How to Fly to Europe on the Cheap

I never want to hear the word “staycation” again.  Sure, there is something to be said for just taking a few days off to enjoy the city that you live in and do the things that are, at best inconvenient , and at worst, impossible to do while working full time.  Like finally getting to experience the $7.99 buffet lunch at the Indian place on your block that charges $40 to deliver the same exact food at night.  But if you are really looking to recharge your batteries, there is nothing like going to another continent to catch a fresh perspective and loosen up from the neurotic bastard you’ve turned into from going too long without stopping to gain a little perspective (What? Is that just me?).

So, you’re going abroad somewhere.  The easiest option, in terms of distance and cost, is the Caribbean.  Or Mexico.  However,  unless you are really bent on trying to get off the beaten path, you are most likely gonna take the easy route and come back from the trip with nothing more to show for it than a Señor Frogs shot glass and a semi-permanent STD from a Future Farmer of America named Ashlee.

Biased as I may be from having lived in France for a couple of years, I have to imagine that everyone would like to go to at least one country in Europe.  What all this is building up to is suggestions from the Frugal B on how to get to Europe as cheaply as possible without a truly hellish journey (i.e., scoring an amazingly cheap flight to London via Air India, and end up squished between two heavily sweating men, one of whom might begin puking, causing you to puke in response… um… sorry, Will).

Obviously, the first step is to decide where you want to go.  If you are looking for inspiration, consider any friends (or acquaintances that don’t annoy you) who are living abroad; maybe you can go and visit them for part of your trip.  (Free accommodation, free food, free guide — clean shower.  Hopefully.)  Regardless of your destination, some European cities are much more expensive to fly into than others, mostly due to local airport taxes.  Depending on your final destination you may want to fly into a city that is a hub for low cost European short haul airlines so that you have a wider range of options:

• Berlin: AirBerlin, GermanWings
• Geneva: EasyJet
• Dublin: RyanAir

The most expensive hubs are London, Paris, and Madrid.

The basics of booking international flights: There are a number of travel search engines that will find you the best fare available, but there is always one that has the very best deal at any given moment.  Kayak.com claims to aggregate all of the results from the major engines (Orbitz.com, Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, Hotwire.com, Priceline.com), such that you only have to search on one site, but I’ve found that you can still find better deals searching site by site rather than depending solely on Kayak.  I generally start with Orbitz, which has the best price most of the time — plus the bonus of the Orbitz low-price guarantee.

To set your expectations, a “good” deal for r/t flights from JFK or EWR to a European city would be $500, including taxes and fees.  Typical rates during the summer travel season would be $1000, and the best you could possibly find at any time would be $300 (again, including all sneaky fees).  Cheapest days of the week to travel are Tuesday and Wednesday; Friday and Sunday are the most expensive.  It’s worth looking into slightly different dates if you are lucky enough to have a flexible schedule.

Finally, look out for natural disasters.  Frugal Bachelor recently scored an unheard-of $200 one-way flight to Berlin in August on Iceland Express, the ugly stepsister of Iceland Air.  Obviously the deal only exists because of the Icelandic ash cloud that paralyzed all European air traffic a few months ago, but I’ll take it!  A mind-blowing deal is a mind-blowing deal.

Our next article in this series will showcase how to get your, uh, mind blown in hotels/hostels/park benches across Europe once you’ve landed.