Earlier this week several carriers ran a summer promotion sale in which business class seats were essentially the same cost as economy class seats for travel during the summer months from North America to Europe. United Airlines and Air Canada have brought back that special this evening and now is the perfect time to lock in summer airfare for an incredible cost of around $1500 r/t.
Here’s some further detail:
- You can travel outbound from 06/28 through 08/29 and complete travel on 09/04
- Your trip must include a Sunday night stay
- Valid departure cities include:
- Albany
- Atlanta
- Baltimore
- Boston
- Buffalo
- Burlington
- Erie
- Honolulu
- Harrisburg
- Las Vegas
- Minneapolis
- Portland
- Rochester
- San Diego
- Sacramento
- Seattle
- Sacramento
- Syracuse
- Valid destinations include:
-
- Amsterdam
- Florence
- Milan
- Nice
- Paris
- Rome
- Venice
You can book this airfare using online travel agencies like Orbitz or Expedia or directly through the websites of Air Canada or United.
For example, I searched for airfare between Honolulu and Paris on united.com using the flexible search tool and found prices of $1560 r/t in business–that’s over 17,000 miles in a premium cabin for about the same price as an economy ticket!
(note all lie-flat on the return)
But enter September and the price quadruples–
I’ve seen cheap business class fares, but never anything this low. Most airlines and online travel agencies offer a 24 hour courtesy free cancellation. Priceline gives you until 11:30p ET the day after you book in order to cancel. Thus, book now and you can always cancel it. I suspect this fare sale has a few hours left to it, but not more.
According to the SALE RESTRICTION note in the fare rules,
deadline for ticketing is Jul.02 although they could pull it at anytime
Also tickets must be purchased 60 days prior to departure
And to change there is a hefty $450 penalty which is usual with this type of fares
that’s an amazing fare Matthew! Thanks for sharing.
I had been looking for east coast to CDG in June (which is also when I am traveling, so unfortunately outside this window), and the business fares were very high compared to last year. I wonder if the previous high fares resulted in their computers detecting that they had undersold the business seats they’d expect to have sold by this date so put the sale on to catch up. Of course, if they had just kept the fares at last year’s levels, they might have sold out and kept revenues high. I have never been convinced that the way many airlines price fares maximizes revenue the way their analysts and programmers think it will.
Thanks Matthew! Orange County/SNA is also a valid departure city. That saves me a drive down to San Diego on my way to Italy.
i discovered last night it also works from SJC to many destinations. i have SJC-MLA (Malta) booked.
Nice summer offer by United Airlines and Air Canada on business class traveling. I think $1468 is quite a reasonable price including round trip. Feeling unlucky for not able to grab the opportunity as I have no plan for holiday trip this year due to my tight work scheduled…:(. Though last year I have make a family trip to Europe and booked flight from http://www.asaptickets.com/ and they have given me a huge discount on business class tickets.