How to Find Affordable International Plane Tickets
Finding cheap international plane tickets is not as impossible as it sounds. You may be able to find international tickets that are equivalent to, if not even cheaper than, the common cost of a domestic ticket. All you have to do is plan juuuuust right.
To prove my point, we found round trip tickets to London, England from Chicago, IL for as low as $400-$500 while planning our trip. Of course, there are always additional fees, but round trip tickets to Europe for under $500 is pretty stellar! So, how did we find these cheap tickets? Keep reading, my friend. Keep reading!
Research “On” and “Off” Seasons
You will want to research things like weather, tourism fluctuations, and school schedules. Each of these factors add to the price of your plane ticket. You don’t have to sacrifice bad weather in order to take an affordable international vacation, though.
For example, most travel websites recommend traveling to London between June and September because the weather is best during these summer months. This meant that tickets were significantly more expensive during June, July, and early August. Prices were much cheaper, though, at the end of August and beginning of September. Our tickets were likely cheaper because we found them at the tail-end of London’s peak season just after most kids went back to school. Essentially, fewer families were traveling to Europe and the weather was considered more unpredictable (even though the weather was perfect for us!) If you want to score the bargain, be intentional and creative about the time of year you book your trip.
Find Your Tickets Using Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a website that will consolidate a search of all airlines flying to all countries during anytime of the year. If you are not set on a particular country, try doing a search with the options “anytime” and “everywhere” selected. This will allow you to see the cheapest times of year to fly to any country in the world. I also recommend browsing Skyscanner under an incognito search window. We discovered that prices sometimes increased when we came back to the website later. This will not happen if you are using an incognito window because your previous searches cannot be tracked.
Switch Up the Airline
Of course, you must be careful that you allow for adequate amounts of time for layovers, but we saved a pretty penny by not sticking with one airline. Instead, we flew with American Airlines, British Airways, and Easy Jet. This allowed us to piece together our own trip itenerary rather than rely on the suggestions of one particular airline.
Research all available Airports
Sometimes you can find significantly cheaper flights into or out of one airport while another airport may be much more expensive. Instead of flying through London Heathrow for every flight, we took the tram to London Gatwick so that we could fly to Nice, France for half the cost.
Don’t be afraid to utilize other forms of transportation
A great website that compares plane, train, bus, and rental car costs is Rome to Rio. You may save a few hundred dollars if you book a well-in advance train ticket as opposed to a flight. Taking the train also allows you to see the scenery as you make your trip.
Consider Other Surrounding Countries
Try researching the ticket costs of other countries near your desired destination. Once you are actually in Europe, it is not expensive to fly intercontinentally. Other forms of transportation like the train or a rental car may be even cheaper as well. Whether you “create your own layover” in this connecting country or spend a few days wandering it too, you could save yourself some money by thinking outside the country.
Sometimes you just have to sacrifice a bit of comfort
We were not afraid to drive a few hours out of our way to Chicago O’ Hare and also booked a few early morning flights in order to stay within our budget. Traveling to Europe was worth the loss of sleep.
I hope these tips are helpful! It is a bit challenging to describe all the steps we took in order to find our tickets. If you have any questions, please do feel free to ask in the comments! It is my hope that you ALL have the opportunity to take a trip to Europe someday.
Happy Traveling,
Abigail
