Cheap flights to Greece can be easy to find if you know a few tips and tricks. Here are some ways to save money on your next flight to Athens, Greece.
1. Book early or late. You can save money by booking early, 60 to 90 days in advance, or booking late with last minute deals. The latter is only for those travelers with nerves of steel and flexible hours.
2. Break it. Focus on getting a great price for London, Paris, Rome, or Munich. From there, find a flight to Greece on a smaller European airline.
3. Be flexible. Be willing to travel any day of the week. If your schedule allows, check a day or two before your optimal arrival and departure dates.
4. Consider other airlines. Check who flies to Athens International Airport close to your departure date; You may notice a newer or smaller airline offering promotional fares. You can also find a European regional airline that you never thought of taking before.
5. Take a tour. If you are thinking of taking a tour or cruise, see what airfare deals your tour operator is offering and find out if you can extend your trip to allow time for independent travel sooner or later.
6. Fly direct. Consider flying directly to Kerkyra (Corfu), Thessaloniki, Rhodes, or via Chania or Heraklion on the island of Crete. Airlines flying from Great Britain and Germany have many direct flights to these locations.
7. Try an “open jaw flight.” Enter Athens but fly home from Heraklion, Rhodes, Thessaloniki or Kerkyra.
8. Comparison shop. Check out three to five different resources before clicking the “pay” button.
9. Call the airline directly. Finding a great price on a particular airline using a travel search? Call the airline directly and ask if there are other specials for that destination. Most of the time, the price published on the Internet will be the lowest, but not always. But if the airline charges you a fee to speak to a reservation agent, it’s probably not worth it.
Similarly, if you’ve searched for a good price and talked to the airline, compare both results with a direct search on the airline’s website. You’ll be surprised.
10. Look for red eyes. Search in the middle of the night. Many new prices supposedly go into effect at or around midnight, although time differences can make this magical moment a bit dark.
Important warning about finding flights to Greece
Many search engines may give you the option to search for flights to an alternate airport “near” Athens or other locations. There are none. Athens searches may suggest you look for flights to Mykonos Island; It’s only 94 miles away from Athens, but that’s all water, requiring a slow ferry, more expensive hydrofoil, or another flight to Athens. Other searches may suggest flying to the island of Santorini to reach the island of Crete, “only” 70 miles away.
The only exception for airport substitutions is for flights to Crete. There, flying to Chania airport instead of Heraklion might work; you are at least on the same island.
Some resources to find cheap flights to Greece
- Direct book :. Travelocity offers flights and vacation packages to Europe, including many options from Greece.
- Europebyair.com – This page specializes in finding deals on lesser known regional airlines. It’s a great place to find cheap flights that just won’t show up in the “big” comparison engines.
- Bootsnall – This page shows consistently low fares on flights to Greece.
- Booking Wiz – Also affiliated with Bootsnall, this website allows you to check most ‘big name’ travel providers with just one entry of your flight information. Still don’t like what you find? Perform another search on the individual providers and you may get additional results.
- Aegean Airlines: Aegean operates only in Europe but has code shares with other airlines. It has surpassed the old Olympic Airways in the number of passengers it flies annually. Aegean also has a codeshare agreement with Continental Airlines for flights to Greece.
- Olympic Air : see the offers page. The Greece operator sometimes offers discounts, and these can be good deals. The site has also simplified its online reservation system. International flights are mostly codeshare.
- Delta Airlines: This airline frequently promotes flights to Athens.
- KLM: Another airline often offers low fares to Athens.
Cheap flights from traditional travel agents
Almost forgotten on the Internet are traditional travel agents. Often they will have access to flight deals from consolidators that may meet or exceed prices posted elsewhere, and sometimes it is nice to have a real human being to help with your travel details. Most of them charge a ticketing fee in addition to the ticket price, but it is generally quite cheap.
More tips on cheap flights
Do you have to save those last few dollars? Instead of taking a taxi from Athens airport to your hotel for 45 euros (more or less), take the airport bus for 4 euros (more or less) or the metro to Athens. Then take a taxi if you must get to your exact destination. It will carry your luggage a bit more, but you will save a lot of money by taking a taxi.
