Spring Forward for Deals

It is now too late, realistically, for the very best of the transatlantic deals: The time to visit Europe at the lowest possible cost is January and February, when air fares and hotel charges hit bottom. But bargains, despite marginally higher rates, still can be had in March and April. A sampling:

* Ireland: You fly midweek on Aer Lingus from Los Angeles to Shannon, arriving in the Emerald Isle with a fistful of vouchers entitling you to six nights of overnight accommodations at farmhouse B&Bs.; The deal, which includes a week’s use of a rental car, is $729 before March 31, $799 March 31 through May 31, $1,019 June through August. The price is based on double occupancy.

Call Ireland specialist Sceptre Tours, (800) 221-0924 or (516) 255-9800.

* Spain: The low exchange rate of the peseta (last week 176 to the dollar) makes this diverse country especially inexpensive this spring. Spanish Heritage Tours, tel. (800) 221-2580, prices the basic ingredients of a trip to the Iberian Peninsula, throughout March, at $539 for round-trip air fare from New York and six nights in a kitchenette-equipped studio unit of an apartment-hotel on the Costa del Sol, Spain’s Mediterranean coast. (California travelers will have to find their own bargain fares to New York.) The price is per person, based on double occupancy.

In April and May the package climbs to $619 (except at Easter time), but even that higher price is offset by the low cost of everything else in Spain.

Since the Costa del Sol is a jumping-off point for touring Andalusia (Seville, Granada, Cordoba), you’ll have a colorful experience by combining this package with your own low-cost day trips.

* Paris: Less expensive than in years past because of the exchange rate (last week 6.99 francs to the dollar), Paris has also been made accessible by the decision of airlines and tour operators not to sharply boost package rates with the coming of spring.

A typical packager, the French Experience, (212) 986-3800, will be charging a reasonable $625 in March and $718 in April and May for midweek departures on scheduled airlines from Los Angeles. That includes round-trip air fare and six nights with buffet breakfast daily at the Hotel Dupleix Suffren near the Eiffel Tower. Add airport taxes of $72.

* Turkey: Perhaps the top travel value in all of Europe is this all-inclusive, 12-night escorted motor coach tour of Turkey from Istanbul (where you spend four nights) all the way east to Cappadocia and south to Antalya, stopping as well in Pamukkale, Aphrodisias, Hierapolis, Ephesus and Pergamon.

The price: $1,365 from Los Angeles, based on double occupancy, from the long-established, aptly named Pacha Tours, (800) 722-4288, Internet https://www.pachatours.com.

The price rises only gradually over the next two months to a May peak of $1,745. Add airport taxes of about $65, and $45 for a Turkish visa.