<p>We’re looking at a trip to Europe (mainly Italy) and are not particular which city we fly into as we like taking trains. I’ve noticed over time that flights into Brussels tends to be cheapest, and in fact, couple of years ago we flew in/out of Brussels just for that reason. I just saw a $750 RT from DC area to Brussels in June.</p>
<p>Also noticed Madrid fares are lower than others. </p>
<p>What other cities historically are cheaper to fly into?</p>
<p>Check flights to Frankfurt. It’s one of the largest hubs in Europe and has a lot of different airlines flying into it hence competition.</p>
<p>In the past I’ve sometimes seen decent fares into Amsterdam so check that as well.</p>
<p>London’s usually one of the least expensive but it’s not a quick train trip from there to Italy.</p>
<p>In our experience airfares are fluid…Wednesdays are the least expensive. I track them when we have a destination in mind. The real cost of the vacation is the city (cities) that you go to when doing a vacation plan. We got to London at a reasonable price, found a gorgeous hotel (five star) on sale, and food was affordable. We flew to Paris for “free”, found a decent hotel.(same price as London and three star)…and then every step cost a huge amount. The trips were a year apart. </p>
<p>I would do a search for the four aspects of the trip: airfare, hotel, food and sightseeing.</p>
<p>You may want to look at train fares as well - we were quite dismayed to find cases where train fares were more expensive than airfares…</p>
<p>Some airlines are cheaper if you add a second leg to the flight. One example is Air France which we have used for our last four trips out of Los Angeles. Last year we flew Lax, CDG, IST (Istanbul) and we were able to split the return flight enabling us to spend a week in both Istanbul and then Paris. If we had bought the LAX/CDG leg only, it would have been 875 RT. Adding the IST leg made the RT price only 760. Strange but true. I still see similar pricing for LA/Paris/Bologna…looks like Italy/France this year!
Of course YMMV…it all depends on what city you fly out of, in addition to what city (or cities!) you fly into.</p>
<p>Try using a site like Travelocity where you can put in “check surrounding airports”. That is a great tool if you don’t need to fly into somewhere specific. It can give you various combinations from airports near where you live as well.</p>
<p>We are planning a trip from CLT to Rome this May. US Air flies nonstop, so it will require a very large discount to convince me to fly elsewhere, but I am listening to any suggestions in this thread! We also may take another roundtrip from Rome to Israel.</p>
<p>I actually use Kayak to check fares but too many to/from city combinations to check reasonably. Just found a JFK to BRU for $650 RT. Unfortunately, we live in a small expensive market. 8 hr drive to the nearest ‘hub’ type city.</p>
<p>Re train fares, the fares get higher the closer the date. You can get some real deals if you purchase way in advance. We can get 4 day Eurail pass for France/Italy for 3 people for $850 total.</p>
<p>i may look at the add a leg option. More choices :)</p>
<p>We recently booked United Frequent Flier tickets to Spain. (In our case, we are doing Den==>Madrid plus a short hop to Barcelona. Then return Madrid==>Den). It was 60,000 miles per person vs 110,000 per person for Paris.</p>
<p>Just an advisory: If or when you do travel this summer or spring, be sure to plan on possible airport strikes. With the current economic and political turmoil in Europe, they are anticipating airport and general strikes in virtually every country at one time or another(similar to last weeks Air France strike and this weeks Frankfort airport strike.). Include a “plan B” and be ready to book alternate transportation
Do not depend on the airline that you have booked to come up with reasonable alternatives on a moments notice.</p>
<p>Well darn, Spanair went bankrupt. So our flight to Barcelona had to change a bit… we’ll fly through Munich instead of Madrid.</p>
<p>I’m not crazy about the change. It gives less plan B options getting to Barcelona for the cruise. But it is better than the first alternatives offered which ate up our buffer time ahead of the cruise.</p>
<p>We flew into Rome and out of Naples. The prices changed dramatically when we played around with the order of the airports. We flew from NY-Rome-Naples to Ireland-NY and the cost of the trip flying into Rome - Naples - Ireland - NY was dramatically different than if we had done Ireland - Rome - Naples - NY. (saved about $800 per ticket) I use cheaptickets to compare order of flights quickly.</p>
<p>Ended up buying JFK-Brussels for $670 each in June on Delta. Could see the prices were starting to creep up from $650 couple of days ago, and just can’t see how it’d go lower anywhere else. Looks like pretty much all flights to Europe anywhere from anywhere are $1000+ (except Wash DC-Brussels for $750).</p>
<p>Can fly Brussels-Rome RT for $150 on Air France.</p>
<p>Now we just have to get to JFK :). Got miles and AmEx 2 for 1 coupon.</p>
<p>Air France is stingy with luggage weight- Total 26.5 pounds for both 1 carry on and your one check in.
You are flying a EU city to EU city so the weight limit is different than if you flew US to EU city.
Pack accordingly.</p>
<p>Frankfurt would be my guess…the airport is awful though… My inlaws are German and always travel through there. We have been through there twice.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up Batllo. Would not have thought of it.</p>
<p>Given the uncertainties in Europe over the next few months, it may make sense to not make any plans (other than maybe cancellable hotel res). Maybe go the flexible train pass route so that if southern Europe is travel unfriendly in June, then we could do northern Europe instead. Flying into Brussels gives a lot of flexibility that way :D</p>
<p>When I researched hotels for Barcelona and Madrid, I was pleased to find that many offered cancellable reservations.</p>
<p>For you lucky travelers to Europe this summer, of course everyone knows about the Olympics and Le Tour, but there is also from June 8-~July 8, Euro 2012. Though the games themselves are in Poland and the Ukraine, the countries that have teams involved will be part of the revelry as well. Expect big, outdoor TV screens to be up in plazas of major cities for fans to watch their countries’ matches. Four of the teams expected to do well are Germany, France, Italy and Spain (Go Spain!). For many Europeans this is bigger than WC.</p>