Great West Coast to Europe Deals under $750 on Lufthansa

August 24, 2012 By 1 Comment

There’s a thread on FlyerTalk that has gotten surprisingly little attention. Everyone jumps around like crazy when they find $500 fares to Europe from New York. Big deal. You’re still overpaying in my mind. But finding fares under $800 from Seattle or San Francisco? That happens, but it’s not common. Finding those fares pretty much defines when and where I go to Europe each year.

Right now you can go from Seattle, San Francisco, or San Diego to any of several less major destinations in Europe for roughly $700-750 round trip. By “less major” I mean you can go to Prague, Genoa, Copenhagen, Lyon, or Venice, but you can’t go to Paris or London. See the thread for more information on specific cities. These fares originally started getting noticed for travel out of Dallas, where they were in the $500 range, but I haven’t tried very hard to replicate that.

ITA flight price screenshot

The basic trick here is that these are partial automatic fuel dumps. The fuel surcharge should be in in the $400 range, but instead it’s only $264 in the example above, so you’re saving about $200 per ticket. This is happening for some reason only on tickets that connect through Canada. The great thing is that you don’t have to go through the great white tomb some others call Toronto Pearson International. Flying Seattle to Copenhagen, for example, you can connect in Vancouver and Frankfurt. These are all LH-marketed with LH flight numbers. See an example itinerary below.

ITA itinerary screenshot

It’s amazing that this fare is so prevalent, even as far out as May. I’d expect cheap fares in the middle of winter, but not after things start warming up. I held off on sharing this until later this evening to avoid rocking the boat too much, but since the fare is still available as I write this, I hope it remains available for you, too. You’ll probably need to book on a third-party like Expedia. Multi-city search will be your friend to force the connections in Canada. If you have any doubts, book now while it’s available and cancel later within 24 hours if you decide you can’t make it work.

Edit: A reader asked elsewhere why I called YYZ the “Great White Tomb.” No offense intended, just some gentle teasing. My reply:

My first trip trough there many years ago, I had a 5-6 hour layover with nothing to do. I remember a lot of white floors, white ceilings, white frosted glass, and in the few areas I could see out, there were grey and white clouds. Several areas were blocked off, so I really only had access to about 6 gates. A nice airport, but from my perspective about as boring as possible.

Filed Under: Discounts Tagged With: ,
About Scott Mackenzie

Scott founded HMT while traveling on a budget during graduate school and stays loyal to United, Alaska, Hyatt, and Starwood.
Email // Twitter // Facebook // Google+ // Subscribe by RSS

  • cedarglen

    Yes, this is a reasonably good deal. In my view, to take advantage of the very best fares, one must be flexible and expect a connection or two. I’m a Left Coastie and not near a major airprort, so I expect some travel just to get started. On the European end, I don’t much care where I land because I *enjoy* ridding virtually all European trains. Euro surface transport to my destination is half the fun and Euro trains are superb in any class. As with ANY Atlantic crossing via air, read the fine print and know whose metal you’ll be flying on. I usually get easier flights using miles, but if I have to pay for the seat, this is the sort of thing that I look for. Heck… In some cases, a miles/points award ticket will tack-on almost this much in fuel or other surcharges, so buying the seat is often a far better deal. Lastly, I always do my best to stay away from the huge airports, and especially LHR, CDG and Frankfurt. Smaller cities are almost always less expensive and they are also the ones that I want to see. London and Paris used to be fun, but these days one can ‘enjoy’ just as much chaos in NYC or Los Angeles, and for a lot less money. If the rock-bottom fare terminates in Copenhagen, explore Denmark and the rest of Northern Europe on that trip! Why the heck not? Again, in ALL cases, read all of the fine print. It never hurts to have an experienced travel agent in your back pocket – and be willing to pay them a modest fee if necessary. They do NOT get much for booking your tickets these days. Mine is a good friend, but I also pay him a bit on the side and consider it good insurance. In take-home, I agree with Hackmytrip, that good fares can be had. Do your homework!