June 10th Central Italy trip and airfare from Denver is unbelievable. I was hoping to get a one-stop, especially on the way home, but we are looking at about $2,000 per person. I'm not sure if waiting is a good idea, but boy its hard to pull the trigger!

Hi PClaire,

We are doing the June 17th Central Italy trip. We are flying from Boston to Naples, then Rome to Boston on the way back. The best price we found originally was ~$1650 per person (there are 3 of us). By stopping in Dublin and staying overnight in Dublin and flying out the next day, we saved ~$500 per person in airfare. When I factor in the cost of the day in Dublin, I figure we still save ~$1000, and we get to see Dublin for a day or so. We are flying Aer Lingus. BTW- this didn't show up on Expedia or Travelocity. The option showed up on Kayak. We then ended up booking it with Expedia. Not sure on flights from Denver, but if you have the time, there may be a similar option.

 

[mapsd]

We had a similar experience as RSM. For our July 9 Viva Italia trip, flying into Rome & out of Venice, was exteremely expensive.

After quite a bit of on-line research, we found returning out of London was $500 less per ticket! Just applying for a British Airway VISA, earned us 30K miles, so our 4 tickets Venice-->London cost us $80.

Our ticket savings alone will finance 3 extra days in London before flying home!

 

[Sheepdog23]

I am currently living near copenhagen and it is expensive to fly out of the smaller or the most popular airports. my tip for a cheaper airfare it to fly via london by booking a flight to london and then change to a budget airline like ryan air, easy jet, skyways etc. Sometimes you can also get a cheap flight via frankfurt. try using www.momondo.com since it will show you the whole month and you might find that you save big by flying 2 days earlier etc. july is expensive no matter what because europe is on vacation for the month.

 

[carpenta]

just a note about flying thru London...the three cruises we have been on in the Med. a number of fellow cruisers were with us had no luggage for it was lost in London. I try to avoid London when ever I can. Just paranoid....or like clean socks.

 

[Jestocost]

Wow. I guess we were lucky. Three tickets for Philadelphia-Naples (via Brussels) and a non-stop Rome-Philadelphia return in June were only about $3,500 total on US AIr.

 

[carpenta]

Wow. I guess we were lucky. Three tickets for Philadelphia-Naples (via Brussels) and a non-stop Rome-Philadelphia return in June were only about $3,500 total on US AIr.

....can you find me a couple of those?.......

 

[sayhello]

I am currently living near copenhagen and it is expensive to fly out of the smaller or the most popular airports. my tip for a cheaper airfare it to fly via london by booking a flight to london and then change to a budget airline like ryan air, easy jet, skyways etc. Sometimes you can also get a cheap flight via frankfurt. try using www.momondo.com since it will show you the whole month and you might find that you save big by flying 2 days earlier etc. july is expensive no matter what because europe is on vacation for the month.

The only thing about the budget airlines is I hear they can be way more restrictive as far as luggage is concerned.

Sayhello

 

[MAH4546]

It's sometimes cheaper to find a cheap flight to New York or Miami, and get a flight from there. New York and Miami are served by many low-fare European airlines that don't fly elsewhere, like Arkefly, Airberlin and Transaero.

 

[vickalamode]

WHAT. Its almost always less than $1,000 per person to fly anywhere in Europe out of Boston. Usually $700-800 a ticket...

Maybe you can find a less expensive ticket to somewhere on the east coast and then get a ticket from the east coast airport to your destination in Europe.

 

[sayhello]

WHAT. Its almost always less than $1,000 per person to fly anywhere in Europe out of Boston. Usually $700-800 a ticket...

Maybe you can find a less expensive ticket to somewhere on the east coast and then get a ticket from the east coast airport to your destination in Europe.

Part of the issue here may be that the trip starts in Naples and ends in Florence. Unless you travel all the way back to Naples (or start/end in Rome, or something of that nature) it can be much more expensive getting an "open jawed" ticket that flies into one place and out of another.

That said, the OP still might be able to get something cheaper going through the East Coast. A non-stop may just not be an economical option.

Sayhello

 

[kjd469]

Check your flights on Kayak and set up an alert for them to email you the current price each day....I was looking at flights for Christmas from our home to Orlando and we were looking at $1200 per person!!...well, the good news is, that on today's Kayak alert the price had dropped to $385 per person - I was thrilled and quickly booked the seats. We also had the same experience for our flights to Lima for our June ABD - Kayak let us know the flights had dropped from $800 to $400! I love Kayak!!

 

[allforpooh]

For our ABD Ireland trip, we flew into London then used BWI to fly to Dublin. It worked great, one thing to consider is the wt limit for checked bags. It was only 40lbs instead of the 50lbs that the US carriers allow. Since I knew ahead of time it was not problem for us.

Denise

 

[Phil1019]

My daughter and I are going on the Bella Italia ABD trip July 4th. Because July is the height of the tourist season airfare is higher. If I had planned a trip for say Feb. or April I could have paid about $900 per person. Last week Boston to Naples and Florence to Boston cost me $1150 each. I had been following Kayak and when the price dropped I booked it. A couple of weeks ago it would have cost me $1300 per person.

 

[queenmother]

I also got the awesome Aer Lingus deal and 4 of us are flying to London from Chicago for 3700 total dollars in June for a cruise. We are also stopping in Dublin for an 8 hour visit. We booked last year. I also got the British Air Visa and a free ticket the year before. It takes a lot of searching, don't give up!!

 

[pxlbarrel]

just a note about flying thru London...the three cruises we have been on in the Med. a number of fellow cruisers were with us had no luggage for it was lost in London. I try to avoid London when ever I can. Just paranoid....or like clean socks.

I've flown into London numerous times and never lost luggage. Last year, we flew into Heathrow, stayed a few days and then flew out of London City airport (a great little airport) to Barcelona for the cruise. We used British Airways to Barcelona and Iberia (which was really a BA flight) back to London. The flights between London and Barcelona were pretty cheap. In fact, because we didn't have to pay for our checked luggage on British Airways, it was cheaper than the "budget" airlines like Easy Jet.