Finding the cheapest airfare to Europe.

May 4, 2006 7:15 AM

Is there a travel search engine that will search airfares to multiple cities at once?

I am planning a trip to Europe in August and so far, I am chagrined by the price of airfare. While I will eventually need to end up in Amsterdam, I am open to flying into a cheaper city and then making my way there. Is there any travel search engine that will let you search on multiple cities at once, or could help me zone in on the cheapest airfare to central Europe during a specific time frame? Randomly putting in major cities is not very efficient. I'm familiar with all the biggies- Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, Yahoo... but unless there is a hidden feature, I haven't found a way to do this kind of non-place specific search.

posted by kimdog to travel & transportation (13 comments total)

Try kayak. Its awesome.
posted by zia at 7:23 AM on May 4, 2006

If you're flying out of NYC and have time to fly to some unknown place in Europe and then make your way to Amsterdam, you could try Airtech, which offers $219 one-way flights to Europe. The catch is that you don't know until a week before your flight exactly where you'll be flying from and to, only that it will be from "Northeast US" to Europe.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:23 AM on May 4, 2006

Airtech is intriuging, but I am not sure I want to role the dice that much (and I am traveling with another person). I am not looking for bargain basement prices. Just something cheaper than the $900 and up fairs that I keep encountering. I am flying out of NYC though.
posted by kimdog at 7:36 AM on May 4, 2006

This should be a bit cheaper:

Keep an eye on Airfare Watchdog for one of those $400-450 NYC-London flights to come up, and then book a separate trip on British Airways from London to Amsterdam. BA has slashed its short-haul flight prices and you can easily grab this roundtrip for less than £70. That works out to less than $600 for your whole trip.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:45 AM on May 4, 2006

I think zia meant to post this link for Kayak Buzz. Yeah, it's awesome.
posted by BigBrownBear at 7:46 AM on May 4, 2006

I can personally suggest TripStalker
- of course it's my company. But I'm not only the owner I'm also a user!

I also suggest these other services:

ITA Software's Month Long Search is GREAT!


Yahoo FareChase can get you some great deals you won't find elsewhere.

A little known secret is to use Dublin as a hub. You can get dirt cheap fares directly from Aer Lingus then book your onward flight via Ryan Air a discount european carrier. Be careful of Ryan Air - you get what you pay for. They are fine, but will charge you for baggage overages and just about anything else they'e able to.

Best of luck - feel free to check out the TripStalker community too where we try to post "travel hacks" as we find them. For example, I've never tried it but I've heard flying Iceland Air through Iceland is a great way to get a excellent fare to Europe in the summer.
posted by JpMaxMan at 8:13 AM on May 4, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

For that ITA Software Month long Searc - just click "login as guest" - sorry!
posted by JpMaxMan at 8:15 AM on May 4, 2006

The ITA Software interface (just log in as guest) is a bit more down to the bare metal of the airline booking system. It will find the cheapest airport around your departure and destination cities up to 300 miles away. Unfortunately it only works on the specific date search.
posted by zsazsa at 8:20 AM on May 4, 2006

Oops! I should have previewed.
posted by zsazsa at 8:20 AM on May 4, 2006

You say you've tried Travelocity, but they also have a DreamMaps feature which, when you give it a max price, shows you where you can go. I've always found this very useful, and am suprised other consolidators don't offer it. I'm sure there's a lot of us out there who instead of saying "i want to go here, how much do I need", say "i've got X dollars to spend to get somewhere -- where can i go?"
posted by fishfucker at 10:51 AM on May 4, 2006

I'm planning a trip in June, and recently asked about travelling, too. The one thing that got mentioned that I feel like you'd be interested in is airhitch. It seems to be a clearinghouse for standby flights; give them a window of a week or two and a destination zone of a few hundred miles, and they'll call you the day before a flight with pretty cheap (<2 00$) tickets. this seems like a good idea, especially for those just looking to get the continent. unfortunately, i don't have as much flexibility as they need, but it sounds like you do.br>
Aside from that, the best thing to do is keep checking every possible date to every possible city through a reliable fare-finder (and the most reliable I've found is the aforementioned ITA software, which is awesome.) And don't just do that; any fare-finder lists market prices, but there are more up-to-the-minute deals on the carriers' sites themselves. Keep in mind that you're starting this very early; fares usually start really fluctuating, and deals can be had, about a month and a half before you fly. There are several good across-the-pond airlines, depending on where you're going. The old standby is British Airways, which costs a little more but has awesome (i.e. enjoyable) flights. Virgin Atlantic was founded a few years ago to compete with British, so they're a little cheaper; however, I find cheaper fares coming from airlines like Air India (which has okay flights, I'm told; the food is good.) Look around at all the small and big airlines you can think of; some of them have different deals to different cities.

I can also tell you that, at the moment, the absolute cheapest airfares across the Atlantic seem to be coming from Aer Lingus, which operates out of Ireland. I keep seeing sub-$200 NYC-Dublin flights for the end of this month, which is awesome, considering that it's the beginning of summer. They seem like the ones to watch.
posted by koeselitz at 11:25 AM on May 4, 2006

I was actually about to post a very similar question, but none of these answers seem to be working. I need to be in Vienna from August 6-10, but I would like to go early and/or stay later and visit elsewhere in Europe (total of about 12 days). I'm willing to fly into anywhere in Europe.

Leaving from LAX, I have yet to find anything for less than $900. Is it just impossible to find anything for early August? I've tried everything in this thread except TripStalker (which I'll try when I get home) and the standby/etc. sites.

I'd appreciate any additional suggestions anyone might have.
posted by JMOZ at 1:32 PM on May 4, 2006

Thanks to everyone for suggestions. My friend and I now exploring two options. One is to fly Icelandair and have a 4 day layover to explore Rejkavik before flying on to Amsterdam. The other is to fly into Dublin as JPmaxman suggests spend a few days and then make a Ryanair hop into Brussels, and a train into Amsterdam (still cheaper than flying directly into Amsterdam with a bit of adventure to boot)! Thanks everyone for the advice.
posted by kimdog at 1:43 PM on May 4, 2006