Fly NYC to Scandinavia for $300-500 round trip
Via Travelzoo, Norwegian is offering some cheap fares to Europe now through March and later for a bit more. Many of these are direct flights on Boeing 787 Dreamliners planes! Want to ski in Europe? Perfect. Rather go when its warmer – that works too.
Example fares from NYC (round trip, including taxes and fees)
These round trip fares are good deals:
- Stockholm … $308-$445 (January-March; May)
- Copenhagen … $331-465 (January-March; May)
- Oslo … $331-$482 (January-May)
These round trip fares are ok… I would be looking to use miles instead.
- Barcelona … $528-$656 (February-March)
- London … $649-$749 (March-June)
- Rome … $653-$744 (February-April)
ARE THESE FARES REAL?
Lets see… I would rather go when it's warmer. Here's what I found:
NYC to Stockholm: $444 direct in April on a 787 Dreamliner
NYC to Oslo: $414 direct in May on a 787 Dreamliner
NYC to Copenhagen: $464 direct in May on a 787 Dreamliner
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Hello again in the new Year,
Norwegian – Go!
Just got back from Germany myself – booked 10 hours before departure after an existing reservation turned out to have cancelled automatically. PayPal is not a sound form of payment (especially if you intend to take advantage of 6 months deferred interest), the airlines or PayPal kept giving me the runarounds and blame the other party, multiple authorizations followed but did not clear with united.com or lufthansa.com.
Had to travel, my mom had surgery earlier in December and was waiting for clearance to take leave (some of it unpaid – welcome to the USA.) So while I’m just as fluent in German (and Italian), a normal US traveller should have no difficulty…
My final destination: Munich.
Verdict: unpayable – $1500 r/t due to all the skiers…
Alternate strategy: book to Salzburg, Austria (via wherever, maybe Frankfurt, Germany) roundtrip – apprx USD 950 at short notice (<7 d) – didn't have the luxury of 7 day advance notice…
Other alternate strategy: book US-Frankfurt roundtrip – apprx. $ 850 r/t 10 hours before departure at lufthansa.com (Do this at Your own peril! Occasionally the cheap seats don't sell off…) Even saved $65 over united.com original reservation!!!
Then take advantage of new inter-city bus traffic that was only legalized a year and a half ago (the German Railways, bahn.de, had had a monopoly for domestic inter-city traffic for decades). Regular train fare is EUR 135 round trip from Frankfurt Airport to Munich (apprx. USD 160 at 1.18 USD to 1 EUR)
In the event I chose ADAC Postbus (www.adac-postbus.de), their website is also accessible in English and major credit cards are accepted for payment.
Paid apprx. $65 r/t Frankfurt-Munich-Frankfurt (so you have to add the local metropolitan train from the airport to/from Frankfurt-Hauptbanhof, Euro 4.55 each way))
While it adds at least 6 hours to your trip, plus a level of uncertainty (what happens if the 'plane delays – I have a bus to catch), the combination value is outstanding!
Arrived in Munich an hour late in a big snowstorm – 12 inches in the city! Bus took 6 hours instead of five.
Just consider that day of travel time "shot". Always a consideration if you're on "brief" US- style vacations…
But saved several hundreds in the process.
Hope Your readers enjoy!
Chris SW
Thanks Chris!