Best European Airfare

Currently we are looking to book our first European Cruise for March 2018-(any suggestions will be appreciated). We are limited to certain dates due to our children being out of school. Anyway, many of you are seasoned Cruisers so I am not embarrassed to ask where you usually find the best European Airfare? I always share helpful tips, and thought some of you might like to share yours. If anyone would like to point me in the direction of some of your recent European Cruise reviews, that would be appreciated as well. We do not have anything booked yet, so suggestions are welcome.

Someone told me this:

Book on the third Tuesday of the month, evening, but you have to make sure that the moon is in Gibbous phase, and book the flights when that moon is NOT behind your left shoulder. Make sure you're facing that moon. Then, get online and book.

Pretty much that symbolizes exactly how unpredictable the airline ticket bookings can go. You can have one couple booking a flight over in the west coast who are flying to Dulles, and a couple that lives in Virginia booking the same flight. Invariably, those two sets of tickets may be completely different in price.

Good luck and I hope that you get good, cheap tickets. We're flying Dulles to London on American Airlines next month to Barcelona but the flight to London is on a British Airways Airbus A380! We booked the tickets using cruise air and got a fabulous deal. But when you DO commit, DO NOT LOOK BACK at the prices.

We're flying Dulles to London on American Airlines next month to Barcelona but the flight to London is on a British Airways Airbus A380!

The upper deck economy is not bad on that flight.

I use ITA Software to monitor and search airfare. It is the best I have found.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

Continental?

You're kidding, United/Continental has the highest fares to Europe from The NY Metro airports. Lucky enough that I'm about 1.5 hrs from Philadelphia, and was able to snare a $727 direct flight & aisle seats on AA to Barcelona for our August 29th 12 nite Mediterranean cruise. A difference of 45 minutes, but saves us $1,000 which is not chump change.

Also, looking at Easter week from the Metro area to Fort L. and all are in the area of $600 per. Awaiting schedules from Jet Blue and Southwest. The low price carriers like Spirit, after you add fees for selecting seats, baggage prices, carry-on charges comes to close to the big carriers.

I just found this search site and it seems pretty good. It seems to show some airlines I haven't seen on other sites.

http://www.momondo.com

I have been tracking flights from SFO and LAX for Octoboerfest and Air Berlin has some fantastic prices even for Business Class.

I have also used ITA Matrix and Momondo to search for flights. I found our flights for this coming September on Momondo which directed me to Orbitz to book. You do have to watch the details carefully. Sometimes the layovers are really long for the cheapest flights, like 24 hours or longer.

Two years ago we booked our air to Rome on Expedia and it was cheaper to book with a hotel room added on. We were staying there a few days in advance of our cruise anyway so it made our hotel cost free. I had just tried the cost out of curiosity so it's worth checking that option. Although I think airfare overall has gone up since then.

You can always tell when a thread was started in another forum and moved here.

1. There is no Continental Airlines

2. You can earn miles on only ONE airline per flight.

3. Unless your airline's frequent flyer program allows it, you can't earn miles (as in family pooling) for anyone else's flight. Only for your ticket.

4. No one can say a certain airline "always" has the most expensive fares and be accurate.

5. If you are interested in earning FF miles, check your ticket's fare class carefully. Some will earn reduced miles, some of the cheapest fares earn no miles at all.

6. Search on the matrix webpage and then book directly with the airline.

Condor is a nice, affordable option and offers amazing rates on Black Friday if you're willing to go nonrefundable that far in advance. Other than that, I spend countless hours searching airfares from home as well as alternative cities until I find an option that is just right. This summer, we used miles to fly to Canada for the weekend, and then paid cash to fly from Canada to Europe for much less money than all of our U.S. options. You just never know what will end up being the best option. I personally enjoy the Europe airfare hunt. [emoji5]

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I did chuckle when I saw the Continental Airlines reference. Perhaps the last time that poster flew was years ago and did not realize Continental was absorbed by United in a merger.

"best flight" - I hate that term. "best" is relative to the person. Around here, "best" seems to always be "cheapest." Selecting flights by pricing alone is not my way. There are far too many other considerations. Sure, I don't always get the cheapest fare, but it's a fare I'm comfortable with, happy with my flights, happy with the hard products, happy with in-flight service. I'm also an odd duck in that I don't mind long connection times. I get claustrophobic in those metal tubes, so I like to have time to breathe some fresh air. When it was offered, I loved to take the 23 hour connection at CDG when coming home from Europe.

For the poster who mentioned the leased aircraft when he flew Norwegian: I'll be that was when Boeing had the issue with the batteries on the 787. Other airlines had other craft they could substitute. But, Norwegian did not have any other long-haul planes, so they had to lease quickly until the 787 was deemed safe again.

I've had long delays due to missing crew, mechanicals on every airline, so it's not anything particular to Norwegian. I had a flight to Hawaii on Hawaiian delayed from a 8am departure to a 1pm departure due to volcano eruption, stranding our original plane, having to wait for another Hawaiian plane to finish it's C maintenance checks in LAX and fly to our airport, and then that morphed into a mechanical delay when it arrived, then once we were airborne, having to land at SFO and wait another 2 hours for a new First Officer (the original became ill).

Google Flights uses Matrix (Google bought ITA). It isn't as comprehensive as Matrix, but it does have one cool feature: Plug in your to/from data, then click into the "date" box - you'll see a "price graph" option. Select that one. Fill in how many days you need. You'll be given a really neat rolling graph that shows the days with the cheapest fare. You can scroll through as many months as flights are available for booking. I did this the other day and found some smoking-hot deals this Fall to Europe for around $400... Keep an eye on this graph, and when it gets to a spot you are comfortable with, BOOK AND STOP LOOKING. You will drive yourself crazy if you keep looking after you book.

Thanks for the tip about using Google flights

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Currently we are looking to book our first European Cruise for March 2018-(any suggestions will be appreciated). We are limited to certain dates due to our children being out of school. Anyway, many of you are seasoned Cruisers so I am not embarrassed to ask where you usually find the best European Airfare? I always share helpful tips, and thought some of you might like to share yours. If anyone would like to point me in the direction of some of your recent European Cruise reviews, that would be appreciated as well. We do not have anything booked yet, so suggestions are welcome.

Your options for cruising in Europe in March are going to be very limited, and you should bear in mind that it can be quite cold at that time of year, even on the Mediterranean (where most cruises at that time will go.)

March is still a low-demand season for economy-class transatlantic travel, so you don't need to rush to find airfare. I'd focus instead on finding a cruise itinerary that appeals to you, and only then worry about the air connections. As others have said, I'd recommend ITA and Google Flights (connected, as Google owns ITA) to look at flight options. It's worth taking a little time to get familiar with ITA; it's a very powerful tool. http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

The upper deck economy is not bad on that flight.

I went ahead and paid some more to reserve specific seats. We're seated at an emergency exit. One of my things I don't like is getting seated in the middle of the plane stuck between two people who are aisle. I figured since this is a transatlantic I'd pay more for added comfort.

"where you usually find the best European Airfare?"

Alltheflightdeals.com

I went ahead and paid some more to reserve specific seats. We're seated at an emergency exit.

For the poster who mentioned the leased aircraft when he flew Norwegian: I'll be that was when Boeing had the issue with the batteries on the 787. Other airlines had other craft they could substitute. But, Norwegian did not have any other long-haul planes, so they had to lease quickly until the 787 was deemed safe again.

 

I've had long delays due to missing crew, mechanicals on every airline, so it's not anything particular to Norwegian. ...

And you are right that you can have bad experiences on any airline. Just thinking about BA, there was one time when it forgot to load all four of our bags, and then it took 10 days to get them all back; and just last year we (finally!) suffered a 24-hour mechanical delay. As always: If you travel enough, it'll happen to you.

Coming soon: Ryanair flights from the US to Europe. That made my stomach churn.

Those flights are going to make Spirit flights feel like First Class all the way.

Norwegian has been leasing in capacity quite recently, too (ie in the last few months) - so there is an operational resilience problem. But that's nothing new or unusual when you look at all of the comparable operations in the long-haul low-fare market.

 

And you are right that you can have bad experiences on any airline. Just thinking about BA, there was one time when it forgot to load all four of our bags, and then it took 10 days to get them all back; and just last year we (finally!) suffered a 24-hour mechanical delay. As always: If you travel enough, it'll happen to you.

When I got stuck on their leased plane, it was well after the battery issues on the 787. The plane was used because they repurposed the 787 to a new route. Stick the dumpy leased plane on an established one, and impress the customers on the new route with the fancy new 787. Why? Because they were waiting on more 787 deliveries. They used HiFly. I was not happy one bit, though HiFly uses an obnoxiously attractive female staff. They must do that to quell the angry male travelers. The plane was an A330, and it was clearly an old remnant of another carrier.

Do you have opinions or experiences on Icelandair? We've been looking for air from the east coast to CPH at the end of August and the airfares have been lower than most.

From what I've read, Icelandair isn't in an alliance with others, so if there's an issue with the plane, it may be more difficult to be reaccomodated? TIA

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Do you have opinions or experiences on Icelandair? We've been looking for air from the east coast to CPH at the end of August and the airfares have been lower than most.

From what I've read, Icelandair isn't in an alliance with others, so if there's an issue with the plane, it may be more difficult to be

I have been using Icelandair several times from CPH to either KEF or for my flights to US. I like the break and change of flight in KEF.

If time permit you should consider a stop for to to three days and visit Iceland. Do not make airfare more expensive.

Flights rather old but high level of security. Very few problems with Icelandair flights.

http://Http://mogenshallas.com cruise reviews

from my iPad using Forums

I have been using Icelandair several times from CPH to either KEF or for my flights to US. I like the break and change of flight in KEF.

If time permit you should consider a stop for to to three days and visit Iceland. Do not make airfare more expensive.

Flights rather old but high level of security. Very few problems with Icelandair flights.

 

 

http://Http://mogenshallas.com cruise reviews

from my iPad using Forums

Thank you! We've booked our flights on Icelandair, as well as a 2 night stopover! (Now to decide on which full day tour to take, Golden Circle or South Coast! )

[emoji5]

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Thank you! We've booked our flights on Icelandair, as well as a 2 night stopover! (Now to decide on which full day tour to take, Golden Circle or South Coast! )

If you haven't been to Iceland before, the "Golden Circle" is a pretty good introduction. The South Coast type itineraries tend to involve even longer bus rides, but then, they are into different attractions. IMO, you can't go wrong in either case.

One tip - utilize the "on arrivals" duty free at KEF for any alcohol you might want to be imbibing during your stay. Prices are high in Iceland, so if you want those glasses of wine or beer or spirits (and you don't mind drinking in your room), pick some up in the airport. You'll see the flight crews making a beeline to the shop - they know what's up!!

Additional tip: There is a weekly free publication called the Grapevine (printed in English). Grab it to get the scoop on what's happening in town. Especially their Happy Hour listings (which makes the price of alcohol a lot more tolerable). Or grab their Happy Hour app for your phone. In any case, you might want to read their website before you arrive. LINK HERE.

Enjoy!!

Too late for today but something to keep in mind for those wanting "the best" airfare to Europe:

WOW Air, another Icelandic airline, had a one day sale today with one-ways under $100.

BUT, if you are in the market for that super-cheap airfare where you pay a seat, a carryon, this airline may be one to keep on the list.

We have found international flights to be less expensive booked via Royal's Air2Sea than on the airline's websites.

 

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/contentWithGallery.do?pagename=air_travel_programs

The only time I've found a significant price difference is on a one way or multi-city route. I don't like the extra layer in between me and my reservation, especially a consolidator. But to each his/her own.:)

I also use Google flights to track pricing, and scored a whopping $2300 price drop on an already-purchased flight, LAX-VCE, then BCN-LAX (business). AA kept $900 of the difference as a change fee, but $1400 in vouchers for future travel that we're certain to take is better than a poke in the eye!

I doubt any airline can beat what you get with Norwegian. Very low cost, new 787 dreamliners, its a growing stable financial business, and you are not more likely to lose your luggage then with any other airline.

 

Edit: if you search for it there is allways a "horror story" about every airline out there.

Agreed, they are doing a great job!

Norwegian has been leasing in capacity quite recently, too (ie in the last few months) - so there is an operational resilience problem. But that's nothing new or unusual when you look at all of the comparable operations in the long-haul low-fare market.

.

What does leasing have to do with anything? Norwegian, like many airlines, has a blended approach between leasing and outright ownership.

Any resilience issues would be more related to the fact that they are growing so rapidly in so many locations that aircraft maintenance issues can have bigger schedule impacts. However, as we saw last weekend, even the legacy carriers can have resilience issues in their systems that cause major passenger disruptions.

Air fares are based on supply/demand. It is a little early to look at 2018 pricing.

We typically very much prefer European airlines to US carriers for trans atlantic and trans pacific service. Much better service in our experience.