Flights from Spain

I often make out well when I book open-jaw tickets flying into another country and home via Madrid.

Are you only looking at one-way prices, or also round trip or multi-city/open-jaw?

For European fares, one-way is not usually half the price of a roundtrip.

Try pricing an itinerary as a roundtrip, and then as 2 one-way flights, and
see what the difference is.

Departing from Europe, you're going to have higher taxes and airport
fees than departing from the US. Particularly flying out of/connecting
thru the UK.

Without more specifics, it's hard to provide specific details. Scudder's
questions are definitely the ones to consider. And fares change all the time.

I've looked at one way and round trip. Best of Spain starts in Barcelona and ends in Sevilla. I looked at one way to Barcelona and one way from Sevilla or taking train back to Barcelona for a round trip ticket. It just likes like flights out of Spain have a substantial tax or fee associated with them. Fly there for $1000 and back for $2000. I can go to England and back home for $1200. France and Italy are about $2700. I guess I just move Spain down the list. Thanks for your feedback. Maybe look at in and out of Lisbon and take train. There is always a way.

Alienj—Something about those prices does seem off, but I lack information to give more insight.

I'd suggest looking at a "multi-city", aka "open-jaw" ticket flying from home to Barcelona, then Madrid to home, all on the same ticket. (then take a train from Sevilla to Madrid) On google flights this option is in the same dropdown as the one-way/round-trip.

Trains between Spain and Portugal aren't really an option. The countries aren't as well connected as one might expect.

I sympathize with what you're seeing, but unless you want to add in a little bit
more specifics such as your departure city and timeframe of travel, my spot
checks don't show anything like what you're saying you see. JFK to BCN/SVQ
and vice versa in Apr, July, and Oct look pretty normal.

Some theoretical possibilities could be: a) the Olympics (not likely since it's in
Paris) b) something about your origination city (which we don't know) c) somehow
you're getting PE or biz class fares (which I assume you've checked for).

There is no way a tourist-oriented economy like Spain is going to put a 3 or 4
figure tax on flights, in my opinion. It's got to be something else.

Also, $3k RT to Spain compared to $2700 RT to France and Italy doesn't seem
like that much of a difference. The $1200 RT to England when UK has the highest
airport fees of anyone seems like the outlier to me. But if you can book that, then
you could book intra-Europe flights to BCN and back from SVQ or MAD from London.
That comes with its own risks, though.

I am just looking at several RS tours for the future. We are of an age where we need to travel while we can. Seeing too many friends and relatives who can no longer travel. Already have 2024 trip fully planned. Just looking at options for 2025. I was surprised that Spain was higher than expected, but there are many options for travel. If you have the time and can make the dates work, a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2, inside cabin can be cheaper than a flight. We've done that before. I was mostly wondering if anyone had any favorite ways to get to and from Spain. Getting to there is reasonable. Getting back, not so much. Changing return date to mid-week might drop cost. We have used Icelandic air and have found it very reasonable, but it is a budget airline. Thank you for your input and suggestions, but can't be more specific at this time. Lots of options to choose from with R.S.

Allen

Out of curiosity, I just checked round trips from Phila. on my usual carrier, American, for May 2024. The RT to Madrid is $600 cheaper than the RT to Rome.

I've traveled to Spain a few times, and never thought it was particularly more expensive than other places in Europe.

I did a trip last month to Spain where it was cheaper to book the return from another country though the price difference was nowhere as great as yours. Keep in mind my trip was concentrated on the Canary Islands. I ended up flying into MAD and flying home from Dublin. And then connected the dots with 4 other flights (2 on Ryanair and 2 on a Binter Canarias).

You can use google flights (multi-city) and add multiple cities on the return leg to see what it prices out as. Remember, you can list 5 though I think it is now upto 7 distinct airports and google will search all at the same time. This also works for simple round trips.