Tips for cheap travel abroad

[BehindBlueI's]

Interesting thing I noticed, not sure if other airlines are the same or not but when using American Airline miles check both booking round trip *AND* booking the trip as two separate one way trips. IND->Madrid in premium economy was nearly 50k miles less to book separate using the exact same dates. No idea why.

AA has also gotten more friendly about showing the cheapest dates per class for each month. You still have to sort manually to see which ones don't suck, but you can at least filter by number of stops.

 

[JettaKnight]

For anyone who's interested in Portugal, TAP has tickets in early December in the $300-$320 range for round trip from Chicago on certain dates. Premium economy is $1000 on the same dates. TAP doesn't fly every day, so look at the calendar. Direct flight ORD -> Lisbon. Premium economy on TAP is pretty nice, including one of the better airline meals I've had second only to Royal Jordanian.

We've been twice now, and preferred December over April (though both trips were great). Less crowds, perfectly pleasant weather, and everything non-beach related is still open. If you want to see the Algarve regions' sea caves from the inside, then December may not be for you due to rough seas making most tours close down.

Unsure if we'll take advantage of this one or not, but figured I'd throw it out for those who were interested.

You know (well, you didn't, till now) my brother has an apartment in Lisbon...

We've been eschewing it, because it wasn't behind the Iron Curtain (kind of our little travel schtick), but maybe we should...

Under $300 for a direct flight from ORD -> LIS ... now I know why he got that apartment!

 

[BehindBlueI's]

You know (well, you didn't, till now) my brother has an apartment in Lisbon...

We've been eschewing it, because it wasn't behind the Iron Curtain (kind of our little travel schtick), but maybe we should...

Under $300 for a direct flight from ORD -> LIS ... now I know why he got that apartment!

You can probably tell, we really like Portugal. Lisbon wouldn't be my first choice to live in, but it's absolutely worth a visit or two or three. We really fell in love with Porto this last trip and, while I don't know we'd ever want to live there permanently, we're definitely planning to do a several month stay there when I'm retired. It's easier to love a place for a week at a time, and I'm sure there's things that would annoy me there in time, but it's just so much more *relaxed*.

 

[chipbennett]

Interesting thing I noticed, not sure if other airlines are the same or not but when using American Airline miles check both booking round trip *AND* booking the trip as two separate one way trips. IND->Madrid in premium economy was nearly 50k miles less to book separate using the exact same dates. No idea why.

AA has also gotten more friendly about showing the cheapest dates per class for each month. You still have to sort manually to see which ones don't suck, but you can at least filter by number of stops.

A lot of the discount round-trip airfare rates have specific rules around them: day of the week for the outbound and return legs, number of days between each, etc. Booking one-way both ways should theoretically be more expensive for the same trip booked round-trip, but with the fare rules, that isn't always the case.

 

[Ingomike]

A lot of the discount round-trip airfare rates have specific rules around them: day of the week for the outbound and return legs, number of days between each, etc. Booking one-way both ways should theoretically be more expensive for the same trip booked round-trip, but with the fare rules, that isn't always the case.

Had a buddy that was flying to Chicago every Saturday morning and flying back each Saturday evening for his MBA classes. He bought round trip tickets months in advance with a return weeks later. So he used a ticket on a Saturday, its return a few weeks later, and the retu from a few weeks back to go home that day. It saved a lot of money…

 

[BehindBlueI's]

A lot of the discount round-trip airfare rates have specific rules around them: day of the week for the outbound and return legs, number of days between each, etc. Booking one-way both ways should theoretically be more expensive for the same trip booked round-trip, but with the fare rules, that isn't always the case.

I've never seen it cheaper to book one ways with real money.

Miles booking, I'm seeing it's never more expensive with AA, it's either same or cheaper to book multiple one ways.

No idea with other airlines, as mentioned, I only have enough miles with AA to bother with.

 

[JettaKnight]

You can probably tell, we really like Portugal. Lisbon wouldn't be my first choice to live in, but it's absolutely worth a visit or two or three. We really fell in love with Porto this last trip and, while I don't know we'd ever want to live there permanently, we're definitely planning to do a several month stay there when I'm retired. It's easier to love a place for a week at a time, and I'm sure there's things that would annoy me there in time, but it's just so much more *relaxed*.

I should have wrote my brother has a vacation apartment.

And yeah, it was broke into soon after he got it.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I should have wrote my brother has a vacation apartment.

And yeah, it was broke into soon after he got it.

Does he AirBnB it when he's not using it? Depending on when he got in on it, that's probably a money maker.

 

[JettaKnight]

Does he AirBnB it when he's not using it? Depending on when he got in on it, that's probably a money maker.

The laws prevent him from doing that, so it mostly sits empty or with friends.

I did have a friend tell me about some other network that lets you skirt around anti-airbnb laws for now.