United Airlines currently has a round trip economy airfare that prices out to about $600 from Newark Airport EWR to Paris, France CDG. This is available for flights departing by May 15 or from August 24 through most of 2014.
A simple round trip flight search for EWR-CDG for these dates returns airfare around $1,100.
TheFlightDeal.com motivated me to play around with ITA Software Matrix Airfare Search and locate some of these deals to Paris.
The trick to finding this fare is routing through Oslo, Norway for one or two nights to get the discount rate. There might be a possibility of getting the flight home without staying in Oslo, but I didn’t see that option in my searches.
ITA Software by Google Matrix Airfare Search allows the flights to be found easily and then enter the same flight segments into the United.com website to recreate the itinerary for purchase.
http://matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm
Newark – Paris with return via Oslo, Norway
- Use Advance routing codes to enter UA for United Airlines and EWR and Paris for airports. OSL indicates Oslo, Norway on return flights.
- Check “See calendar of lowest fares”.
Flight Search Results
There are 8 dates from April 5 to May 5 with $607 airfare. Hover the mouse pointer over the calendar date and a window opens showing airfare for each trip length option from 7 to 13 days. The fare might be only for one or two of the possible 7 to 13 days I set for this search.
Tuesday, April 29 shows the following airfares:
- 7 days = $612 return flight
- 8 days = $607
- 9 days = $607
- 10 days = $910
- 11 days = $950
- 12 days = $612
- 13 days = $607
Tue April 29, 2014 United Airlines #57 6:10pm – 7:45 am arrival in Paris on Wednesday, April 30. Stay seven nights in Paris.
Wednesday, May 7 CDG-OSL Scandinavian Airlines #830 11:15 am – 1:35pm arrival in Oslo. Overnight in Oslo.
Thursday, May 8 11:25 am Oslo-EWR arrival at 2:00pm.
Total airfare = $611.20.
Recreate itinerary and purchase on United Airlines
Use Multiple Destinations Flight Search on United.com
Replicate the flight schedule shown on ITA Matrix Flight Search on United.com. Include flight times.
Click Search by Schedule to manually select the same flights shown on ITA Matrix. And check by price too. In this example, I had to go with price to get a choice of Scandinavian Airlines flights on May 7. Schedule only returned one option for the evening flight.
United.com shows the lowest fare at $936.
Continue to manually select flights found on ITA Software Flight Search to try and get the $611.20 airfare.
Disregard the prices shown.
EWR-CDG flight shows $2,032 in UA ‘L’ booking code.
CDG-OSL flight shows $612 in SK ‘T’ booking code.
After all the flight segments have been entered based on the ITA Flight Search Matrix segments, the booking code changes.
OSL-EWR flight May 8 shows $612 in UA ‘K’ booking code. After the final flight segment is selected the final pricing is displayed.
United Airlines EWR-CDG-OSL-EWR $611.20 total price.
The same itinerary found through ITA Software Matrix Airfare Search has been replicated on United.com and available for purchase at $611.20.
Tuesday, April 29 EWR-CDG 6:10 pm departure. Wed, April 30 arrival 7:45 am.
Stay 7 nights in Paris, Wednesday through Tuesday, then depart for Oslo on Wed. May 7. Overnight in Oslo and depart for Newark EWR on Thursday, May 8.
This is one example of using ITA Software to find airfare for Newark to Paris at about $600. You just need to hang out in Oslo for one or two nights to get this airfare deal.
*****
Ric Garrido of Monterey, California is writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler.
Loyalty Traveler shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests.
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