Europe’s Air Discounts

Airlines serving intra-European points have their own version of promotional or discount fares sometimes referred to as “creative fares.” By combining such fares with discount flights from the United States you can save money while traveling around Europe, as regular European point-to-point fares are rather expensive.

The problem may be in learning about such fares because they may not be promoted in the United States. The Department of Transportation recently turned down an IATA (International Air Transport Assn.) provision that would have stopped airlines and travel agents from selling the fares in the United States.

Some research may need to be done, either by you or your travel agent. Agents may not be able to find such fares on their terminals and have to phone airlines for the pertinent information. Another factor is that the commission level may not be as high, limiting incentive for agents to look for and sell these fares.

In many cases you can buy these European air discounts in the United States, although some have to be bought in Europe. The best bet is probably to buy the tickets after you’re in Europe, time and airline schedules permitting, once you determine what is available.

These European-based discount fares come with their own set of restrictions, which can include weekend stopover and advance-purchase requirements. The fares are sold on a round-trip basis, with the seats capacity-controlled.

The cancellation fees can be quite stringent, as much as 100%. If you don’t make it to your flight, you may not get a refund or be able to use the outgoing part of your ticket. You would have to pay full fare to get to your destination. The return portion of your ticket would still be valid.

Consequently, one of the dangers of using such tickets is in having too tight a flight schedule. Some agents won’t sell you such an intra-European excursion fare unless there is at least half a day or so between your flight from the United States and your flight onward within Europe.

London is the best place to pick up such intra-European creative fares. Paris is another possibility. Agents may also suggest that you stay over a day in either city to make sure you have no problem in making your connection.

An example of using such a fare might be a London-Athens fare, which at this writing is $212 round trip, with a six-day advance purchase and a 100% cancellation fee. The regular round-trip economy London-Athens fare is $600. The regular round-trip economy Los Angeles-Athens fare is $1,099, with the APEX fare $830.

Therefore, subject to time/flight schedules, if you combined a bulk fare LAX-London ticket of $499, plus the discount London-Athens fare of $212, you can fly to Los Angeles-London-Athens-London-Los Angeles for $711, more than $100 less than the APEX fare.