Least Expensive Airfare to Four Continents

Least expensive air travel from Omaha to four continents - Europe, Asia, South America and Africa.

Outline

Ground rules
Method
Influence of travel dates
Least expensive round-trip to Europe
Least expensive round-trip to Asia
Least expensive round-trip to South America
Least expensive round-trip to Africa
Sum total of all three airfares

Ground rules

This is somewhat of a competition. I give extra points for the person with the least total airfare to all of these continents. All airfares must be roundtrip from Omaha, and must for be a three-week period from now until Sept. 1. It can be two different airlines, in which case you would present two different graphic files. The timing must be such that you can make the connection. Provide at least 3 hours. If the connection has you spending the night at the airport, you must include the cost of a hotel.

Generally, the least expensive fares to these destinations are from coastal cities in the US, like LA and New York. In order to get the lowest fare, you need to find the least expensive coastal city and the least expensive flight from Omaha to that city. Sites like Kayak and Expedia won't do this automatically. There may be some ground transportation involved in transferring to a nearby airport. Include the ground transportation cost and associated graphics. Bigger cities have multiple airports so don't get confused. New York, for example, has five airports: JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, White Plains, and Newburgh. Only three offer international flights. The cheapest flights are often from the smaller airports that charge a lesser fee for landing.

You don't need to check luggage but you do need to include a carry-on bag.

Prices vary widely during this period. They also vary by day of the week. You must present screenshots of the airfare with sufficient detail to verify the dates, connections, and price - including taxes. Use only commercial airlines - you can't use military aircraft or family connections with commercial companies. The flight leaves from Omaha â€“ you can't drive to another city.

Method

I used multiple websites for this travel:

- Europe: Student Universe (did not go through with), WOW Airlines, and Delta Airlines via Google Flights.

- Asia: Kayak, Orbitz, American Airlines, Delta, United, Southwest, and Chinese American Airlines via Google Flights

- South America: Google Flights, Expedia

- Africa: Google Flights, Kayak, Priceline

Influence of travel dates and cities

For Europe, I tried July 2/3 - 23/24 as I am planning a vacation around then currently. I then tried in March because that is when spring break is and I played around with different dates, at the first of the month to three weeks. At first, I was using Southwest to go to LaGuardia because it is cheap, but BWI in Washington D.C. was even cheaper through Delta. I looked around different flight sites like Kayak and Orbitz, but then decided to look up “cheap flights to Europe” and explored those results. I then used WOW Airlines to get a flight from BWI to somewhere in Europe; I tried Switzerland, France, and ultimately chose Berlin, Germany. I’ve always wanted to go! This search at WOW Airlines with flexible date views solidified my travel date.

For the trip to Asia, I looked around and chose to go to Thailand as I have always wanted to go. I figured it would be easiest to find a flight from the US to Thailand first, Bangkok to be specific. Cities in the US I perused are as follows: Atlanta (I temporarily overlooked geography in regard to Atlanta and Asia); Sacramento; Hawai’i; San Diego; Los Angeles (LAX). LAX being a major international airport, it turned out to be the best option for flying out of the US. I looked at Laos as an Asian destination as well, but those flights were twice as expensive. At first, I looked through results from Google Flights and started with dates such as March 4-24, March 5-25, March 5-27, April 2-23, and ultimately chose March 14-April 4.

The easiest of all for me was for South America. My first year of college, I was planning to travel abroad and go to Buenos Aires. I spent a lot of time researching the city and the country of Argentina. I looked at three cities for the flight there: Houston; Dallas-Fort Worth; Miami. To no surprise, Miami was the cheapest of them all. I played around with various dates in March, April, and August. I ultimately chose April 5-26.

For Africa, I had used Kayak, which allowed me to play around with dates and different destinations in Africa. Ultimately, I went with Marrakech as it was the cheapest. The dates that worked out to be the cheapest were April 8-29.