Ever planned a trip because you found an irresistibly cheap flight ticket deal? Most of our Europe trips have begun with the discovery of rock-bottom prices for flight tickets. We have paid as low as 350 Euros per person for a return ticket from India to Europe and it was not on a low-cost airline.
It all starts with our intent to see the world. But a heavily discounted flight ticket motivates us to travel to a specific region, which we could have visited at another time. Planning your first Europe trip? Read our travel guide to plan your first Euro Trip in 8 easy steps.
Setting a budget for the trip forms the basis for most of our travel plans. So any trip to Europe starts with finding a cheap flight ticket.
Here are our top 5 tips to finding cheap flight tickets to Europe:
1. Be flexible with your Europe trip itinerary
European countries are well connected to each other via trains, buses and flights. Being flexible with your Europe trip itinerary can save you a lot of money on flight tickets. For a budget friendly Europe trip, book the cheapest entry and exit tickets for Europe.
Say for your first Euro trip you want to travel to Amsterdam. In most cases flying into Paris would be much cheaper compared to taking a flight for Amsterdam. It takes only 3-4 hours on a train to reach Amsterdam from Paris. So for the budget conscious traveller, it’s advisable to plan your Euro trip itinerary around the pricing of your flight tickets.
Take advantage of websites like Sky Scanner which can show you ticket pricing from your city to all European cities.
Pro Travel Tip: To grab a good deal, learn about generic pricing for a return flight to Europe. When you see a price which is lower by 30% or more, book it within 6 to 8 hours.
2. Book flight tickets during sale
Keep a track of airline sales to a get hold of cheap flight tickets. Almost all airlines run promotions few times a year. You can get discounts during airline sales between the range of 30% to 50%.
To understand how to travel on a budget by booking right accommodation read, Tips and tricks to book cheap accommodation.
3. Inaugural discounts by an airline
You can get the cheapest flight tickets when an airline is introducing a new travel sector. The inaugural discounts airlines offer on new sectors can rarely be matched by any other ticket deal.
We recently saw a return flight from Mumbai (India) to Geneva (Switzerland) for under INR 20,000 (250 Euros). The reason being the airline was starting a new travel sector. This was a steal for a flight from India to Europe on a full service airline.
4. Do check for open jaw flights
To save travel time, do check for open jaw flights (i.e if you arrive and depart Europe from different cities). Many times you can find city combinations where open jaw flight tickets cost almost the same as a return flight ticket from the same city.
Pro Travel Tip: There is a high chance of finding cost-effective open jaw tickets when the same airline is operating from both the cities. For our first Euro trip, we arrived in Paris and departed from Rome by paying the same price as a return flight to and fro from Paris. The carrier was Air India.
5. Collect miles & points on your credit cards and loyalty membership of airlines/ hotels.
Get credit cards with good point to money ratio. Meaning do calculate actual money value of each credit card point while opting for a credit card. We currently use HDFC Diners Black, Citi Premier Miles, American Express Platinum, HDFC Regalia and Yes Bank First. As a traveller, do check for additional surcharge charged by banks on international credit card transactions.
Even if you are not a frequent traveller do enrol for reward programs by airlines and hotels. The points accumulate and you can get rewards much faster than you think.
