Airfare Deals

Sunday low fares round up USA to Europe CLT, DFW, MSP, NYC, ORD, PHL, WAS

Many of the low fare deals I have written up over the past few days are still available for low fare round trip tickets to Europe priced from about $440 to $600 round trip for departures between August and May 2017, depending on route. In the past few weeks these fares tend to dry up by Monday morning, then new deals emerge throughout the week.

There are several airports around the country with fare deals today from American Airlines hubs with low Delta fares and the persistent fare deals from Chicago, New York and Washington area airports. Minneapolis has had low fares to Germany for several days now.

Here is a fare check from 5:30am CT, Sunday June 26.

Delta fare war on American Airlines hubs still on Charlotte CLT, Dallas DFW, Philadelphia PHL

Delta launched a fare war on American Airlines with low fares to Spain and other select cities like Manchester, London, Amsterdam and Zurich from Dallas DAL/DFW, Charlotte CLT and Philadelphia PHL. This has been happening since Friday and one of the best features of this deal is the long period of low fare departure dates with wide availability from late September to May 2017.

Loyalty Traveler – Delta/KLM $460-$500 CLT/DFW to many Spain airports (June 25).

Loyalty Traveler – Fare War Delta $442–$578 PHL/DFW/CLT to Amsterdam, UK, Spain Sep-May (June 25).

Loyalty Traveler – Fare Alert Delta $450s Charlotte/Dallas–Spain; $580 London Sep-Oct, Dec-May (June 24).

I wrote three posts on this deal in 24 hours due to the changing aspect of the offers. It actually looks like this deal may be even more extensively available today.

Washington DC Airports

My Sunday morning fare check shows low fares still available to six or more airports in Europe from Washington area airports IAD, DCA and BWI with all three major airlines and their alliance partners. United has several routes in the low $500s with nonstop flights to Europe.

Loyalty Traveler – Washington to Europe 6 cities $507-$591 round trip Sep-Oct (June 23).

I checked the links in this post Sunday morning and with the exception of London, all these fares are still valid for Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Manchester and Zurich from all American, Delta and United.

Chicago Low Fares to Paris, still $500 round trip and deals to Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and Munich

Paris has been one of the best low fare deals offered this month, along with Munich and Frankfurt, two cities that were infrequently on sale this past year. Chicago has consistently seen fares around $500 round trip for the past few weeks.

Loyalty Traveler – AA, DL, UA $467–$557 Chicago to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich Sep-Oct (June 23, updated June 26).

This morning I added Google Flights links to the fares shown in my post from Friday June 23 for low fares to Amsterdam, London, Paris, Munich, Frankfurt. Brussels is also on sale. London is the one market where fares have gone up a couple hundred dollars.

Minneapolis or Seattle to Frankfurt and Munich, Germany

There are low Oktoberfest fares for travel September and October to Frankfurt and Munich with American, Delta and United. The change here is American matched since I originally wrote this post.

Loyalty Traveler – United/Delta/American $564 Minneapolis to Munich, $585 Frankfurt Sep 21-Oct 28, Apr-May (June 23, updated June 26).

Loyalty Traveler – United $610-$696 Seattle to Germany and UK Sep-Oct (June 22). Delta looks like it has similar fares to United now from Seattle.

MSP – Frankfurt

MSP – Munich

New York still has low fares to Amsterdam, other cities expired

Loyalty Traveler – AA, DL, UA New York to London, Amsterdam, Paris, Munich $507-$593 Sep–May 2017 (June 22).

My Sunday fare check shows Amsterdam still at $507 to $525 with all three AA, DL, UA. Other cities have higher fares today.

Don’t forget Norwegian Airlines and Icelandair

Now that all three major airlines, American, Delta and United are revenue-based in 2017, your best deals might be found with Norwegian Airlines or Icelandair. Norwegian has some incredibly low fare deals for someone who packs light and can travel with one free 22lb. carry-on bag + a small hand bag and willing to play seat roulette and travel without a pre-assigned paid seat (a $45 fee).

I wrote up a sample deal for Norwegian Airlines. I also worked on a post to show how to use Norwegian for one-way travel to Europe and then buy a sub-$500 round trip ticket from Scandinavia or Dublin to the USA for a ticketing strategy of even lower priced tickets for multiple trips, but I did not get that one completed while on a three-day bus tour of Louisiana. I have explained this strategy in the past on Loyalty Traveler and it works well with low one-way Norwegian flights.

Loyalty Traveler – Norwegian $379 round trip Boston to London LGW Sep-Mar (June 24).

This fare war to Europe between the major alliance airlines that has been persistent for the month of June actually seemed to have been sparked by Icelandair low fares tin the $400s to much of Europe back in the beginning of the month. Chicago, New York JFK and Washington IAD are Icelandair routes, along with Minneapolis, Denver, Boston, Orlando and Seattle. Many of the low fares we saw in the $300s from the legacy airlines were from these airports. It seemed like much of Icelandair’s capacity filled up weeks ago, yet if you look from these airports, there are still dates with low fares in the $400s to Germany, UK and places.

One of the great features of Icelandair is the option to book a nearly free stopover in your ticket when booking online at their website. Technically the stopover is free, but I find it usually adds $10 to $30 to ticket price. Still, not a big deal on a $450 round trip ticket to Amsterdam.

Conclusion

These fare deals are here today, but may be gone tomorrow. Or not. It is getting increasingly difficult to predict where the deals will be and how long they will stay around. This has been a particularly good week for deals to Europe.

I anticipate some reaction from American Airlines to attack Delta for its low fares to Spain from DFW, CLT and PHL. Recent weeks show American is generally late to the fare war battles, but when they attack, their discounts are particularly good. If you reside in a Delta hub city in the USA, you might want to check for low American Airlines fares. In recent weeks they have hit Amsterdam, France and Italy hard with extensive routes in the $400s using British Airways flights. Typically these attacks only last a few hours.

This is a travel day for me as I head from Dallas DFW back home to California. So happy not to be writing from a bouncing bus. I have many stories to tell from my road trip through the Deep South, from historic plantations to the original Louisiana home of Delta Airlines, to a thriving arts scene in Louisiana and a lot of WWII history to be found on the beaches and bayous of the Gulf and Poverty Point, a UNESCO World Heritage Site detailing Native American life from more than 3,000 years ago in the delta.

This trip to the South was enlightening for me. There is so much more to be found in the Gulf region than gators and Duck Hunters.

Good luck finding a low fare for your future travels.

1 Comment

  • Lisa June 27, 2016

    I see PHL-AMS nonstop on American this morning as low $507 in September, October, April and May

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