Depending on how you search for your flights, you might not be even seeing the best deals out there. If you go to one of the major online travel agencies, like Expedia or Travelocity or Orbitz, you’ll always find “sale” prices with a few exclamation points after the offer, but are those really the best deals available? In many cases, they are not.
As the world gets a little smaller every day it seems that finding cheap flights to London gets a bit easier, if you are looking in the right places. The trick is to not only check one of the “meta-search” sites, like Kayak or SideStep, but to also check at least one other site, like Priceline or Cheaptickets, for example.
Think about airlines not based in the US or UK
Right now the cheapest fares (US$455) from New York to London can be found on none other than Iceland Air, which doesn’t show up in all searches on all sites. On those flights you change planes in Iceland, and they’ll even let you stop over for a up to a week if you like (and it’s cheaper there now), or you can just jump right on your flight to London and be done with it.
From Los Angeles the cheapest fares (US$745) are on Air New Zealand, which again, doesn’t show up on all the search sites so you can’t trust just one. Air New Zealand needs to stop somewhere between Auckland and London, and they sell some tickets from Auckland to Los Angeles, so they often have open (and cheap) seats for the rest of the journey.
Finding cheap flights to UK may seem simple at first, but often you’ll save even more if you spend 5 or 10 minutes longer exploring more possibilities. For example, if you are going somewhere other than London you might find an even better deal to Manchester, which is much easier to reach from most of the rest of the country as well.
Accommodation continues to be cheap in London
It’s not a well kept secret that London hotels are offering deals this year that were unheard of last year. This has always been a notoriously expensive hotel city, so the backpacker hostels in London have been a popular choice, even for couples and families since they almost all have private rooms at good prices. But this year you can practically name your price and stay in a 2-star or higher hotel for a song.
There are potential problems with booking London hotels though, so do a bit of research before you commit. You’ll often find good deals in places like Hammersmith or even out near Heathrow, but those places are quite far from all the attractions you are coming to see, so saving US$20 per night is almost never worth it if you spend an extra hour each way just getting into the city center. Still, it’s a buyer’s market so look carefully and you’ll find a great deal for sure.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
This is great advice, and as somebody who has lived around the world for years now I can definitely say that this advice works in just about every major city in the world too.
Just another idea that I tried recently when flying in from Germany (but this works for most of Europe too). If you are young, brave and adventurous keep in mind you can always fly into a city a few hours away from London (Birmingham, Manchester, etc) and then get a cheap train or bus to London.
You have to plan it carefully, because train and bus (buses are usually much cheaper, but take a lot longer) fares vary nearly as much as plane fares. But you can sometimes end up getting into London a lot cheaper during certain periods.. as long as you don’t mind extra travel time.
Also on the last point in the post, always do your research with tfl.gov.uk and google maps. While you might find a cheap hotel or hostel in outer London - it actually might not be as bad as you think (based on the right research). I’ve stayed in a place that was 40 minutes on the tube away from where I was going everyday, but the tube was practically outside my front door. Even in central London I’ve stayed in places that are 10-15 minute walk to the tube. So sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too.