travel to spain from midwest

I lucked into a good deal in 2007 when Virgin Atlantic began their Chicago-London route - $117 each way. I then booked a Ryanair flight from London to Spain at a cost of about $30 (taxes included). On the way back, because of scheduling issues, I took an Easyjet flight to London (again, around $30) to catch my return flight to Chicago. You could look for specials to London from Chicago, and also watch for deals from the budgets like I did. I didn't find any very good deals from Chicago to Spain, and all of the flights had connections anyway, so I decided to take the cheap ones.

Probably a little early for deals, those are a couple months off. Until then, start checking the usual sites (Kayak, Sidestep, Farecrawler) to get an idea of the going fares, this way, when you see a deal, you know it. Play around with different departure/arrival airports, as well as days of the week. We typically leave on a Thursday, Return on a Monday, saves $50 to $100 over weekend rates. Since you are basically at a regional airport (Des Moines), tickets will run higher than at a Hub (Chicago), but I figure the cost to drive to Chicago, pay for parking, then having a 4 hour drive when I return, is worth another $100 just to fly into my home airport. The strategy mentioned of flying to London, then doing cheap flights (Ryanair, Easyjet, others) is good, but realize that if there are delays, and you miss your cheap flight, you are out your ticket and left buying an expensive ticket to your destination. Another source of tickets would be consolidators (air gorilla or airline consolidators), in addition to good prices, they can sometimes piece together non-affiliated carriers for odd open jaw trips.

That's why you leave a big enough window to make sure you make the ongoing flight. In my case, I had about a 5 hour window between flights. I could have taken a Ryanair flight that left in three hours, but I didn't want to risk it.

Kind in mind that June is consider peak travel and discounts are not as frequent or as big as off season. If going into Madrid, you should have lots of choices.

I agree, Nancy, that you need to plan, and certainly do not plan a tight connection, but some may argue that even 5 hours to get from Heathrow to Stanstead is tight, especially if you have a delay in the US. I would compare the cost of a linked itinerary with piecing one together like this: If I were to fly on another itinerary to Madrid for $1000 RT and I saw a great deal to London for $600 RT, I would check out Ryanair and see that even this early a Ticket price of 9 GBP one way is a great deal, but after taxes and fees that jumps 37.50 GBP ($56 USD) So I can maybe save $288 by the time I book a Ryanair flight each way. Now I do need to take into account cost to get to Stanstead, maybe 20 GBP each way? so that eats up anothe $60, but still saving just over $200! But now, I need to figure out what the risk is if I get delayed by more than 4 hours in the US (I have heard that not all planes leave on time from Chicago Ohare) If I show up late for checkin at Ryanair, I have lost my ticket. If space is available, I can buy another ticket. Ryanair does not give prices for flying today, but if I were to book a ticket to Madrid tommorrow (Jan 9...off season) it would be 68.50 GBP or about $100 USD. Now that still is within my savings so maybe it is a worthy risk, if I can't get a flight, maybe I enjoy London for a day; But if the original flight would have been $800 instead of $600 compared to $1000, then the value of this option falls apart. Another thing to check is if you miss your outgoing flight on a roundtrip ticket through the budget, do you then lose your return flight? (common in the airline industry) If so, it may make sense to book two one ways as opposed to a RT.

I have flown out of O'Hare many times and have never had a flight delayed by more than a few minutes. Maybe I've just been lucky. But when I made the Spain trip, we actually got in early and I was able to catch an earlier bus to Stansted. I actually could have made that 3-hour-later flight with ease, but I decided to just have lunch and hang out and take the one I had already planned. I had only one-way budget flights, not roundtrip, since I was flying on two different budgets out of two different cities. Bottom line for me was: roundtrip on VA @ $117 each way, plus $30 Ryanair, plus $30 Easyjet, plus 26 GBP for roundtrip bus to/from Stansted = less than $350 (plus the VA taxes and fees, which were, say, another $150). Since Thomas asked for the least expensive way to get to Spain from the midwest, you probably can't do better than that. I agree that there are possible pitfalls, but having done it, I believe the risks are minimal if you plan for them.

It's just an option to consider if cost is an issue.