cheap airfare

With less than a month to plan your trip, it makes it difficult, but not impossible. You will have to be very vigilant to get a good airfare. Tip One...travel in the off-season, from, say, mid to end of October through April into early May (depending on destination). I find Baltimore-London for $564 return (all in) March 26-April 8. You may have to make more stops, making for a longer trip, but it's cheaper. Tip Two...travel on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, the cheapest days of the week to fly. It means no weekend at either end, but it could save you a lot of money. Tip Three....fly to a cheap gateway city, then use discount airlines to get around Europe. From the east coast, you usually find the best deals are to London, and there are dozens of airlines flying out of their airports, although you'll probably have to allot 4-5 hours to switch from, say, Heathrow to Luton or Stansted airport to get them. See discount airlines at whichbudget.com. (cont)

Tip Four....register on the websites of each and any of the airlines that fly out of airports close to your home....not only Baltimore but Washington Dulles. Many of them will list last-minute specials to fill empty seats, some of which you can book within a day or two. Check www.bwiairport.com and www.metwashairports.com/Dulles. Tip Five....religiously check travel websites to see how airline fares are trending, and sign up for their version of fare alerts. I use kayak.com, and sites like orbitz and travelocity are good for fare alerts from your local airports. Tip Six...be open-minded about where you fly. If there's a deal to, say, Spain, and that wasn't ever on your list of places to visit...go anyway. You'll still have a wonderful time, and you can still get to other destinations (see Tip Three). Tip Seven...research all sorts of destinations so you know what you'll be getting into when you get over there. (cont)

Check out hotel rates, local sights, food, and especially national holidays, when hotels could be all booked up. Tip Eight...keep your accommodations expectations to a minimum. A clean room, IMHO, is a place just to lay your weary heads at night, so you don't need nor will you be able to afford) a five-star American style hotel. Do research now on hostels and smaller hotels like Pensions or Hostales (in Spain) for excellent accommodations. Sites like hostels.com are great for checking prices and conditions, and the inexpensive Ibis, Etap, and Formule 1 hotels can be found all over Europe (www.accorhotels.com). A sidebar...since you'll be using public transportation, consider accommodations outside the expensive downtown cores. You'll lose a little thru extra travel time on the Metro or bus, but can save a lot on hotels. Tip Nine...eat like the locals. See which restaurants they patronize, which are likely to be cheaper than "tourist" spots. Tip Ten...keep posting questions here!

Norm, as always you are a generous font of knowledge and good sense. Here's one more tip--check out university accommodations if you are traveling in the mid to late summer. Dorms and student apartments can be another good value for lodging, as can convents that take in travelers. Do some homework before booking a hostel--some are more "youth and party" oriented than others. I've gotten past the point where 2 am seems a good time for another round of a drinking game...

My point is that many sale and discount airfare rates come up for travel dates that are within 4 weeks. If i have to notify my employer today for a trip i'm taking in October, there's no guarantee i'm going to get a cheap rate for the dates i request off work. This is the whole dilemma... cheap rates are available but many times you must purchase and travel within the same month. With the jobs we have now that kind of arrangement is not feasible for us.

JER brings up a good point about hostels. Many now offer private rooms with bathroom facilities, so they're not just all dorm rooms for 12 or 15 people any more. But I, too, always look more closely at the ones that have low "fun" ratings....I'm there to sleep!! Many also have kitchen facilities, so you can whip up a breakfast before you leave. Another point....research grocery stores and supermarkets for your intended destinations. You can find cheap lunches and dinners there to save $$$

It's me again, just saying thank you for the great responses so far. Just a note: we planned our entire honeymoon ourselves, and did mostly back-door type things (aside from Neuschwanstein that is, haha). Refused to eat anything but local food (except for one visit to McDonalds in a small town in Germany but mostly just for the experience!!). and stayed in many bed & breakfasts and pensions. Loved traveling overseas. it's just the airfare that gets me!! again thanks so much for the tips and i look forward to info from others who happen across this thread.

Megan you didn't indicate your travel time or define cheap. Unfortunately between the declining dollar and high oil, the new definition of cheap could be low thousand instead of high hundreds.

For our next trip we're thinking 14 days give or take a few. i don't mind flying on a Tuesday or Wednesday, as pointed out above, if it means getting a cheaper rate. Cheap to me is $2000 or below for 2 people, round-trip. One night i was searching rates on American Airlines (which is the airline we flew on our gift tickets) and they didn't have anything from Baltimore to pretty much any city in Western Europe for under $4000! We will probably travel again around 12 months from now. We aren't picky travelers, we'll deal with 2 or more stops and traveling on odd weekdays, etc. It's the price that's most important to me. Also, we unfortunately do need to notify our employers of lengthy trips at least 2-3 months in advance, if not more.

If you have to notify your employers 2-3 months in advance, why can you not book tickets until less than a month ahead? The sooner you can book, the more likely you can find a good fare (though "good" is relative these days).

Megan...the chances of sale fares coming up 3 or 4 weeks before you leave are decreasing every day. Airlines these days are striving to fill their aircraft as soon as possible, and they're doing everything they can to avoid putting any tickets on sale at the last minute. Far better to check out airfares now for a trip next October, see what you can find, book the vacation time off, then book the fares. I just booked a flight to Madrid at the end of October for $520 U.S....I doubt I'll find it any cheaper than that at the end of September. In the past six flights to Madrid and Paris over the last two years, I have seen exactly one empty seat.

Megan -
Also check out last-minute fare deals. Budget Travel has last-minute deals listed in their magazine and I think on their website.
http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/realdeals/index.html?p=1&ac=2&cmp=4&wpsrc=AG0000032&KEYWORD=budget%20travel&cre=1165915337&st=s

Also:
Go-today.com Washington DC is one of their gateway cities.

http://www.go-today.com/site_gtweb/index.asp?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=GAD&gclid=CKCc45nNkJICFQEGxwodmWAa_w

Sign up for all the major airlines cyber-saver deals. We got $325/RT tickets to Paris a few years ago at the last minute. Not a bad deal!

Good Luck!

I don 't know if this link will actually get you to the same page I was just on? But here it is:

https://travel.united.com/ube/selectPriceAction.do?waitingPageFlag=true

That's a non-stop flight from Dulles to Frankfurt on United, Nov. 10th to Dec. 2nd., with very pleasant flight times, for $688.18.

Just for a lark I used Kayak/Sidestep to find it. I took just a few moments because fare alerts told me when to look.

That flight segment is consistently one of the cheapest.

There were some even cheaper flights, but with awkward connections. This non-stop was in the ballpark. Yet even in excess of $200 more, I'd opt for a non-stop.

From Frankfurt you're a night train away from just about any Rick approved destination.

Or, just head directly to the romantic road and castle country.

I don't know why you found an affinity for AA. The worst seat I've ever endured for an across-the pond-flight was on AA.

Use a generic flight-search tool, then go to the best priced airline's website.

Oh i certainly don't have a preference for an airline just yet. I've only flown overseas once and it was with American Airlines. i have nothing to compare it to. I've heard from a few different personal friends that Lufthansa is great, though.

Megan,

What is cheap? Oil is creeping toward $115.00, so no fares will be as " cheap " as you had last year. Luckily, you are in a major overseas hub city, so it could be a lot worse!