I used to be a travel agent, it depends where are you going? The way airfares are meant to work is that within each class (eg economy) there will be a number of price ranges so once ´a´ sells out then the price raises into the ´b'price and so on. However this is rarely the case and unless you are travelling over school holidays, xmas etc the price will probably be the same 2 months before your flight. If you have connecting flights sometimes skyscanner, google flights etc do not pull up the cheapest combination so do some research. You can check flightconnections.com to see what options there are. Also try clearing your browsing history or searching in incognito mode, some websites have been known to jack up the price if you keep looking at a certain desination.

Also factor in the bike fees for each airline, this could make a few hundred dollars difference as they all have different rules.

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Hmmm, depends. Depends on how much flexibility you have and what lengths you're willing to go to in order to save x amount of money.

But as far as just "book on Tuesday after 8pm" goes, I think those days are long gone.

Your profile doesn't say where you live, but I'll assume US, and the US is not necessarily a cheap country from which to originate your journey. But look at nearby airports in both your origin and destination areas, +/- a few days, booking each leg of the journey separately etc. etc. (If you're really ready for a rabbit hole, you can do hidden city ticketing or fuel dumping)

My willingness to have complicated logistics to save $ is much lower if I'm traveling with a bike or other unwieldy luggage. Think about how you'll feel while you're sitting in a taxi in rush hour traffic between Midway and O'Hare because that saved $200 on a ticket but is about to ruin your $10k trip.

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Eliot
blog thing - strava thing

I'll always start with perusing flights.google.com if there's any flexibility in dates or destination/origination cities. Some things to play with:
-Put in an origin city and leave the destination blank. Select dates, then click "explore destinations". This will give you prices on a map to every destination and allow you to move the map around to see different prices for different destinations. You can also filter this by price, airline, number of stops.

-Put in origin and destination city and rough dates. You can then select "see price graph" and it will show you the price trend for a trip of that number of days for each departure day. You can scroll through the calendar and see the fares for every day to quickly see when they're up or down. You can also quickly adjust the number of days between departure and return to see how that changes it. So if you've honed in on a 2 week window, you can +/- the number of days you stay to see if that changes things-it often does.

For specific trips/dates, I'd also check the partner airlines. For example, if you're looking at Delta, also check Air France and KLM if you're flying anywhere they fly. Sometimes there's a difference. Be aware of what the quoted price includes in all instances, as every site doesn't include the same items. If one quote doesn't include seat assignment or a carry on and those are important you, make sure you get the real total. Seat assignment at purchase seems to be the latest "upgrade".

As others have said, always check other airports you can fly into or out of. Getting out of the US, you may get a better deal booking from ATL, JFK headed to Europe and booking separately to that airport. Check out both options.

I have an anonymous yahoo email address that i use for all junk email. I sign up for all the airline email lists and also all the travel websites to email me their weekly specials. I also have signed up for many frequent flier clubs and also car rental clubs. There also those websites that find crazy deals that are sometimes mistakes made by the airlines. Sign up for everything possible and then check airfares every week and use the notification feature to receive an email when the airfare decreases. You can also research and sign up for an airline credit card that can give you a nice chunk of frequent flier miles to use after 3 months of use. Since you go to europe you can see who has the best mileage plan to go to Europe. I thought United had a decent thing last year when I checked but do your own research it is probably too late to get one of those credit card deals because it will take at least 3 months of spending to qualify for the bonus and its already January.

Plan on booking 60-90 days out if nothing special pops up. Thats usually what i do. Traveling is such a crapshoot nowadays it may be more enjoyable to just travel on a reliable airline without trying to save $20 here and there.

My daughter flew into Kenya earlier this week on a $600 round trip ticket she got from an email from a travel website. She posted pics of cheetahs and lions on her insta today.

https://scottscheapflights.com

A couple of ideas / questions... Is there another European city that is attractive enough to spend a day or two? InterEurope flights can be inexpensive. So, one strategy is to 'work backwards'. You didn't say where you final destination is. Let's say it is Barcelona. You could look at where you can flight to Barcelona on a super inexpensive flight from another European city. Then, can you get to that intermediate European city for cheap from your location? This will be two independent tickets; fly into Madrid (let's say) on American and out to Barcelona on XYZ? American flight is late and you miss XYZ flight? Tough. So, you might be better served to spend a couple of days in Madrid - but this only works if you're *interested* in Madrid. And this example opens another door - if you can fly inexpensively into a city that is *pretty close* to your destination, you might be able to make the final leg on a train (something we north americans don't think about much). Really, you need to put a price on your time/hassle. Rarely do I find such complications are worth the $ savings. I'd use Google Flights and others, set a price alert and book whatever is available a couple of months out if a raging deal doesn't plop in your inbox. But if shaving the price is your *hobby*, then have at it!

This is the only correct answer. If you know your race schedule far enough in advance this could easily save you a few hundred bucks per flight per person.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
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you might consider the CC miles/points route. Way more to explain than that, but 1-2 well timed CC signups should easily cover a round trip international trip (or two).

happy to discuss further. hit me with a DM if you'd like.

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@adamwfurlong

Thanks everyone for the replies! I would be flying over from the states with a final destination of Finland. I don't believe Helsinki is a real hub if you will, so depending on airline I'd probably go MSP to Amsterdam to Helsinki or MSP to Iceland to Helsinki. So not a ton of options I think in the end if I'm looking for minimal stops along the way. I appreciate all the input!!!

I love doing this when the round trip to my ultimate destination is crazy expensive. To me, even if it is an even $$ transaction and I can spend a few days in another city it is totally worth it. My wife and I did this to Rome years ago, cheapest flight to Europe was Dublin, literally spent 24 hours there, then I hopped on RyanAir down to Rome, Saved enough money to cover the hotel in Dublin.

Doing the same thing with our Napa trip, although not as extreme. We'll fly to Oakland, spend a night in San Fran, do the Napa thing, and fly back from Sacramento. About $100/tx savings but we'll see more.

This is exactly what you need to do. I went to uni stateside and the cheapest way to get back home often involved me staying in a different European city for a few days, which was fine by me! Saw a good deal of interesting places that way.

 

We recently traveled to the UK for Ironman Wales. Flying out of Houston was over a thousand dollars each person round trip. Flying out of Austin was 800 dollars or so for both. Same airline and same days of travel but different airport. We traveled the 2 1/2 hours to Austin and saved.

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Once, I was fast. But I got over it.

I'm in a somewhat similar situation - heading to IM Norway in June from the Boston area. I will be traveling with my wife, two young kids (2 and 6 at that time) and all our stuff (3 large suitcases, bike, stroller, etc). While I'd love to save some money, but the idea of saving a few hundred bucks via a roundabout route isn't very appealing with two kids along. We are also flying from Boston to Stavanger (stay in Norway for six nights) to Copenhagen (post race to visit family), and then home from Copenhagen to Boston. I've found that the price is pretty much the same on various websites for this multi-city trip - currently a bit under $900 per ticket for that route. SAS is the airline with the cheapest fares, and it looks like they will accept a bike as a suitcase as long as it's under 23 kg. That in itself could end up saving us hundreds!

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I travel a moderate amount and here's a few things I've determined:

- Changing up your travel days is usually the easiest and best way to save some $.

- I'll always pay a bit more for LESS transfers and even a bit more for a direct flight.

- ALWAYS check the airlines bike policy BEFORE buying the flights. Some have ridiculous prices and some are more reasonable and modest.

- If traveling to a race, be sure to get there enough days ahead, that if there are some travel screw-ups ( missed flights, lost luggage, over-night lay-overs) you will still be OK.

- Some have suggested a travel agent, and that is a good call for more complicated travel plans or coordinating multiple people. You might get some savings here. BUT, I find with all due respect most Travel Agents are unfamiliar with the issues/challenges created by traveling with a bike.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

It sounds like you have a fantastic vacation lined up, but I have one word of caution regarding SAS. My vague recollection from last year's IM Norway is that someone's bike came in very late on SAS to Stavanger (he ended up on a loaner); and the root cause was that he hadn't registered the bike in advance with the airline. Apparently, you can't just show up with the bike on SAS if you want to guarantee it will make the flight. Good luck in your race this summer!