Round-trip summer flights from the U.S. to European travel hot spots such as Paris, Rome, and London will currently set you back $1,700 to $2,100, according to a new analysis from Dollar Flight Club, the subscription-based service for airfare deal alerts.
Those prices are about 20% higher than last year, when there was no Iran war causing fuel shortages that, in turn, are making plane tickets more expensive.
But the Dollar Flight Club report also suggests that a summer trip to Europe still might not be out of reach financially for travelers willing to consider “secondary cities in Northern Europe and Eastern Europe,” where airfares “are holding much steadier because demand’s softer and low-cost carriers are still competing hard on price.”
European destinations with the most affordable flights this summer
As a matter of fact, the analysis found 10 European cities where round-trip flights from the U.S. can still be booked for less than $650. (Actually, Dollar Flight Club claims all these places have flights less than $570, but we couldn’t always find those fares online, so we’re going with $650 to be on the safe side.)
Below, we have listed the most affordable destinations in Europe, per Dollar Flight Club, along with the cheapest round-trip airfares we could find to those places from New York City in August.
- Stockholm (starting at $441, according to our research)
- Dublin (starting at $471)
- Porto, Portugal (starting at $649)
- Bergen, Norway (starting at $559)
- Krakow, Poland (starting at $546)
- Budapest, Hungary (starting at $609)
- Bologna, Italy (starting at $623)
- Venice, Italy (starting at $619)
- Nice, France (starting at $622)
- Seville, Spain (starting at $627)
Why are these cities cheaper?
The report cites several factors that keep flights to these destinations cheaper compared to other cities in Europe.
For starters, there’s the matter of distance. The longer the flight, the more fuel will be burned, causing fares to go up. Note that Dublin, which is on the lower-airfare list, is about 3,200 miles from New York City, while Rome is about a thousand miles farther away.
Additionally, Dollar Flight Club’s analysis points out that in destinations—such as Sweden and Portugal—with strong competition from low-cost carriers, legacy airlines are slower to hike up prices for fear of being undercut by budget-friendly upstarts.
Finally, “Americans underestimate Eastern Europe,” as Dollar Flight Club CEO Jesse Neugarten writes in the report. And that lower demand keeps airfares reasonable to places like Krakow and Budapest.
“The bottom line is the expensive cities are expensive for a reason as they’re farther, they burn more fuel, everyone wants them, and airlines know it,” Neugarten argues. “The cheap cities either have structural advantages that keep costs down or they’re just flying under the radar of mass tourism and that gap is your opportunity.”
Another reason not to sleep on Eastern Europe: The cost of living is generally lower on that side of the continent, meaning you’ll pay less for hotels, meals, and activities once you get there.
In addition to selecting a more affordable destination, the report recommends several more strategies for finding cheaper plane tickets, such as flying during the middle of the week, opting to visit a destination in the offseason, and being flexible on your departure city (leaving from Baltimore usually costs less than leaving from D.C.; try Fort Lauderdale rather than Miami; and so on).
To read the full report, go to DollarFlightClub.com.
