Flights to Central Europe

There are lots of options to get to a city in Europe, if you are already in Europe.

Buses, trains, and discount airlines amongst others. So getting somewhere,
anywhere, in Europe is, in my opinion, the primary goal.

Google Flights can show you fares (via their map function) to any city in the map.
It's not easy to drill down to specifics (esp including open jaw options), but if you
see a cheap one-way fare, for instance, it's pretty likely the RT fare is also going
to be good.

But asking about specific options for 2026 right now is about a year too soon.

And fares right now for 2025 are going to be high, as the airline forecast is based
on historic data and they have adjusted to go for maximum return. It is only after
fares go on sale and they start seeing whether buying patterns correlate to what
they had predicted that fares will change. You might get a better idea of what 2025
is going to be like around Thanksgiving 2024.

You might look at fares for the rest of this summer to get some idea of what
next summer, and by large extrapolation, 2026, may be like, but the Olympics
has probably skewed things.

Where is the least expensive place in Europe to fly to from your city? Or is there another city in Europe where you’d like to spend some time? Look at the cost to fly to those cities and the possibilities for connections

For example, I often fly to London, spend some time enjoying London, and then fly to another part of Europe.

If you want to know where you can connect from, I often start with the airport wiki page. For example, here is the wiki page for Prague:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Václav_Havel_Airport_Prague

If you scroll down to airlines and destinations, you will see some of the low cost carriers and cities that you can fly to and from.

shoeflyer, yes, I am still a little early. Just getting ideas in case I should be looking at arriving to airports other than our intended destination. I continue to look throughout the year, and usually end up tracking multiple flights from multiple carriers to see what the prices do as the year goes on.

Laura, thank you for the wiki page idea. I have not thought of using wiki pages to see which carriers serve which airports. I'll do some looking!

Non Stops out of Minneapolis are: Aer Lingus to Dublin, Air France seasonally to Paris De Gaulle, Delta to Amsterdam and London Heathrow and KLM to Amsterdam.

You can make connections on Aer Lingus to a non-stop from Dublin into Budapest. You could connect to British Airways at LHR into Budapest. KLM has non-stop connection into Budapest from Amsterdam. Ryanair could get you non-stop from Dublin into Budapest (cheap.)

Looks to me that you have many options on flights. It's always best to try to stay on one airline or on a partner airline. But you could stay overnight in any of the gateway cities and then fly on one of the big budget European airlines like EasyJet or Ryanair.

There is also possible from MSP to Frankfurt on Lufthansa (a recent addition) and also Condor and Iceland Air for connections further into Europe.

I also use the strategy noted above, check your target city airport's arrivals and departures page to see who flies to or from there to or from elsewhere.

Flight prices to central Europe are high!

As a first step, it would be helpful to know the price range that you consider to be reasonable, and what you consider to be high.

Look at prices for October 2024 - are they reasonable or high?

In April I flew from LAX to Gdansk and back from Karkow via KLM through Amsterdam for approximately $850 - I considered that a reasonable price. I purchased the ticket ar the end of January.

Note that I'm currently keeping an eye on flights to Budapest and learned that it's cheaper to fly to Budapest through AMS on KLM than it is to fly just to AMS.

I wouldn't take prices for 2025 flights too seriously at this point. I would be interested in prices for August 2024. You might also track a few itineraries from New York to get an idea of the premium you're paying for departing closer to home.

Are you willing to pay less for a discount airline such as Norse with 2 stops; are you willing to endure 20+ hours to save a few hundred bucks?

I have used Google Flights to search 2025 departures from 4 different
airports in our area with arrival at either Warsaw or Budapest. Flight
prices to central Europe are high!

I know there are people that say book a year ahead for the best rates, but I havent had that experince. When the trip is 6 or 7 months out if the economy and fuel prices, etc are as they are now I suspect that you will find flights to Budapest with one stop in Europe for around $1000 in economy.

markcw, the time of year we can travel certainly affects the prices for us. I would love to be able to travel off-peak season, but due to my job as an elementary teacher, I can't. Maybe when I retire!

No, I'm not looking to spend gobs of extra time traveling just to save a few bucks. And I know I'm starting early. That's the idea. Start looking early so I know what the trends are so I know when to book.

I'll certainly keep track of the routes routes out of MSP, although in the last 8 years, we have found that flights out of Fargo (which is actually closer to where we live) are cheaper than a direct flight from MSP. Flying from Fargo to MSP and making a connection there lowers the price. Airlines know people love Non-stops!

...the time of year we can travel certainly affects the prices for us. I would love to be able to travel off-peak season, but due to my job as an elementary teacher, I can't.

I understand your limitations in terms of season. My intent was to suggest that you start looking at off season prices so you have a reference point to evaluate cheaper fares during the summer months.

I just booked a return flight from Kelowna to Rome for $1180 cdn for next May. Our trip is actually starting in Krakow and ending in Cinque Terra, but because of tacking on a couple of days to allow for airline mess ups, plus being close enough to my budget wish of $1000, I went for it. It also gives me a head start on looking for accommodation for all the places I want. Quick flight from Rome on Ryanair, and we are good to go.

I had looked earlier in the spring and best flights were about $1000.

I just looked at Google Flights for Fargo and MSP to Budapest and back. Picked two weeks in August this year. Yup next month. MSP was a bit cheaper but both were $800 to $1000 depending on the dates (use the Google Flights Date Matrix). Dont know your definition of "reasonable price" is? I would suspect you could save 10% off those prices if you book 6 months ahead, but I also suspect they will be 4 or 5% higher in 2026 due to inflation. So if I were budgeting today, I would plug in $900 for the tickets.

Yes, 800 to 1000 would absolutely be reasonable! I have also noticed the dip in prices around mid-August to Europe in general. I'll be having teacher workshops by then, so mid-August and beyond doesn't work.

As I checked a few times for this summer, flights were consistently in the 1600 range for just basic economy. No seat selection even. I didn't track any flights or check every day, so perhaps I missed seeing some lower priced flights.

Thank you all for your advice and tips. I will certainly keep watching as the year goes on!

The cheapest place to fly to Europe is JFK airport, hands down. You can fly to Paris on French Bee for less than $200 each way. Norse Atlantic also flies there for cheap. Use Google flights to do an open-ended search from JFK - Europe (yes, you can search whole continent) to see what’s cheap. Then take a train or easyJet, etc. to your desired destination.

slbdaisy, its just that June of 2026 is so far out there it's anyones guess. But if it were me I would plug in $1000 for now. So much is fuel cost and no one knows what that will be in 2 years....

Thank you Kelly, for the tip about JFK.