Here’s another phenomenal aifare sale via Loyalty Traveler: US – Europe from $442 roundtrip and available to several different cities!
Don’t be fooled, it’s not Brexit-related, it’s another in a continuation of incredible deals we’ve seen to Europe. Each one is short-lived, from a few hours to a few days, but these seem to keep on coming as airlines go after each other, as there’s too much capacity on European routes, and as we’ve seen low cost competition across the Atlantic from the likes of Norwegian.
Unlike the amazing $550 Asia fares which are being offered by United out of their own hubs, these are more traditional ‘fare war’-style offerings by Delta out of American Airlines hubs.
We’re seeing $450 round trips between either Dallas or Charlotte and Spain, and fares in the $500s from those cities to Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Manchester, Paris and Zurich.
While bookable anywhere (this isn’t a mistake on a given travel website), as usual Loyalty Traveler gives you direct links to click that will pull up flight itineraries at these prices directly.
Here’s a sample itinerary between Dallas and Barcelona.
Here’s the fare breakdown: this is a $70 each way base fare.
This isn’t a mistake fare, it’s a fare war, and the fare basis “VKPR4US” is even called out as “SHOULDER SEASON INSTANT PURCHASE NONREFUNDABLE FARES”
- Fares appear to be available at the end of September into October and again in December through May.
- 90 day advance purchase required
- Minimum stay requires return travel no earlier than the first Sunday after departure
- Two stopovers are permitted in Europe, one in each direction, for $100 each
- Travel is permitted on Delta, Air France, Alitalia, KLM, and Alaska.
- While the fare requires tickets to be issued by October 20, this fare won’t last more than a day or two at most.
- Changes are $300
“there’s too much capacity on European routes”
I’m curious, how did there suddenly become ‘too much capacity’, seemingly overnight? Has business travel slowed down, perhaps signaling a slowing US economy? Has leisure travel to Europe slowed down, possibly due to fears of terrorist attacks?
And while this post is about Economy tickets, I note there have been a slew of extremely discounted Business fares offered lately. R/T J tickets that usually go for @$6K or more being sold for just a bit over $1K. TATL, TPAC, South America, Oz; how can all of these markets suddenly have ‘too much capacity’?
Can someone remind me about the rules and considerations for combining tickets with respect to positioning flights? If I bough LAX to Dallas to capitalize on these tickets, could I check in for / check luggage for the whole trip to Spain? Do I need to fly to Dallas on Delta to make this work or could I use another partner? $450 from the west coast to Madrid is too great to pass up!!