The view of the Bosporous where east meets west in Istanbul from my Turkish Airlines flight this week (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
I’m fresh off the plane home from Greece and Turkey and have found business class fares for fall trips that look more like economy class. Seriously! We are talking about $1,500 round trip between the US and several cities in Europe for trips that start as early as August 21 and appear to go deep into September. If you are curious, just click over to Google Flights and see if you can find what we’ve just seen. It’s crazy.
Fall is by far the best time of year to head over the pond because the weather is soo much better, and the locals are sooo much happier to see you. And this year, there’s the extra added attraction of a very strong US dollar, so why not?
My eyes are spinning at these deals. So let’s take a look at what we found using September 6-September 13 as a sample. Fares will vary based on your exact dates and departure city. But my goodness this is good! And it won’t last.
Stay in a villa like this in the Greek Isles with the money you’ll save on your flight to Athens! (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
The cheapest flights are to Istanbul...which does not surprise me too much given weak demand for travel to Turkey due to recent bombings in Turkey. But the deals go well beyond Turkey. Athens is super cheap, too, and September is the best time to be there, according to what I heard on the ground there last week.
First let’s look at roundtrip business class flights from various cities with none or one stop en route (we don’t have all listed, so check around!)
San Francisco with 0-1 stops.
Istanbul $1,080 on Air France
Athens $1,622 on Air France
Munich $1,610 on Delta
Stockholm $1,545 on Delta
Lisbon $1,586 on Delta
Zurich $1,570 on Delta
From Los Angeles
Munich for $1,610 on Delta
Delhi for just $2,525 on Lufthansa
From New York:
Istanbul $1,160 on Delta
Athens $1,529 on Delta
Berlin, Frankfurt or Munich for $1,540
From Houston:
Munich $1,560 on Delta
Istanbul $1,283 on Delta
From Seattle:
Berlin, Munich $1,600 on Delta
From Chicago:
Athens $1,722 on Air Berlin
Munich $1,610 on Delta
Check for yourself on Google Flights— and our apologies if these crazy fares evaporate faster than we can post them! Use this helpful page if you are not familiar with how to find deals and view calendars on Google Flights.
Here’s a look at the Google Flights map showing all sale fares from SFO to Europe for Sept 6-13 (Updated June 2):
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There are no more cheap fares, even to Turkey and Greece.
Icelander is the only cheap way to go business class, but that means stopping in Iceland.
Some European airlines have a “premium economy” class that is almost indistinguishable from domestic business. Grumps with expense accounts… a disproportionately large share of TS readers… may whine about the devolution of domestic business, but if I am on a polar flight, I’ll take the amenities, live without my bags coming out first (as if it were real business) and count my change.
So if you want to fly one way to London or Paris, it’s cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket to a destination beyond them, get off at London or Paris and throw away the other three travel legs?
Nuts. Just don’t check any bags
Nice to hear from another window-seater! If you’d like for us to create a slideshow of your photos for TravelSkills, let us know!
I loved the photo of the Bosporous! Wow. I landed at Istanbul about a year ago, and was hoping for that view, but we came in from the south. I have a whole folder of “Window Seat” photos of Mt. Shasta, Golden Gate Bridge, Chicago, Las Vegas, London, Greenland, Iran, Rio, the Nile valley, Sydney Harbour, Cape Town, and one of my favorites, the Straights of Gibraltar where I could see the Rock of Gibraltar, and both Europe and Africa at once. Thrilling. I love the convenience of the aisle, and the views (and window shade control!) of the window. So for me a window seat in first class, or business class in a all-aisle-access configuration are the best.