Strolling along the Champs-Élysée in June, sipping wine in Tuscan vineyard in July, and splashing on the beaches of a Greek island in August—there are endless options for European summer vacations.
But because summer is also peak travel season for most European destinations, it can also be one of the most expensive airfares on the market.
If you have visions of a postcard perfect European getaway this summer, look for cheap flights this week. According to data from travel site Kayak, this week is among the cheapest for booking flights to Europe for the summer.
Kayak examined six months of airfare data from U.S. cities to numerous places in Europe to find the weeks with the lowest median roundtrip ticket prices. One of the cheapest weeks to book, according to its results, is the week of February 24, with discount rates rising well into the double digits during this timeframe. If you’re fortunate enough to live near a U.S. airport that’s best for cheap flights—JFK or LAX, for instance—you’ll probably be able to find fares that are well below the median price.
So what’s the cheapest deal you’ll find? Kayak says flights to Reykjavik, Iceland, will have the lowest prices with a median fare of $536 this week. That’s a savings of 14 percent compared to other booking periods. If you’ve been mulling over a trip to Ireland, fares to Cork are expected to drop by 32 percent to a median price of $859, while flights to Dublin will go down to $772, and median prices for Shannon-bound routes will be 18 percent lower at $714.
Spanish cities are also set to see a major price drop this week. Flights to Seville and Alicante are predicted to be 30 percent and 27 percent cheaper, respectively, while prices for roundtrip routes to Madrid will hover around $727. And if you haven’t jumped in on the Portugal travel trend (which erupted largely thanks to a relatively new budget airline TAP Air Portugal serving the U.S.), roundtrips to Porto will dip by 18 percent.
But one of the true highlights of the lower fares are the affordable flights to Ponta Delgada—the capital city of the Azores, a string of small islands 900 miles off the coast of Portugal that are renowned for their natural beauty. Summer flights to the far-flung archipelago will reach a median price of $679 roundtrip, which is about 19 percent lower than usual, according to Kayak’s data.
Elsewhere, one of our favorite flight deal destinations, Milan, is also expected to see majorly low fares with median prices clocking in at the $818 mark. We recommend looking into Emirates’ fifth freedom flight from New York JFK to Malpensa Airport—it frequently is part of the carrier’s fare sales and will be a luxe experience onboard on of the world’s best airlines, even if you’re sitting in economy.
Good to note is that the booking window Kayak used in its research ranged from May 22 to September 7—Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day—so be sure to look for roundtrip fares between those dates to take advantage of the lower prices. If you’re not quite ready to jump on a booking this week, Kayak says there will still be time to score cheap flights to Europe this summer. Airfares to Ibiza, London, Paris, and Brussels are predicted to drop in the last two weeks of April.
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