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 Momondo, Google Flights, Flight Hub, Expedia, Priceline, Kiwi.com, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airlines, WoW Airlines, and Student Universe to find and compare flights and hotels. I primarily used Momondo which has a nice feature of a bar chart showing the change in flight prices so you can easily select cheaper flights which is how I ended up with most of the dates I actually booked.

Influence of travel dates and cities

After doing some research into how far out you should book travel for each region, I searched the following three-week periods:

Europe – I looked at Copenhagen, Denmark, Paris, France, Brussels, Belgium, Oslo, Sweden, Reykjavik, Iceland, and Barcelona, Spain. Flights were cheaper in the springtime for all the cities, so I looked at the dates of March 23^rd – April 13^th, April 9^th – 30^th, April 18^th – May 2^nd, May 9^th – May 31^st, June 23^rd – July 14^th, and July 25^th – August 15^th. I ended up booking the dates of March 26^th – April 17^th for Reykjavik.

Asia – I looked at Taipei, Taiwan, Manila, Philippines, and Beijing & Shanghai, China. I looked at the dates of March 31^st – April 21^st, April 10^th – May 1^st, May 7^th – May 31^st, May 12^th – June 2^nd, May 18^th - June 8^th, and May 25^th - June 15^th. I ended up booking travel for March 11^th - April 1^st for Beijing.

South America – I looked at Lima, Peru, Cartegna & Bogota, Colombia, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Santiago, Chile. The dates I looked at for all locations are March 2^nd - March 23^rd, March 12^th - April 2^nd, March 31^st – April 21^st, April 16^th - 30^th - May 7^th- 22^nd, and June 6^th – June 27^th. I ended up booking travel between April 16^th – May 7^th for Bogota.

Africa – I looked at Dakar, Senegal and Marrakesh, Morocco. I looked at dates in May as Africa seems to be cheapest approximately 4 months prior to your travels. The dates I looked at were April 13^th – May 4^th, May 7^th – May 26^th, May 16^th – June 6^th, and June 10^th – July 1^st. I ended up booking travel for April 29^th – May 22^nd for Marrakesh.

Week 2 Update: I used Skyscanner more than any other service. I cleared my cache every day before I started looking at flights again, but it did not make much of a difference in the prices I found. I still searched within the date ranges I had before because they were still the cheapest. I was able to save a total of $632.46.