Cheap Travel to Europe Falling Prices This Fall

It doesn't seem possible that the summer is already over! I hope that you had a great time this summer and were able to find good travel bargains. There were a few to be had from time to time and often they were in the most unusual places. I didn't expect to see any cheap prices on my recent trip to Istanbul, Turkey. I thought I might be better off taking a camel train and paying for the food and water for myself and my animal rather than paying for airline tickets. However, I was pleasantly surprised that Istanbul and Turkey in general is opening up more and more to the cheaper carriers. This has caused some of the traditional "old school" airlines to lower their prices to stay competitive.

The good news is that we are seeing more destinations popping up on our screens when we search for budget-rate fares and carriers. It seems to be a trend that has caught on and is expanding in Europe. Gone are the days of simply paying the national airline whatever price they ask if you want to land in a certain country. The free-skies agreement has opened up the competition and lowered the prices for all travelers. Are customers looking to travel on the cheap less desirable to hoteliers and restaurants? That is another conversation for another time. But I will say that hostels are starting to open up where there previously never would have been a market for them, because their location was a destination of the rich and famous.

Well, nostalgia aside, the observations made above relate mostly to cheap travel within Europe. For anyone from N. America, the challenge will remain getting across the Atlantic to start traveling within Europe itself. The time to do this is in the "off-season." Fall is setting in and the travelers will be slowing down, especially anyone who has to consider school dates. So families with school-age children, teachers, professors and students are no longer able to fly, especially mid-week. Fall is the time to see the airline prices... well, Fall (yes we did!). Since the Olympics are over in London, things might be cooling down enough to actually find some good fares to London.

If you didn't get to travel this summer and have been waiting for Cheap Travel to Europe, the time seems to be here and "the price is right." You might want to "come on down!" I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.

Starting a search from the East Coast, I was actually able to find some pretty good prices out of Newark. I tried the consolidator 1800flyeurope.com. With the new target of $800 to Europe, I would say that this Fall is a good candidate for Cheap Travel to Europe!

Outbound Flight
American Airlines	Departure: 26 Sep 2012 11:05 PM Newark Int Apt (EWR)	Arrival: 27 Sep 2012 11:05 AM Heathrow Int Apt (LHR)	Nonstop
Inbound Flight
American Airlines	Departure: 03 Oct 2012 6:05 PM Heathrow Int Apt (LHR)	Arrival: 03 Oct 2012 9:15 PM Newark Int Apt (EWR)	Nonstop
$761.85  (Total price per person including all taxes and fees)

Cheap Travel to Europe in Summer

Perhaps this title is an oxymoron. Cheap travel? In the summer? To Europe? You might be saying "No way!" Perhaps you are ready to avoid the long drawn out quasi-intellectual conversation about "what is cheap?" Perhaps you just HAVE TO GO. The Old Continent is calling you and you have the days off (the upside of a down economy?). You didn't get a ton of notice and had you known six to eight months ago, you wouldn't have had the money to put down on a ticket anyway.  So what are you going to do? If you have the money or a credit-card that isn't maxed out and you HAVE TO go to Europe THIS SUMMER, you just have to buy a ticket. Maybe your long lost friend, the exchange student is getting married and they found you on Facebook and you just HAVE TO be there. Maybe you just now found out you made the olympic synchronized swimming team. Whatever the reason, let's just say you are buying a ticket without a lot of advance notice.

If nothing else, this information will give you some kind of factual basis for all those future (let's face it, they're probably NOT) intellectual conversations about when is the best time to buy to get cheap travel to Europe.

Right now, if you had to go from Chicago to London and you could give yourself twenty-one days advance notice, and you wanted to spend two weeks in or around England, you would need to be ready to part with close to $1,000.

Exactly $972 per person if you fly Virgin Atlantic or United (both of which have non-stops to Heathrow, BTW). These are Wednesday flights from August 15-29th, 2012

Don't lose heart, though, Chicago O'Hare (ORD) to Dublin is almost $200 cheaper on US Air on a one-stop through Charlotte (not a bad airport at all). $786 to Dublin (same dates as the London flight) from the Midwest is not too bad at all, given the recent hikes, taxes and fuel add-ons (which have never been reversed, interestingly enough, despite oil being at a recent low of $86/barrel, but I digress). You can go from Boston for $737 (dollars--not Boeing--I kid. I kid!). I would still shoot for $600 from the East Coast for it to qualify as truly "cheap travel to Europe" but we have already established you are going.

From London or Dublin, you can get to almost anywhere in Europe for a pretty cheap flight, as I mention in my classic (OK, it's not a classic, I just wish it were) post: gateway cities. One of the main players out of these two markets is Ryan Air.

Using the "new cheap" bar of $700 for a round-trip to Europe and considering that these flights are out of Chicago, the next time people are saying you can't get any good deals during the summer, you might be able to say "Well, I know of at least one exception to that rule." To which they'll tell you that exceptions prove the rule. Like I mentioned, they aren't really intellectual conversations, after all. But a little bit of hard evidence never hurts.