Tricky cheap travel to Europe

A quick check up on the cheap travel to Europe front (which coincides with a cold front in Europe) and I see my box is full of new offers in an apparent rush to get the end-of-the-year buyers to get their wallets out before Christmas (we wish you a merry.... ok nobody's paid me to sing in a long... ever!) and the New Year (and a happy..... wait for it.... oh forget it).

Yes, that's right. There is cheap travel to Europe to be had, but obviously not before Santa flies across Europe (now that's cheap travel--how much do reindeer eat? Maybe not so cheap after all...). It will be travel this Spring, but I must confess that the rates are not bad at all. There IS cheap travel to be had if your dates are flexible (I know, I know--they always say that!) and you want to go to a price-friendly place.

Some of it is just fluff and advertising. Air Lingus is advertising for under $600 non-stop to Dublin from Chicago but I sure can't find those special dates that the flights are available. But BMI (British Midland) is available to Dublin if you go through London for $548 per person from CHICAGO. Now that's cheap travel to Europe

I would probably go on US Air through Philadelphia for $557 all other things being equal. The dates I plugged in FYI are January 21-28, 2011. So there is cheap travel to Europe this Spring!

LOT of Poland is advertising some pretty impressive fares (from $620 to Poland) but I didn't get any of those from Chicago. The main advantage with them looks like it's not cheap travel to Europe but rather non-stop flights to Poland for a competitive price. In fact, the best rates seen to Warsaw ( I almost wrote I saw to Warsaw-bad!) were $784 with Scandinavian Air Services.. Did I ever tell you about the time I got kicked out of the SAS hotel lobby in... Stockholm? Or was it Helsinki... ah but I digress.

The real reason I wanted to write here is that an old trick in getting cheap travel and cutting ticket prices is to buy tickets to different locations and then get off at the change planes stop. I have to make a disclaimer. Haven't heard what the new rules on this are since 9/11 and wouldn't be surprised if they could tap your phone and look at all your personal files if you get off a plane at a change stop (oh wait, they can do all that stuff anyway)... It may be VERY illegal and you may go to jail.. So I DO NOT recommend it. But back when it wasn't or maybe wasn't, my friend would buy a ticket, for example to Bangor, Maine and just get off in Newark, instead of paying $100 more to just buy a ticket to Newark. He would then just tear out his tickets (paper tickets) between Newark and Maine and come back and get on the plane and go home the next week. All for the bargain price that they were giving to try and get people to go to Maine. So will this work for cheap travel to Europe ? I doubt it for several reasons... Now it's all electronic and the minute you miss a leg or flight it resets your status and if they see that you didn't continue the rest of your ticket is void and invalid. This has also only been a method of cheap travel for people who had carry-on bags, not checked. Although, if you are like "my friend" who used to do this and you are just going to see somebody for a week or weekend, a backpack was plenty. I--I mean my friend-- once even jumped off a plane in Houston (to go see a girl) and left my--uh his-- checked baggage on the plane. He picked it up a few days later at the airport when he got home. It was sitting in the unclaimed luggage section!! OK, so these are a long time ago and pre 9/11. And as I say they probably won't work. But it still can be done (IF IT'S LEGAL) when there are cheap one-way tickets available for cheap travel somewhere that go through the city you want to land and you just have carry-on. If you want to leave comments about this tricky way to find cheap travel to Europe, please feel free to tell me the rules on this. I would be very interested.

What got me thinking about this was checking the prices to Warsaw. Since SAS is cheapest to Warsaw ($784) and it goes through Copenhagen, I wondered how much flights were from Chi-town to Copenhagen? SAS's non-stop flights are $880 roundtrip!! So if you say you are going... quick google maps search... an extra 1016 kilometers to Warsaw, it's $100 per person cheaper!! So if you are with your loved one, it's close to $200 more money. But as I said, my friend who used to do that stuff might not even try it these days (though it's tempting to find a way--I bet he's thinking right now). Another option to Copenhagen from Chicago is BMI for $784, which is less than $100 per person savings, so makes paying bail to get released (after stranding a whole flight while they look for your luggage and check your seats because you acted like a T-rist) more expensive than the money you saved by going straight there. If you are going to Copenhagen, though you can fly to a gateway city and probably save some money.

OK. Thank you for reading and I wish you all luck in finding cheap travel to Europe!