Or, in other words, is there a way to get to Budapest sometime next spring or fall under a thousand dollars? Is there a trick I don’t see? I’m flexible on dates, but my boyfriend will not spend that much money to go on vacation and I’ll never drag him there if I can’t reduce the price considerably.
I live in Columbia, SC but I can leave from Charlotte if it’s cheaper. (It usually is but not necessarily by much.) I don’t care at all about dates, but I don’t really want to go in the summer and August is right out. Help?
Flying to a better-served European destination and separately booking a low-cost flight to Budapest (see here) could bring the cost down a lot. For example, a search for random dates this September on Expedia gives Charlotte-London Gatwick for $750, and flights from there to Budapest with Easyjet start at around $150. The catches are the potential for missing a connection, and stingy baggage allowances compared to the transatlantic provision.
Hah, just tried Expedia again (can you tell I’m procrastinating from work I need to do?), Columbia to Budapest Feb 12th-19th, and there’s a fare for $780.
You’ll find cheap tickets here. I didn’t go through with booking with them because there was some problem with accepting my frequent flier miles, but they were consistently the cheapest for flights to Europe
