Traveling between Omaha and London

April 26, 2005 2:04 PM

What is the least expensive way a student with a good deal of date-flexibility can travel between Omaha, NE and London? Tricks, vendors, websites, any advice will help.

I have been attending University in London, but am not blessed with much in the way of money, thus far it has been all loans and out of pocket, money is getting increasingly scarce and I need a better way to travel between Omaha and London. I have been using Orbitz.com, but they aren't particularly inexpensive or customer friendly. I usually have to make three trips between the two cities yearly.

posted by herting to Travel & Transportation (11 answers total)

I don't know if this is obvious, if so I apologize in advance. I'd say your best best fo find which airline(s) have a presence in both cities, or a closer hub. Possibly, flying from Heathrow to New York, then taking a satellite flight between NY and NE. All of the major airlines will have a presence between NY & London. You'll find cheaper flights when there is a high volume (number of flights per day) from city x to city y.
posted by AllesKlar at 2:21 PM on April 26, 2005

Student Universe, Travel Cuts, and STA Travel are usually much better than any online site. Also, keep in mind that trips from Boston/Philly/NYC will be considerably cheaper than Omaha. If there is a discount carrier that services one Omaha (Southwest, JetBlue, Independent, etc.), keep in mind that a flight from Omaha to one of the large centers, then a ticket to London, may be cheaper. Not as easy to arrange, but cheaper. The problem is that if your first flight is delayed/cancelled/rerouted, your next flight will not wait for you, and they may be less than likely to help you get on another flight. The benefit of flying on one airline or one ticket is that they're much more likely to help you in the worst case scenario. Also, why not do one of the travel auctions like Priceline or Hotwire if you have lots of flexibility?
posted by fionab at 2:22 PM on April 26, 2005

How much are you paying for a ticket, by the way? I just searched for one on Student Universe - September 4 - December 20 (fall semester), and it's about $590+ taxes. Also, try Kayak.
posted by fionab at 2:28 PM on April 26, 2005

Yeah, sub $600 I can manage to pay, I had been looking at August dates and every service I was looking at was giving me prices of about $900. I think coming a month later will liekly save me a good deal of money. Don't know why traveling in August was so much more.
posted by herting at 2:36 PM on April 26, 2005

Travel Cuts is showing around $640 with taxes for the dates I listed above, but you'll need an ISIC or Youth Card (details on their site) if you don't have one. They're good for other discounts anyway. August is expensive to go to Europe b/c of all the tourists! Even September is still tourist season, which is why it's still more expensive than, say, February. I would call Travel Cuts (they're the nicest agents out of the bunch, I'd venture) and tell them your rough dates. They are able to figure out which days will be cheapest to travel. For this kind of thing, they're much better than any site.
posted by fionab at 2:51 PM on April 26, 2005

Because August is the middle of tourist season.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:51 PM on April 26, 2005

It'll be cheaper to fly from the east coast, so you can try taking a train or bus from Omaha, and then flying out of somewhere like New York. A train will probably cost you about $150, and be a very long trip. Expect to pay between $300-$400 then to fly from NY to London. So it's really not going to be much cheaper. Oh well!
posted by nitsuj at 2:55 PM on April 26, 2005

Travel Cuts is showing Sept-Dec about $490 with taxes from LaGuarida in NYC. Southwest flies Omaha - LaGuardia for about $150, so unless you found a cheaper fare on Southwest, or a cheaper fare from NYC-London, it's just as cheap to get a ticket from Omaha - London (they tend to go through Chicago). Southwest flies to Chicago Midway for $50 (less during sales), so keep you eye out for cheap tickets from Chicago to London, and you might have a deal there. Make sure the ticket is from Midway though, otherwise you have to factor time/money/energy getting from Midway to O'Hare.
posted by fionab at 3:13 PM on April 26, 2005

August (and July) are the warmest months in the UK. Schools start early September. Both affect the number of travelers. The further away from summer you can travel the cheaper it will be -- my kids come visit me in February (getting tix about $350 round-trip London-San Francisco - sorry i don't know about NE) if they can :-)
posted by anadem at 3:20 PM on April 26, 2005

Consider going via Ireland.
If you can find a cheap way to get from Omaha to Ireland (Aer Lingus often has very good offers), you can get from Ireland to the UK for as little as 0.99 GBP (plus taxes, it comes to about 15 pounds each way) if you'll fly at an awkward/unpopular time. Try EasyJet and RyanAir.
If you can get to a major US city (NY, Boston, Chicago (probably closest to you, LA) via bus or budget airline, this may be a cheap option. It will depend a bit on your time/money trade-off.

[on preview: I don't think there are any transatlantic flights out of Chicago Midway].
posted by cushie at 3:21 PM on April 26, 2005

1877femtrip.com got me to London fairly cheap
posted by trinarian at 10:32 PM on April 26, 2005