In my continuing series on low summer fares to Europe, this post examines the flight scene from Boston. My logic behind examining airfare from different cites to Europe is primarily for people who live in places where air travel is high-priced. Of course, if you live near Boston, these deals are readily available to you. But even if you live in Kentucky or North Dakota, miles can potentially get you to another city in the USA where you can fly to Europe at low cost.
This is my situation for summer when I jumped on the initial fares offered by low cost airline WOW for a July flight from Boston to Copenhagen, Denmark via Iceland. Our tickets with seat assignments and checked bag came out to $480 round trip each.
Award travel at 12,500 miles each way avoids the $400 round trip fare from California to Boston in July. Spending 25,000 miles and $480 per ticket for July travel seemed like a great idea until I embarked on this extensive analysis of summer airfare to Europe over the past two weeks and found many ways to get to Europe from the West Coast for $700 in July.
Low Cost Carriers like WOW, Norwegian Air and Icelandair have changed the airline route pricing structure this summer compared to the prevailing high rates of the past several years.
Boston to Europe routes and fares
Icelandair appears to be the low cost leader for summer travel to Europe. I suspect competition from WOW Air has forced Icelandair to discount its routes. Here are some of the deals from Icelandair for travel in July. These are one-way fares Boston to Europe. Getting back from Europe to Boston is the more expensive segment. Still, there are roundtrip tickets available to many cities in Europe for under $1,000 on Icelandair, Aer Lingus and Wow.
As with most cities in the USA, legacy airlines like United, Delta and American have discount roundtrip flights to Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm this summer for the best deals.
Save by using miles one-way to fly Europe to USA or try to find space on WOW back to Boston or Washington BWI or Norwegian to JFK.
Low Icelandair one-way fares for July 2015 travel to Europe
$372 Boston BOS – LGW London July 18
$372 Boston BOS – MAN Manchester UK July 12
$400 Boston BOS – Stockholm, Sweden July 18
$402 Boston BOS – BHX Birmingham, UK July 18
$409 Boston BOS – CDG Paris, France July 18
$409 Boston BOS – MUC Munich, Germany July 12
WOW Airlines roundtrip fare for July 2015 travel to Iceland
$408 Boston BOS – KEF Reykjavik, Iceland July 18
In January I wrote an article on combining a low round trip BOS-KEF fare with low cost flights on a variety of airlines to travel to Europe at prices lower than WOW charged for onward travel on a single return ticket.
Loyalty Traveler – WOW Air to Iceland and onward to Europe (Jan 14, 2015)
Loyalty Traveler – WOW $480 Boston-Copenhagen July 2015 (Oct 24, 2014)
Loyalty Traveler – Analysis of WOW Airlines low summer fares to London and Copenhagen (Oct 23, 2014)
The October posts describe WOW tickets I purchased and fees for bags and seats.
The price for similar WOW flights I booked in October are $700 per ticket today, almost double the $363 fare we paid (before seat and bag fees).
Skyteam to Copenhagen
Air France will get you to Copenhagen from Boston for under $1,000 in July.
Boston BOS-CPH Copenhagen, Denmark $964.94, Delta/KLM flights bookable on Air France site for July 1 – July 14.
Boston BOS – CDG Paris, France $932 Icelandair July 1-13.
Boston BOS – CDG Paris, France $987 Aer Lingus July 1-13.
Keep in mind that travel from airports in Canada offers many deals where legacy carriers in Star Alliance, Oneworld and Skyteam offer fares hundreds of dollars less than flying from most USA airports mid June to mid August.
Loyalty Traveler – Want low fares to Europe this summer? Fly from Canada.
