How to Find Cheap Flights Within Europe

Many people dream about a European holiday, but such a journey may seem out of reach for budget travelers. It can be done on a tight budget, however, with careful planning and an extra effort to reduce transportation costs as much as possible.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Travel Books
• Travel Guides
• Travel Newsletters
• Travel Services

1. Consider flying into London and then getting a separate flight to your European destination on one of the low-cost airlines. This may save you a lot of money because there are often excellent seat sales between North America and London.

2. Check out the numerous low-cost airlines that are now operating out of England. Many North American travel agents may not know much about these relatively new options, so use the power of the Internet to help you hunt for good fares to various European destinations.

3. Do lots of price-checking online, as well as by phone or through a travel agent. Some airlines offer special discounts just for their online customers, while you may get the best deal on other airlines if you call and discuss fare options with a customer service representative.

4. Check on flights leaving from airports other than London Heathrow. Many of the cheaper airlines depart from Gatwick, Stansted or Luton. When using an online search engine, try typing in "LON" for the airport code instead of "LHR" - this is more likely to produce results from all of London's airports, not just Heathrow.

5. Compare fares between various destinations before making your final decision. You may find that it is a lot cheaper to fly into Bologna and take a train to Venice than it would be to fly directly into Venice, for example.

Tips & Warnings

• Try to be flexible in your travel planning, and remember that there are many different ways to reach your destination. The European rail and ferry network is a viable alternative to flying if you have a little extra time, and you can also take buses (often called "coaches" in Europe) to get to most destinations.
• Sign up for the e-mail newsletters that are offered by many airlines. They'll provide you with regular updates about seat sales, last-minute specials and service changes.
• Start comparing prices just a few months in advance of the time you plan to travel if possible; if you book too far in advance, you may miss out on seat sales, but if you book too late, you may have to pay a much higher fare.
• Remember that many of the online travel search engines will not produce results from the smaller airlines; you may need to visit a number of different Web sites to find a wider variety of travel options.

[kellyking]

on 5/11/2009 Use Optifly.com to map possible routes within Google Maps so you can actually SEE where you're going. They also return low cost carriers and provide cool city information for any connection location in the world. Optifly is not a booking site, just a helpful tool for flight planning. You can link to purchase directly from the airlines or other comparable booking sites. They definitely helped me find the cheapest, most direct flights. Go to http://optifly.com to try it out for yourself.

[Sandra66]

on 10/18/2008 I can suggest to use http://www.momondo.com - which compares fares from low cost carriers in Europe. Also try their price calendar. Note however that momondo does not sell flight tickets, you must book directly from the airline that they link to.

[Penny123]

on 1/29/2008 I recently found a great website called www.harefares.com that gives you a lot of other options than ryanair and easyjet (most of which I had never heard of before). The site does not give prices but at least it narrows down your choices as far as airlines.

on 8/8/2006 Try these airports:

http://www.smartwings.net/en/
(Prague, Czech Republic}

http://www.skyeurope.com/start.php?lang=en
(Bratislava, Slovakia)

I know that if you travel from London to the above airports, you could fly from there to lots of European cities very inexpensively. Good luck. ;)

on 11/22/2005 Some Internet sites allow people to search various travel agent offers from a single page. Users can easily compare deals of the different agents and can choose the proper one. Use Google to find some of these sites.