Low fares to Europe for shoestring flyers

The following information is for extremely thrifty budget travelers.

Remember when you could fly to Europe and back for well under a thousand dollars? It wasn’t all that long ago. Well, with new low-cost airlines along with fare wars among the majors, some low fares are back. Some come with severe restrictions, others not so many.

The low-cost airline Norwegian (see below) epitomizes the new trend toward airlines charging for items like meals and baggage. Its slogan is “Pay only for what you need,” and as long as the base fare is very low, that position is hard to argue with.

With airlines like Norwegian, taking a large bag (something that many passengers are finding they don’t need), checked or as carry-on, is no longer an entitlement that comes with the purchase of a ticket; it is now an itemized purchase that is optional.

That’s different from the way major airlines have maintained their fare structures but have simply started charging for those previously included items.

My base fare on Norwegian, as outlined below, was so low that it didn’t hurt to pay for what, these days, are extras. I have also flown with the much-maligned Spirit Airlines from Denver to Los Angeles three times, so far, for under $80 per round trip. 

With these airlines, if I need to take a bag, it doesn’t bust the budget. But if, say, United or American Airlines charges $300 per round trip and then asks for bag fees, that’s a different story.

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Before I highlight a few low fares and outline some strategies for getting them, let me be clear about two things.

1. Ferreting out budget fares and complying with restrictions isn’t for everyone.

2. Because of the lapse in time that occurs before a reader receives a monthly magazine, the examples I list below (valid on the dates I wrote this in May 2016) are likely to have changed by the time you read this.

Still, I will outline some strategies, and if the potential savings appeal to you, despite the inconveniences that come with some of them, you can investigate on your own.

I’ll start with four low-cost airlines.

ICELANDAIR (www.icelandair.us) — My wife, Kathy, and I flew with Icelandair from Denver (DEN) to Paris (CDG) and back, Oct. 11 and Nov. 3, 2015, for a total of $1,854 for the two of us. All transatlantic flights on Icelandair involve a stopover in Reykjavik (KEF), usually for an hour or two.

Icelandair uses the following airports in the USA and Canada: Anchorage (ANC), Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Denver (DEN), Edmonton (YEG), Halifax (YHZ), Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), Montreal (YUL), Newark (EWR), New York (JFK), Orlando (MCO), Portland (PDX), Seattle (SEA), Toronto (YYZ), Vancouver (YVR) and Washington/Dulles (IAD).

In basic Economy class, one carry-on per person is free if it does not exceed 55x40x20cm (21"x15"x7"). In the more expensive Economy Comfort, two such carry-on bags per person are free in addition to one small personal item, such as a small handbag or laptop. The maximum weight allowed for your carry-on is 10kg (22 lbs.).

Meals are NOT free. (I can’t remember if water was free or not.) Meals can be preordered except from these airports: Anchorage, Denver, Edmonton, Seattle, Orlando, Vancouver and Portland. We simply bought very good sandwiches on board for something like $6-$7 each. 

The layover in KEF was 70 minutes — adequate for what you may need to do before reboarding.

It was a good experience in both directions.

NORWEGIAN (www.norwegian.com/us) is based in Oslo, Norway. 

I wrote this on May 26, having completed my first journey with Norwegian on May 23-24, one way from Boston to Warsaw, Poland. This involved a stopover in Oslo-Gardermoen, Norway, of 7 hours and 15 minutes, during which I visited Frogner Park, with its sculptures by Gustav Vigeland.

The fare was $363. I elected to pay for a checked bag (up to 20kg/44 lbs.) and a seat of my choice for both flight legs plus, on the transatlantic leg only, meal service (two meals). These add-ons cost me another $100.

It was a smooth experience. There were no frills like blankets or pillows, but I found nothing to complain about. And the lighting was clever, emulating (at appropriate times) dusk, dawn or daylight. They also had nice travel-style videos about Norway. 

My return will be from Riga, Latvia, to Boston (again via Oslo, with a 3-hour layover), and it cost €273 plus €75 for the same three add-ons, totaling €348 (near $388).

CONDOR (www.condor.com), based in Germany, is 60 years old. The home airport is Frankfurt am Main. These days, the airline is part of the Thomas Cook Group. Condor is mainly for vacationers, so flight schedules vary greatly with the seasons.

Whether one-way or round-trip, transatlantic flights listed on the Condor website can be booked from a great number of North American departure airports. 

Often, they are not actual Condor flights, as Condor seems to have code-share arrangements with a number of airlines, Lufthansa being the one that comes up most often. And that can increase the fares, so diligence in ferreting out the all-Condor flights can be necessary to guarantee any savings.

Fares are cheapest from certain departure airports. This requires a bit of researching, but the effort can be worth it. Once you select a given date and route, you can click on a link to bring up all fares for the month on that route. If your dates can be flexible, you can go for the bargains. 

For example, on May 17 I found a flight that I’m considering: Las Vegas-Frankfurt nonstop on Oct. 25 and Frankfurt-Las Vegas nonstop on Nov. 10, totaling €810 (near $903). This includes 1x20kg (44 lbs.) hold baggage, 1x6kg (13 lbs.) cabin baggage and one in-flight meal.

I haven’t flown with Condor across the Atlantic, but I flew a short route within Europe years ago. I have no special memory of that occasion.

WOW air (http://wowair.us) is based in Iceland, and its first flight was to Paris in 2012. It soon acquired Iceland Express and now flies to 25 destinations in Europe and North America. All transatlantic flights involve a stopover in Reykjavik (KEF), usually for an hour or two. 

WOW air’s North American airports are San Francisco (SFO), Los Angeles (LAX), Montreal (YUL), Toronto (YYZ), Boston (BOS) and Baltimore/Washington, DC (BWI).

On May 17, I saw fares from BOS and from BWI to Paris (CDG) for as little as $190 each way for flights in the months of September to December.

Specifically, I looked for this trip: BOS-CDG Oct. 9 lv 19:00 (KEF 04:30/06:00) arr 11:20, for $190… and CDG-BOS Oct. 24 lv 12:50 (KEF 14:10/15:30) arr 17:25, for $229. (The same fares came up for the same dates and almost the identical flight times for BWI-CDG-BWI.)

From the North American East Coast to Europe and back, these are the luggage rules with WOW:

One small carry-on weighing no more than 5kg (11 lbs.) and measuring up to a maximum size of 56x45x25cm (22"x18"x10"), including handles and wheels, is free. 

For a regular-sized carry-on no more than 12kg (26 lbs.) and up to 56x45x25cm (22"x18"x10"), it costs $49 if you pay online more than 24 hours before the flight, or pay $67 at check-in, per connecting flight (from North American airport to European airport of arrival… and the same again on the return).

Note that you can take only ONE carry-on onto the plane (and a lady’s purse is considered a carry-on!), except for a duty-free purchase.

Checked luggage — up to 20kg (44 lbs.) per bag and up to combined dimensions of no more than 158cm (62") per bag — costs $68 if paid online more than 24 hours before the flight, or $76 at check-in, per connecting flight (North American airport through to European airport of arrival, and the same again in return).

Food and beverages (including water) must be paid for with a credit card, NOT a debit card.

I haven’t flown with WOW yet.

Budget fares on major airlines

The major “legacy” airlines frequently offer very cheap fares, sometimes on short notice, sometimes half a year ahead, but they can be hard to find. 

Here are some cheap round-trip fares (and the dates during which they are available) that I learned about from Airfarewatchdog.com (see May ’16, pg. 13) on May 16. (Note: By the time you read this, most of these will be gone, but others will have popped up.)

Newark-Dublin, $362 on United, May 29-July 6; Houston-Amsterdam, $615 on United, May 22-30; San Francisco-Amsterdam, $615 on KLM, Jan. 18 onward; Washington, DC (IAD)-Amsterdam, $615 on Air Canada, May 19-June 17; Houston-Paris, $648 on Air France, Oct. 30 onward; San Francisco-Paris, $615 on United/Air France, Oct. 7 onward, and Washington, DC (IAD)-Paris (CDG), $820 on Icelandair, Oct. 1 onward.

Minimize your luggage

If you don’t think you can manage without at least a regular-sized carry-on that will cost you a hundred dollars on WOW or a checked bag that costs even more, keep in mind that you can do on arrival in Europe what many now do in the US, where Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines play the same luggage-restriction game: pack minimally, wear your bulkiest, heaviest clothing items onto the plane (with pockets filled strategically), seek out a thrift store on arrival, get those extra shirts and pants for a pittance, and invest your savings in a splurge.

Go to Yelp.com, enter a city and the words “thrift store” and see what comes up. It can be fun to rummage around in what often are very classy but cheap stores, and it will put you in touch with the locals.

If the reviews on Yelp don’t show up in English, copy the foreign-language paragraphs into Google Translate.

Happy savings!

LORENZ RYCHNER

Denver, CO