2015 Travel to Europe

[tulak]

I clipped out a chart from a 2013 Kayak study of pricing which shows some optimal points to book flights:

We're going in late August 2015 so I'm thinking of booking around June.

Also Google flights can show lots of data in an easy to view way. As an example, click on this link and then clink in the August 27 box which will show you flights costs by days for August and Sept. This is useful if you are flexible. Link to click: https://www.google.com/flights/#sea...9-21;s=0;q=flight+sfo+to+ams+february+10+2015

Ah, to be retired. I wish I could book a trip only two months in advance. I usually end up paying extra because we have to juggle time off from work with kid's breaks. The problem with these big trips with family is that you don't want to figure out all the details with only two months before you leave. Especially if you have certain fixed criteria that you need to meet (yes, we're going to Rome, Paris, etc). I also look forward to being able to travel in the off season, spring or early fall. A few more years before this becomes a reality for us, but this is on top of our 'what are we going to do all day' list when we finally pull the plug.

 

[tulak]

Ferry is overnight.

Mallorca is one of the places I want to go. Not easy to find flights from US to it. Better to go to Madrid or Barcelona and take a short flight from there.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on the flight and it's Norwegian airlines through London Gatwick. I originally thought this must be a code shared flight, because why would Norwegian airlines fly from London to Mallorca? Not the case the though. It is Norwegian airlines. It also says that the flight is often delayed 30+ min. Maybe it's not the best option.

 

[tulak]

I can get addicted to google flights pretty easily. Out of curiosity, I went with one way tickets from Mallorca to LAX on 8/24. $573/ticket. You can find the same ticket on 9/2 for $337 (wow) and some other dates in August for $495.

Now to get to Europe cheaply leaving 6/29. London for $447. Or Rome for $535.

This brings it to a bit over $1000/ticket, which is pretty good.

Flying out of Barcelona instead of Mallorca looks to be pricey. But you could fly from Barcelona to Mallorca for $38/ticket. Or you could fly from Barcelona to London ($98) or Paris ($59) and get back home from there.

As I mentioned earlier, I can't wait until I have more time to make these trips myself. $337 to Mallorca from LAX? I'm a bit north from LAX, but that price is a deal. Of course, you'd still have to get home somehow.

 

[tulak]

And for my encore, $39/ticket from Rome to Catania. So that would be:

LAX -> Rome = $535
Rome -> Catania = $39
Mallorca -> LAX = $495

Total = $1069/ticket.

This is leaving on 6/29 and returning end of August (I picked the cheaper $495 ticket). You could probably substitute Mallorca with Barcelona by flying from Barcelona to a major European city and then flying home from there.

I've now posted a lot of info, hopefully not too much. It was a fun afternoon diversion for me. Hopefully it's helpful.

 

[Lsbcal]

We travel from the US West Coast, so Europe is about 10 to 11 hours for a nonstop. For that reason we are just going to book a nonstop only. Also it's been recommended by experienced flyer's to go with a European carrier like Swiss Air to get the best service and comfort.

 

[Texas Proud]

I did not go back to see the whole quote... but someone said that they upload ticket prices on Tuesday...


That is false... I had a brother and sister who worked for the airlines at one point in time... brother worked on the reservation systems... he said that prices are updated on a continuous basis... IOW, there could be thousands of price changes every day...

 

[M Paquette]

I did not go back to see the whole quote... but someone said that they upload ticket prices on Tuesday...


That is false... I had a brother and sister who worked for the airlines at one point in time... brother worked on the reservation systems... he said that prices are updated on a continuous basis... IOW, there could be thousands of price changes every day...

It's been a loooooong time since ticket prices were updated by shipping a magnetic tape to the SABRE folks. These new-fangled 'timesharing' computer systems get updated at any time. Even better, 'shopping' algorithms can track behavior and offer different prices to different customers based on what the algorithms estimate [-]they can get away with[/-] would deliver the optimal customer experience.

It's called "New Distribution Capability", an exciting new technology to personalize the delivery of airline services. ;-)
http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/stb/Documents/ndc-update-nov-2012.pdf




Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[audreyh1]

Tuesday has been a good day of the week for me. Seems like prices jump on Wednesday.

 

[Travelwanted]

One trick I have learned for last-minute travel is to book airfare and hotel together through one of the sites such as travelocity or expedia. Typically last-minute airfare is super expensive, but not when bundled! Give it try.

For example:

airfare to Dublin from major US city: 1800 Dec31-Jan6
airfare plus hotel at westin in Dublin same dates : approx 1800

And today is Dec 29!

 

[Travelwanted]

Tuesday has been a good day of the week for me. Seems like prices jump on Wednesday.

Tues and Wed are typically cheapest airfares if you do a Sat night stay.

 

[audreyh1]

Tues and Wed are typically cheapest airfares if you do a Sat night stay.

I meant buying the tickets on a Tuesday, not necessarily flying to Europe on a Tues or Wed.

 

[Travelwanted]

I meant buying the tickets on a Tuesday, not necessarily flying to Europe on a Tues or Wed.

oh, yes. well perhaps both are true!

 

[FIREd]

We travel from the US West Coast, so Europe is about 10 to 11 hours for a nonstop. For that reason we are just going to book a nonstop only. Also it's been recommended by experienced flyer's to go with a European carrier like Swiss Air to get the best service and comfort.

I hope you enjoy your flight on Swiss. I fly Swiss a lot and my experience has been pretty good. I wish they had more legroom in coach though.

 

[explanade]

Swiss seems fine enough but if you transit through ZRH to another European destination, you're often landing at 5 PM or later local time.

Prefer to land much earlier.

 

[Sunset]

I'm saying that the prices sometimes rise when you use the same computer to search the same flights at the same website. I read this in an online article and checked it for myself. Ive searched a flight...then searched again a day or two later only to see a higher price. Then, within minutes, I checked the same flight from a different computer and was shown a lower price. It doesn't happen all the time, but Ive just started using private browsing so I don't have to worry about it.

+1
You can also install a second browser on your computer.
I like firefox as it has this cool feature to erase all history from say last 2 hours. So you don't mess up your normal browsing, but can check a price and if you don't buy it, erase your 2 hour history.
Soon the airlines will use Uber pricing

 

[Lsbcal]

Swiss seems fine enough but if you transit through ZRH to another European destination, you're often landing at 5 PM or later local time.

Prefer to land much earlier.

We figure we'll just last until bedtime ZRH time. Next day we'll fly to Athens. Slower but maybe gentler.

 

[FIREd]

Swiss seems fine enough but if you transit through ZRH to another European destination, you're often landing at 5 PM or later local time.

Prefer to land much earlier.

Since Switzerland is generally my final destination, it's not a problem for me. I am exhausted and ready to go to bed when I arrive.

 

[SoClose]

A few weeks ago, I booked flights into Rome and back from Venice for $1,077 on US Air, one stop each way in PHL at the end of May for two+ weeks, leave on a Thursday night back on a Monday.

This was $200 cheaper than when I was looking a couple of years ago.

 

[explanade]

That's good for that time of the year.

 

[sengsational]

Manual Kayak Analysis

By using the fare alert emails, I was able to plot prices for a specific round trip: Charlotte/London. I selected the first saturday and sunday in October, November, December, and January (February is tracked, but not plotted).

There is an obvious and known trend that the prices can, and often do skyrocket when the departure date gets near. But there's no "dip" a certain number of days in advance. If I knew then what I know now, I would have booked 100 or more days out from my travel date.

There are two charts, one where the price for all flights are plotted together. The other chart is aligned so align with days before the flight.

In the second chart, we see there that when, say, the October flights went down, so did November, December and January. In other words, the "market" for flights has some independence of the departure date.

In the first chart, we see that, generally, the prices rise. First slowly, then (possibly) rapidly when the travel date approaches.

In both charts there is sometimes one day where a particular flight jumps way down. On those days, I logged in and could not find that price any more. Even though I left the data as I collected it, I don't think those prices are "real".

Finally, the fare alerts do not let you set detailed parameters. I wanted a non-red-eye flight, but the alerts simply grabbed some horrific flights...20 hours with multiple stops...something I wouldn't consider. So I put a few bubbles on the chart that showed what I was able to find manually searching Kayak for reasonable daytime flights.

The last data point is for today, December 30.

My take-away is: Start watching the price 150 days out. If it drops $150 or more, buy it. If it doesn't drop, or if you miss it, go ahead and buy it around 100 days out.

 

[Chuckanut]

Finally, the fare alerts do not let you set detailed parameters. I wanted a non-red-eye flight, but the alerts simply grabbed some horrific flights...20 hours with multiple stops...something I wouldn't consider. So I put a few bubbles on the chart that showed what I was able to find manually searching Kayak for reasonable daytime flights.

Yup! For the flights I am looking at, the cheapest is about $400 less, but the trip is almost 30 hours each way versus 16-8 hours for one stop.

Worse, open jaws flights still seem a lot more than round trip prices. Granted the costs of transportation and sometimes an extra day in a hotel, eliminate most of the extra cost. But, I still wonder why it is so much more expensive to fly from A to B and return by flying from C back to A, when the mileage is about the same, cities are similar, airlines are similar, etc.

Whatever, it's still a lot cheaper than business class. I would rather fly non-stop in Economy, than business class with an extra stop and another 6-8 hours of overall travel time.

 

[audreyh1]

Yup! For the flights I am looking at, the cheapest is about $400 less, but the trip is almost 30 hours each way versus 16-8 hours for one stop.

Worse, open jaws flights still seem a lot more than round trip prices. Granted the costs of transportation and sometimes an extra day in a hotel, eliminate most of the extra cost. But, I still wonder why it is so much more expensive to fly from A to B and return by flying from C back to A, when the mileage is about the same, cities are similar, airlines are similar, etc.

Whatever, it's still a lot cheaper than business class. I would rather fly non-stop in Economy, than business class with an extra stop and another 6-8 hours of overall travel time.

This wasn't my experience. When I booked at a flight from IAH to AMS, then MUC to IAH 3 weeks later, it cost exactly the same as a round trip from IAH to AMS which was just a tad higher than the round trip from IAH to MUC. This was late August 2014, returning mid-September.

 

[Bamaman]

Let me say that I'm a very budget traveler. If I cannot get a very good airfare to Europe, we'll have a backup vacation destination in another region in the U.S. I research all flights at MatrixITASoftware.com--where the airlines' computers feed into. We usually fly open jaw--into one city and out of another.

There are now basically 4 airline partnerships from North America to Europe. They're very good at controlling the supply and demand of seating--and ultimately the pricing. While fuel prices are lower this year, most airlines have already booked fuel on the commodity market for much higher prices for the rest of 2015. Lower prices won't necessarily lower their costs until next year, or the next.

2015 European flights are priced at an all time high--in the $1500 range or more. Even the Winter airfares have been abnormally expensive. Some European airports are less expensive to fly into than others.

We travel on Mondays and Tuesdays at the end of the offseason. We left the end of March, 2014 for Budapest and flew home from Prague the middle of April--$728 round trip. I read about a one day sale out of Atlanta on ClarkHoward.com.

The only really cheaper airfares to Europe right now are on Norwegian Airlines originating at Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Los Angeles, New York JFK and Oakland. If you can get to these airports for a reasonable price (or drive), sign onto Norwegian.com for current programs.

Travelers flying out of New York, Boston or Chicago can often catch a flight inexpensively on Aer Lingus through Dublin or Icelandic Airlines through Reykevik. Sometimes, flights on Turkish Airlines through Istanbul can also be cheap.

It's possible to save substantially if you take a little time to feel out the airfare market. And don't forget about budget European airlines to get from city to city once you get to Europe.

 

[In-control]

Have you considered a relocation cruise for one way? Then flying back? Depending on where you leave from you can save a lot of $. It is like two vacations !

 

[Bamaman]

Have you considered a relocation cruise for one way? Then flying back? Depending on where you leave from you can save a lot of $. It is like two vacations !

I watch for Fall cruise buys on VacationsToGo.com. They're the largest seller of cruises worldwide, and virtually every cruise in the world is listed there.

And repositioning cruises are a real bargain for those that can be away from home for 3-4 weeks. I wouldn't suggest one for a new cruiser, as being 6 to 7 days out to sea without seeing land can be difficult for some.

Many European cruises are also very good buys--vs. land travel. Most will either start or end in Barcelona if it's a Mediterranean cruise.