Are there any sites that people have used and can recommend for discounted one way airfare from Salt Lake (SLC) to London in September? Current frontrunner is www.1800flyeurope.com , which I have used before, but it doesn’t seem to have flights to Heathrow (LHR) on my potential days, just Gatwick (LGW).
The big names - Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity - are running about $800-$1,000 and 1800flyeurope is coming back about half that. I’d hop a domestic flight to NY and then get a cheap flight from there to Heathrow, but I haven’t been able to find a pair of flights that both use the same NY airport - it’s been a mix of JFK and Newark/EWR.
(one way because my return date is too far off in the future to accurately determine.)
Unless you’re transfering to another flight, it isn’t much if any harder to get to London from Gatwick.
You might also want to look at a flight via Dublin or Shannon - when last I looked, it was often cheaper to fly to one of the Irish airports and get a local flight to ?Luton? (not sure - smaller London-area airport). Several hundred dollars cheaper, so a good incentive to put up with the extra complications.
If past experience is a guide you’ll probably find that one-way tickets are more expensive than cheap return tickets. Also, most return tickets are good for one year and you can change the return date.
But how much does it cost to change the return date? I wish you could search for airfares by “I don’t care when I return, just give me what’s cheapest” But if I can get a one way for $400 or less, it might be worth it to go that route. I’m not closed to the idea, just don’t have enough info yet.
Heathrow is preferred because it will take about an hour and $30 more to get where I am going if I arrive in Gatwick. Doesn’t sound like much but when you have more bags than hands and multiple trains and tubes to take, it’s worth some extra looking.
I ended up at onetravel.com the other day and was having a lot of trouble with their search and booking procedures. Has anyone used that service, are they on the level?
Another option is to purchase a round-trip ticket and simply not use the return ticket. As I think someone already said, it’s not common for a round-trip ticket to be cheaper than a single one-way ticket.
FYI, I just searched 1-800-FlyEurope and searched for flights departing SLC on 14 September and returning on 30 September. They had flights to/from Heathrow for $523.
When I went for my study abroad, I went through STA Travel, which is specifically for students. You have to get an international student ID card (ISIC), which is all of around $10, in order to go through them, but they saved me about 10% compared to the best online prices I could find. Granted, this was undergrad, but I would be surprised if it did not also apply for grad students. Another bonus is that because it is specifically for students, they worked around the really long round trip thing. And there are STA Travel agencies all over the world. Might be worth looking into it. As a side note, the ISIC sometimes can get you discounts at touristy places and such, as well.
Beth, you mentioned the difficulty of going through New York, but why not try some other cities? You can get direct flights to London from lots of cities in the eastern half of the country – Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Detroit, Washington, and probably lots of others. Lucky for you, flights to London are often cheaper than to any other European city.
Yes, it slightly offsets my cost of living for the next year.
I’d been looking at NYC because it seems to be one of the cheapest destinations for flights from SLC, but I’m certainly open to other areas.
Actually, the best lead so far is STA Travel, thanks Karina. If I can get an ISIC card (I don’t have the required documents yet, but I’ve contacted the uni about it) then I can get a one way to Heathrow for about $330.
But if I can get a one way for $400 or less, it might be worth it to go that route. I’m not closed to the idea, just don’t have enough info yet.
