Cheap flights to Europe - anyone done this before?

[NameRedacted]

I know this isn't related to ER but so many of you seem to travel a lot I thought I'd ask here.



So I may need to fly to Europe at short notice as early as next week.



I don't want to mention specifically the cities or airlines involved as I don't want this thread to turn into a competition to find the cheapest flights.


Round trip flight costs about $3500 on the airline I want to use on the specific route I want. I can shave about $1000 to $1500 off that by flying different routes and different airlines but they end up turning the trip into a 22hr+ marathon.


However, if I book a round trip flight to New York it's $370 and then a round trip from New York to Europe it's about $1800 using the same airline and only $1000 round trip to Europe using a different airline albeit with an extra connection that adds about 6 hours to the trip.


I would have to pay for a hotel in NY near the airport both outbound and inbound.


This seems too good to be true to me and makes me wonder if airlines would have rules preventing this but I don't see how they could tell if I use different airlines. I know they don't like 'hidden city' flights but this seems different.


I'm trying to find out if anyone has tried this before and run into problems.

 

[RunningBum]

One issue you might have is if your flight to NY is delayed. You probably won't get a break if you miss your Europe flight because of it. You also need to pick up your luggage and recheck it. But with an overnight each way in NY you have a lot of buffer built in.

I did this with a flight to Hawaii once, staying overnight in NY (actually with family in C) outbound, and just a layover on the return. On the way back, our flight from Honolulu to Houston was delayed, so we missed our connecting flight to NY. The agent looked very apologetic as I think they didn't have another flight for some time. We said, we really just want to get to RDU, do you have anything? Turns out there was a flight to RDU that got us in earlier than we had planned, so it worked out great. I think we had all flights on the same airline, but with armfuls of carry-ons with a 1 yr old in a carrier I think the agent would've done anything she could to make us happy, and this sure did it.

 

[audreyh1]

Yes, better to do an overnight. You need the leeway.

No rules + these are treated as separate trips.

 

[cathy63]

Sure, when I'm booking tix to Europe, I look at flights leaving from SAN, LAX, SFO, LAS, PHX. Then I look at booking a separate ticket (or a one-way rental car for LAX) to get to the gateway city, and calculate the total costs for each option. Then I pick based on some combination of timing, cost, whether or not I want to visit the family members who live in the gateway city ...

Pitfalls:
- weather, especially at this time of year, can close airports for more than a day, and it can take airlines several days to recover from a closure of even six or eight hours. Your gateway airport choices are a lot riskier than mine.
- coming back to the states is a misery. You have to leave a long enough interval to make the "connection" in case the flight from Europe is late, but if it's early you end up sitting in the airport for several hours trying not to fall asleep when all you really want is to be home in your own bed. You mentioned booking a hotel, so it sounds like you might be planning to fly home the next day, which would be easier.
- if your flight home is on Southwest, you may not be able to check in from Europe, or you may have to do it at an odd time. I found that a VPN works, but I didn't have one on my iPad, and I was fussing with all this at 5:00 AM in Stockholm, so not fun.

 

[Bamaman]

My wife's hobby is finding inexpensive flights to Europe. But she's not doing it on such a short term basis.

We've been flying on inexpensive domestic flights into Boston and then on over to Europe from there.

 

[Teacher Terry]

We just booked a nonstop flight from San Fran to Warsaw on a brand new plane for 580 round trip. It sold out quickly.

 

[Bamaman]

We just booked a nonstop flight from San Fran to Warsaw on a brand new plane for 580 round trip. It sold out quickly.

We recently caught Nashville-Heathrow-Berlin on British Airways roundtrip for $437 the end of March. Then my wife later spotted a $360 round trip to Europe.

The trouble is that rooms, ground transportation and food adds up fast. We cannot afford to take advantage of such travel bargains 2 or 3 times per year. But there again, RMD's are going to be starting next year. What the heck, we can afford it then.

 

[Sunset]

OP - Have you looked at using points to book the flights ?

I have found in the past, a points flight was regular points cost even when the next day, while the dollar cost had skyrocketed.

Or fly there due to short time, and then cruise ship back if you have time to do the return.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

I've done what the OP asks several times. It's often cheaper for me to fly overseas this way. I usually spend a night or 2 in NYC as part of the trip, which eliminates same-day delays. But I have done it same-day as well. However, for a trip I have planned in April to Ireland, I found the best flights and best price worked out by using the same airline with connecting flights all on one ticket. So this trip, I'll go that way.

 

[camfused]

I've done this sort of thing before, bouncing off Boston or New York to go to Europe. IMHO, you don't need to overnight it at the bounce airport, but you should schedule your flight there to arrive at least 4 hours before the trans-atlantic flight, which should be enough buffer.

I hate airline math. This spring I will be going to Italy. It was *much* cheaper for me to get a direct flight to Paris, and then buy a flight from Paris to Rome, then it was to get a flight to Rome (which actually takes the same route and same exact flights). Oye! We are turning it into a plus and spending a day in Paris on the way back though.

Which airport in Europe are you going to? Sometimes a nearby airport is cheaper, and you can get a train to your final destination (since trains are great in Europe).

 

[Cortina]

Another option might be a direct flight to Ireland (Dublin) - Then do your Eueopean connection from there ... you might be surprised how cheap it works out. Air Lingus flys direct from Dublin to lots of places in the US now - just do it in reverse !

 

[NameRedacted]

Thanks for all the help everyone. I was able to get a flight with one booking for $1200; no overnight stays required. Only issue is a bit of a tight connection in Copenhagen.

On a separate, unrelated issue I called a CC company to get a pin for my CC. Before they would let me do that, for “security reasons” , they had to send a code to my phone. Problem is they didn’t have my cell phone on record so asked me what it was and then sent the code to that number and then asked me to read it back to them!

 

[audreyh1]

On a separate, unrelated issue I called a CC company to get a pin for my CC. Before they would let me do that, for “security reasons” , they had to send a code to my phone. Problem is they didn’t have my cell phone on record so asked me what it was and then sent the code to that number and then asked me to read it back to them!

Ummmm - not smart!

In the past my banks mailed such things to the address on record.

 

[brett]

We would, and do, an overnight. Usually we are on different airlines.

We do this coming home from Europe most years, we do it coming back from Australia on a one way ticket. We stop in Hawaii for a night, sometimes two.

The savings can, and have been, significant over the years.