TOOLS : GETTING THERE : PLANES : FIND THE CHEAPEST AIRFARE :

STEP 10: The Big Ben Switcheroo

London is the cheap airfares turnstile of Europe, and you can use it to get a cheap Transatlantic ticket, then fly low cost to some other far-flung European destination, for a total far less than the cost of a standard flight.

The logic is simple: fly to London cheaply (London's always the cheapest). Then connect there to a no-frills airline like Ryanair or easyJet to get to wherever else in Europe you'd like to go. This is almost always cheaper than booking a direct flight on a single airline—but it does require some careful planning.

LONDON IS by far the cheapest city into which you can fly. From the East Coast, as low as $170 round-trip in winter, never much higher than $350 even in summer.

London is also the main hub for Europe's great no-frills airlines, connecting the capital of the British Empire with the cities and vacation spots of Europe for as little as nothing (Ryanair often runs "free" sales) to maybe $90 max.

Add those two facts together, and you may be able to subtract hundreds of dollars from your airfare. If you don't mind doing some fancy footwork, booking everything yourself, and hauling your luggage around a bit, you can take advantage of this confluence of budget travel truisms to do the Big Ben Switcheroo—fly into London on the cheap, buy a no-frills flight to continue on to your Continental destination.

Here are some practical examples, using a sample trip taken from New York, pitting fares gleaned from Expedia against the Big Ben Switcheroo (using that keen $170 roundtrip to London, which is actually available as I'm writing this).

The great thing is, though, you're not limited to round-trips this way. The Switcheroo is also a fantastic way to arrange a trip that starts in one place and ends in another, since no-frills tickets are always priced one-way. That means you could, say, fly from London to Madrid, tour your way across Europe by a combination of means (trains, more no-frills carriers, rental car, whatever), then fly back to London from Rome, or Athens, or Oslo, or wherever it is you end up. . (more...)