Star Alliance airlines have Cairo, Egypt under $800 for departures from San Francisco and Los Angeles beginning November 2015 and into 2016 winter months. This is a Star Alliance deal with many routings bookable on United.com. United, Lufthansa, Swiss, Turkish, Air Canada are some of the airlines I saw participating with segments linking up for a low fare. Many routings require an overnight in a transit city. Watch out for that since a night in Zurich, Switzerland can overspend any airfare savings quickly.
Lowest fares at $769 round trip are not the best routings. For example, fly Swiss Airlines outbound from SFO with overnight in Zurich and return from Cairo via Turkish to Istanbul with overnight, then Air Canada to Toronto and on to San Francisco.
That is an airfare deal if you don’t mind the expense and time of stopping in Zurich and Istanbul for overnights on the journey. I have done an 8-hour daytime sightseeing transit in Zurich and that was easy and relaxing catching the train from the airport to city center and walking around the lake and neighborhoods for hours.
There are better itineraries to Cairo at slightly more cost.
United.com $791.70 economy K booking class ($643 base fare)
Saturday, November 7 – Sunday November 15
United operated flights: Los Angeles – Newark EWR – Munich MUC (United)
Lufthansa operated flights: Munich MUC – Cairo CAI – Munich MUC – Los Angeles LAX (Munich 18-hour overnight layover 6 pm-noon means arrival at LAX is Monday afternoon Nov 16).
15,748 total flight miles.
Here is an example of an all Swiss Airlines routing Los Angeles – Zurich – Cairo with overnight layover in Zurich on both outbound and inbound travel.
Swiss Airlines Los Angeles – Cairo, Egypt $779.23 Nov 4-15, 2015
Economy K fare 15,289 flight miles.
San Francisco – Cairo is same price on same dates.
Two overnights in Zurich
Wed Nov 4 – Los Angeles – Zurich 7:30pm – 3:50pm Thu Nov 5.
Arrival at 4pm means you can be in a city hotel by 5:30pm with a few hours to walk around before a morning flight to Cairo. Radisson Blu Zurich Airport is accessible right by the metro train within Zurich airport if you have Club Carlson points to burn.
Radisson Blu Zurich Airport
Fri Nov 6 Zurich – Cairo 9:10am – 2:05pm Fri Nov 6.
Sunday Nov 15 Cairo – Zurich 2:55pm – 5:55pm
Now that you are an expert at Zurich hotels, you will have from about 7:30pm to 9am in the city or stay at an airport hotel.
Monday Nov 16 Zurich – Los Angeles 1:10pm – 4:50pm arrival at LAX.
The low hotel rates in Egypt will make the high Zurich hotel rates a little more tolerable. Hopefully, you have points for reward nights.
You can probably find routes without overnights, but I did not see them in my search of lowest fares.
California to Cairo
I have not posted a Cairo fare since March when Swiss dropped the route to $791. This sale does not start for travel dates until November 2015. The risk in buying is there might be better deals to Cairo by then.
Or not.
