mini break 2010 - flights
Back in June, I started browsing sites like kayak, yapta, and priceline to monitor prices of flights to Europe. I didn't have any specific destinations in mind. I just knew I wanted to get out of the U.S. for a mini break. So after discussing the idea with my beau, we started some real brainstorming.
At that time, the cheapest flight I could find for autumn was from New York City (well, technically, Queens, JFK Airport) to Dublin International Airport (Ireland, obv.) for $527.50, which is actually a really good deal (especially considering the fact that there are many domestic US flights that fall into that price range). My companion and I jumped on that flight and then started looking at flights on sites like ryanair and easyjet for cheap travel within Europe. It was a little difficult and we had to do a lot of mixing and matching because flights from certain cities were too expensive or made our itinerary too complicated (or impossible) and then there was also the problem of making sure we could get back to Dublin to make our flight back home. We had to use both sites to book our flights because one of the sites didn't have any (CHEAP) direct flights between Dublin and Paris and the other didn't have any direct flights between London and Amsterdam.
In the end, we ended up choosing Paris, London, and Amsterdam (in addition to Dublin) and our itinerary looked like this:
04Nov - JFK dep 21:00 -- 05Nov - DUB arr 07:55 (New York, NY, USA to Dublin, Ireland)
06Nov - DUB dep 06:36 -- 06Nov - BVA arr 09:00 (Dublin, Ireland to Paris, France)
08Nov - CDG dep 20:50 -- 08Nov - LUT arr 21:00 (Paris, France to London, UK)
10Nov - STN dep 06:55 -- 10Nov - EIN arr 09:00 (London, UK to Amsterdam, Netherlands)
12Nov - EIN dep 18:25 -- 12 Nov - DUB arr 19:05 (Amsterdam, Netherlands to Dublin, Ireland)
14Nov - DUB dep 10:45 -- 14Nov - JFK arr 13:25 (Dublin, Ireland to New York, NY, USA)
Here are all of the costs (all amounts are for 2 people - I will sum up the per person price at the end)
At that time, the cheapest flight I could find for autumn was from New York City (well, technically, Queens, JFK Airport) to Dublin International Airport (Ireland, obv.) for $527.50, which is actually a really good deal (especially considering the fact that there are many domestic US flights that fall into that price range). My companion and I jumped on that flight and then started looking at flights on sites like ryanair and easyjet for cheap travel within Europe. It was a little difficult and we had to do a lot of mixing and matching because flights from certain cities were too expensive or made our itinerary too complicated (or impossible) and then there was also the problem of making sure we could get back to Dublin to make our flight back home. We had to use both sites to book our flights because one of the sites didn't have any (CHEAP) direct flights between Dublin and Paris and the other didn't have any direct flights between London and Amsterdam.
In the end, we ended up choosing Paris, London, and Amsterdam (in addition to Dublin) and our itinerary looked like this:
04Nov - JFK dep 21:00 -- 05Nov - DUB arr 07:55 (New York, NY, USA to Dublin, Ireland)
06Nov - DUB dep 06:36 -- 06Nov - BVA arr 09:00 (Dublin, Ireland to Paris, France)
08Nov - CDG dep 20:50 -- 08Nov - LUT arr 21:00 (Paris, France to London, UK)
10Nov - STN dep 06:55 -- 10Nov - EIN arr 09:00 (London, UK to Amsterdam, Netherlands)
12Nov - EIN dep 18:25 -- 12 Nov - DUB arr 19:05 (Amsterdam, Netherlands to Dublin, Ireland)
14Nov - DUB dep 10:45 -- 14Nov - JFK arr 13:25 (Dublin, Ireland to New York, NY, USA)
Here are all of the costs (all amounts are for 2 people - I will sum up the per person price at the end)
- our round trip flight from New York City to Dublin = $1054.40
- our one way flight from Dublin to Paris (Beauvais Airport) = $96.13
- our one way flight from Paris (Charles de Gaulle Airport) to London (Luton Airport) = $78.11
- our one way flight from London (Stansted Airport) to Amsterdam (Eindhoven Airport) = $78.01
- our one way flight from Amsterdam (Eindhoven Airport) to Dublin = $119.51
I highly recommend you try the mixing and matching with the flights because it's well worth trying to figure out what trips will be cheapest. As you can see, all of our "domestic" flights are under $60 per person, which is pretty awesome. Just be warned that both easyjet and ryanair have fees for checked baggage, but I never check baggage if I can help it. There are also some fees for using American credit cards but those can't be helped. (And just an fyi, those fees are included in the costs I listed above).
Next up: lodging.
Next up: lodging.
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