Now I know why the 8 night Rome cruise is so cheap

[Flossbolna]

Flights FROM Europe are always cheaper than flights TO Europe. Might be taxes?

No. Taxes are the same. They depend on departure airport for each segment. It’s the market. Americans view a European vacation as a luxury. Europeans view the USA as just another vacation destination. Europeans in general are also more stingy with what they are willing to pay.

The difference usually is that Europe to USA is about 25% cheaper, now it’s nearly half of the fare the other way around.

 

[emilymad]

We were planning a med cruise in June but a few weeks ago we decided to push it to next year and do Disneyland and Hawaii this June instead because the European airfare is so insane right now. Now we just have to hope it comes down for next year and doesn't go up even more.... haha

Same here. We were ready to book a European cruise but the airfare isn't it worth it. We selected other destinations for this year and we will see what next year brings.

 

[Girl of the South]

This is the cost of a flight on SAS last September from Chicago to Zurich:

 

[Drbutters56]

That’s September.

Economy is like $1800 and e plus is on sale for $2000-2200 from west coast. The e plus price is probably the best bang for the buck. I am seeing $1400 on westjet.

Jets originating elsewhere are cheaper due to strong USD.

 

[asgur5]

The strange thing is: I find flights from Europe to US to be much much cheaper this summer. My mother in law who lives in the US was thinking of visiting us in Germany this summer and mentioned prices being sky high. I did a search but accidentally searched from Germany to US and thought 900€ is not a cheap flight, but for summer it would be ok. The realized it was the wrong direction and swapped departure and arrival airports. Airfare went from 900€ to 1700€!!!

Have the same issue with flights in and out of my country. It often is a function of taxes and the time of year (i.e. When holidays are starting up and ending). But people have to travel in both directions. So it doesnt really matter.

 

[asgur5]

No. Taxes are the same. They depend on departure airport for each segment. It’s the market. Americans view a European vacation as a luxury. Europeans view the USA as just another vacation destination. Europeans in general are also more stingy with what they are willing to pay.

The difference usually is that Europe to USA is about 25% cheaper, now it’s nearly half of the fare the other way around.

This argument doesnt hold up as americans who go to europe also need to fly back from europe to the usa and europeans who go to the usa also need to fly back from the usa to europe.

 

[Flossbolna]

This argument doesnt hold up as americans who go to europe also need to fly back from europe to the usa and europeans who go to the usa also need to fly back from the usa to europe.

Ever noticed that most airlines do not sell one way fares across the Atlantic? Well, they do but those are generally way more expensive than a return. So, the flights are priced as packages there and return and that package is different depending on which way you travel.

 

[Sykes]

This argument doesnt hold up as americans who go to europe also need to fly back from europe to the usa and europeans who go to the usa also need to fly back from the usa to europe.

On average, a Europe->USA->Europe roundtrip ticket will be meaningfully cheaper than a USA->Europe->USA roundtrip ticket even if they have the exact same number of transatlantic flights between the same cities. International airfare is priced to the demands of the local market at the point of origin (and also priced in the currency of that local market), and for whatever reason the US origin market commands a premium over the Europe origin market. (Some of that has been the recent strength of the US Dollar, but this was the case even before the recent run-up.)

Many people who travel to Europe frequently (myself included) buy all our roundtrips with an origin in Europe even though we live in the US. It makes the tickets look pretty strange (basically all the tickets have a 2-4 month stay in San Francisco instead of a 5 day stay in Europe), but it saves me a ton of money.

(All that said, these are general statements, and given the complexity of airfare pricing there are plenty of exceptions to this as well.)

 

[DCLMP]

In most European cruise on Disney, 75%+ are Americans...

This has been my experience.

 

[soniam]

The strange thing is: I find flights from Europe to US to be much much cheaper this summer. My mother in law who lives in the US was thinking of visiting us in Germany this summer and mentioned prices being sky high. I did a search but accidentally searched from Germany to US and thought 900€ is not a cheap flight, but for summer it would be ok. The realized it was the wrong direction and swapped departure and arrival airports. Airfare went from 900€ to 1700€!!!

My gym trainer is from Belgium. He was looking at flying back this summer. He also priced out flying is mom here. Her round trip airfare would have been half of what his from US->Belgium would have been.

 

[NEGeekymama]

This is the cost of a flight on SAS last September from Chicago to Zurich:

View attachment 744595

I just went through and priced out Chicago to Zurich for this September, and the most basic/cheapest option was $1,898.25 round-trip for one adult.

 

[NEGeekymama]

I've always found that it's cheaper to book a flight to London (usually Heathrow), and then book another flight to wherever in Europe on one of their low-cost/no-frill airlines like Easy Jet, RyanAir, etc. We last did this in 2019, and it was about $3000 less to fly Omaha (or even Kansas City) to London, and then London to Dublin than to fly direct to Dublin.

 

[Girl of the South]

I found an ORD -XRH flight on SwissAir for $825. Are you using Google flights? Of course it depends on the dates and how many stops and the airline.

We booked that cheap flight to Zurich last May. On Google flights you can also set up a notification for your preferred dates and it will email you when it goes up or down.



Google flights will also show you the month and what the lowest RT fares would be so you can tell if leaving on a Tuesday rather than a Thursday (for instance) would be cheaper;


And you can always fly really cheap if you want to change in Istanbul on Turkish Airlines.